Sarah Levitt - Magnificent Leadership: Transform Uncertainty, Transcend Circumstance, Claim the Future

Magnificent Leadership

Magnificent Leadership

Transform Uncertainty, Transcend Circumstance, Claim the Future

Sarah Levitt

Magnificent Leadership: Transform Uncertainty, Transcend Circumstance, Claim the Future

Copyright Business Expert Press, LLC, 2018.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations, not to exceed 400 words, without the prior permission of the publisher.

First published in 2018 by

Business Expert Press, LLC

222 East 46th Street, New York, NY 10017

www.businessexpertpress.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-63157-716-1 (paperback)

ISBN-13: 978-1-63157-717-8 (e-book)

Business Expert Press Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior Collection

Collection ISSN: 1946-5637 (print)

Collection ISSN: 1946-5645 (electronic)

Cover and interior design by Exeter Premedia Services Private Ltd., Chennai, India

First edition: 2018

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America.

To the magnificence that dwells within us all

Abstract

A must read for CEOs and senior business executives who wish to transform and transcend circumstance. Magnificent Leadership is the culmination of the authors interviews with leadership exemplars across all different domains for The Making Magnificence Project. Inviting you into the unique leadership journeys that she captured, the author distills the essential elements of leadership success gleaned during her interviews. Both senior leaders and the general population can use this book as a guide and resource for leading through uncertainty and living in aspiration. Although well suited for business executives leading in high stakes, chaotic environments, this book is for anyone who hopes to create something greater from circumstance and claim the future.

Keywords

aspiration, business coaching, business, CEO coaching, C-suite, executive coaching, executive development, executive performance, high performing teams, innovation, leadership development, leadership, leading through change, learning, Magnificent Leadership, resilience, self-development, self-mastery, strategic focus, The Making Magnificence Project, transformation, transition, uncertainty

Contents

Sarah Levitt, with sensitive and keen insight, illuminates the crucial elements of leadership and personal mastery in this touching compilation of individual leadership journeys to magnificence. A great read for all leaders and leaders-to-be.

Marshall Goldsmith
New York Times #1 bestselling author of Triggers
and What Got You Here Wont Get You There

Sarah Levitt is a terrific coach and now a terrific author. Magnificent Leadership isnt just a wonderful collection of personal stories on achievement, its a practical guidebook for strong leadership and success.

Matthew Lepore
Senior Vice President and General Counsel,
Chief Compliance Officer, BASF Corporation

Sarah Levitt has beautifully threaded universal leadership themes uncovered across a diverse group of successful men and women. Each narrative provides something that I can relate to as a CEO as well as offers inspiration towards qualities that I aspire towards. Quick, easy read that helped to reorganize my personal priorities.

Doug Satzman
CEO, Joe Coffee Company

Sarah has used her coaching wisdom and curiosity to present magnificent human beings in a light that inspires the reader. Her storytelling finesse and focus on what is at the heart of greatness connects the reader to every chapter. The methodical approach to Sarahs writing and real life examples of magnificence make her book a wonderful manual of what every person can be if we reach inside ourselves and harness our own light.

Lori Patton
Chief Learning Officer, Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP

My heartfelt gratitude first and foremost goes to those people who have participated in, and continue to join, The Making Magnificence Project. I am deeply, deeply grateful to them for sharing their stories. Without their generosity and courage, the Project would only have been an idea and this book would never have existed.

The enormous blessing of my grandmothers love continues to ripple out over my life. She was a model of magnificence, and I once told her that I would write about her life. Perhaps, in some way, this is that book. Thank you, Gertie.

There have been so very many friends and colleagues who have been on my path these last years, who influenced my journey, and who, more recently, provided moral support as I wrote and from whom Ive benefitted by knowing. People who assured me that I could do it, who encouraged, inquired, and cheered me on. There are far too many to name here, but I am so grateful to them all.

My thanks also goes to Gretchen Pisano, an early mentor, who saw me launch The Making Magnificence Project and suggested the thoughtful question The best advice you never got? It has been, and remains, the last question I ask of everyone I interview.

I have been fortunate to have had many great teachers; among them, Martha Beck, Rob Ferguson, Terry Real, and Alan Weiss. They have made me better, professionally and personally.

I will always be grateful to Mr. George Miller, Jr., whose quiet support and unfailing belief in me has been of great comfort.

I owe a gigantic debt of gratitude to Scott Isenberg of Business Expert Press whose patience and understanding were exceedingly generous. It is not an exaggeration to say that this book made it into the world because of him.

To my extraordinary clients, leaders all: I am so very glad that we get the opportunity to work together. It is an honor and privilege to be a part of your path. I learn from you, too.

And to Laureen Golden, best friend, vision holder, and without whom I would likely not be in the same place. Your steadfast love, support, and presence are once-in-a-lifetime gifts, and I am so profoundly grateful that serendipity smiled on us 25 years ago when our dogs met and said hello. Your life has made all the difference in mine.

Finally, to Moose, Pascha, Bear, and Sagie. What gifts youve given me. Thank you.

Before it was this book, The Making Magnificence Project was a yearning to understand. In the early spring of 2009, life as I knew it essentially went into a blender. After my long marriage dissolved, I exited the business wed built, a greenhouse operation begun from scratch and grown to success over 15 years, and the home wed made, located at the greenhouse. In the ensuing 13 months, I would have to put down both of my beloved older dogs in short succession of one another. Save for two dear friends, I was as close to anchorless as Id ever been. And there was a blank canvas in front of me.

I read a lot of memoir during that time, and although the details of those other lives didnt always exactly mirror those of my own, their stories provided a potent combination of sustenance and inspiration. It was some time later, as my new career and life began to take shape working with senior executives in the business world, that I remembered the power of story and, in particular, its companionship. Inside that companionship, a path forward often resides. Anothers story can birth our own.