Marilyn Mason - Becoming a Genuine Leader: Succeed with Integrity by Exploring Your Past

Becoming a
Genuine Leader

Marilyn Masons brilliant book Becoming a Genuine Leader will empower you. Starting by digging deeply into your life story and family history, she enables you to avoid derailing behaviors in order to flourish as your authentic self. I have learned a great deal from Marilyn, and so will you if you explore her wisdom and follow her counsel. Youll be very glad you did.

Bill George, professor at Harvard Business School and former chair and CEO of Medtronic

Dysfunctional leaders are a dime a dozen and usually baffled by the source of their failure. The wisdom gained by Dr. Mason from decades of consultations with corporate managers shines through these pages. She takes you home again, to discover how you learned to negotiate in the first organization to which you belonged, your family. Her psychological insights are stunning. She illuminates the passage to authentic leadership.

Gail Sheehy, author of Passages and Understanding Mens Passages

The more we learn, the better we lead, and this is a resource for success in all you do.

Jesse Fink, cofounder of Priceline.com, impact investor, and chairman of MissionPoint Capital Partners

If you aspire to authentic leadership you need to readand heedthis book.

Alan M. Webber, cofounder of Fast Company magazine

This is the rare, sanity-saving book on leadership weve all been waiting forand the one that the world needs most.

Harriet Lerner, Ph.D., author of The Dance of Anger and Marriage Rules

Over a lifetime, Marilyn Mason has guided the great and small through the portals of personal discovery into wisdom and freedom. In this fascinating, readable book she describes a path to genuine leadership that is simple, but not easy. Investigate the shadows of the past, she says; go deep into exaltation and shame, find the hidden drivers in the buried stories, and then rise again to your full power!

Craig Barnes, lecturer, playwright, radio host, and author of award-winning books, including In Search of the Lost Feminine and Democracy at the Crossroads, and critically acclaimed plays, including An Elizabethan Trilogy and A Nation Deceived

Becoming a
Genuine Leader

Succeed with Integrity by Exploring Your Past

Marilyn Mason, Ph.D.

Hazelden Publishing

Center City, Minnesota 55012

800-328-9000
hazelden.org/bookstore

2013 by Marilyn Mason, Ph.D.

All rights reserved. Published 2013.

No part of this publication, either print or electronic, may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the express written permission of the publisher. Failure to comply with these terms may expose you to legal action and damages for copyright infringement.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mason, Marilyn.

Becoming a genuine leader : succeed with integrity by exploring your past / Marilyn Mason.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-61649-500-8 (epub)

1. Leadership. 2. LeadershipPsychological aspects. 3. Interpersonal relations. 4. Interpersonal communication. I. Title.

HD57.7.M39276 2013

658.4'092dc23

2013032982

Editors note

The names, details, and circumstances may have been changed to protect the privacy of those mentioned in this publication. In some cases, composites have been created.

This publication is not intended as a substitute for the advice of health care professionals.

Alcoholics Anonymous and AA are registered trademarks of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.

16 15 14 13 1 2 3 4 5 6

Cover design: David Spohn

Interior design: Kinne Design

Typesetting: BookMobile Design & Digital Publisher Services

To my committed family for accepting my ideas,
and to the many clientsindividual and corporate
who courageously faced their shadows of the
past to walk into the light of genuine leadership.

Contents

One of my editors once told me that publication is only an interruption in the life of a book. Oh, how true this is! This book has been traveling through many iterationsfrom Family Ghosts in the Executive Suite to Invisible Loyalties at Work to Shadows in the Executive Suite, and now, finally, Becoming a Genuine Leader. There are so many to acknowledge in my appreciationmy fear is that I am forgetting someone.

Since it is difficult to separate friends from colleagues (as so many are both), I shall combine the list of those who gave their loyal support throughout this processa process that is a big part of my life. Many of the names listed are my personal board of directors with whom I can think out loud on almost any issue. Although they were not involved in this books writing or editing, they have had my back throughout my life. They listened; they were all polite enough to not ask, Marilyn, what is your books title this week? This list includes long-standing friends Constance Ahrons, Craig Barnes, Susan Boren, Ethelyn and Howard Cohen, Iris Cornelius, Carrell Dammann, Cece Derringer, Ruth Frazier, Jeannine Hall, Anna Hargreaves, Deborah Holloway, Helen Kornblum, Harriet Lerner, Constance and Michael Mierendorf, Joanie Shoemaker, Drew Stewart, and JoLynne Worley.

Going back to the early days, I must thank my coauthor, Merle Fossum, for our work together in Facing Shame: Families in Recovery. And Don Lamm, who gave the valuable feedback Show us a way through. Special recognition goes to the work of Bren Brown, author of Daring Greatly, who took the shame concept to another level with her fine research on vulnerability.

Cathy Allen and Jeannine Hall have always been most generous in connecting me with the best of wisdom holders.

Alan Webber listened early on and shifted my thesis, reminding me that many pockets of excellent leadership exist beyond the boardroom!

Of course, my wonderful family was there from the beginning! Daughter Jeanine Stelli Esparolini and son-in-law Mark Esparolini, son Jerry Stelli and daughter-in-law Lorrie Warner, and my dear sister Sue Engelskirchen. I have so appreciated their candor throughout. They were most willing to hear concepts, send lists of possible titles (and title revisions), and most importantly, hear me.