Leadership and the Art of Struggle
How Great Leaders Grow through Challenge and Adversity
By: Steven Snyder
Published: March 11, 2013
Format: Paperback, 216 pages
ISBN-10: 1609946448
ISBN-13: 978-1609946449
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
"Leadership is often a struggle. Yet societal taboos often prevent leaders from talking openly and honestly about their struggles for fear of being perceived as ineffective and inadequate", writes leadership consultant and founder of Snyder Leadership Group, Steven Snyder, in his breakthrough and real world based book Leadership and the Art of Struggle: How Great Leaders Grow through Challenge and Adversity. The author describes how societal expect an unrealistic perfection in leaders that causes a loss of confidence and derails their careers, and offers embracing of struggle and failure as afresh approach to achieving success.
Steven Snyder understands that the most insightful and self aware leaders realize that leadership is a struggle, and leverage adversity to learn and master their internal and external challenges. The author points out that the denial of struggle, and by maintaining the false premise that struggle is a sign of weakness, leaders fail both themselves and their organizations. By failing to recognize their own blind spots, leaders will repeat the same mistakes over and over, and never reach either their own or their organizational potential. To counter this unfavorable behavior, Steven Snyder proposes that a leader should look inward for deeper self awareness. Instead of denying struggle, the author offers a fresh alternative where struggle is understood and embraced to achieve one's full potential as a leader.
Steven Snyder (photo left) recognizes that the necessity of thinking differently about leadership, and of re-framing struggles as helpful and positive learning experiences. For the author, leadership must be examined through an entirely different lens if the leaders is to reach their fullest potential. In this case, the lens is one of struggle, where potential is reached through mastery of adversity.
Steven Snyder presents the struggle lens as a way of becoming grounded and harnessing the leader's own energy as what he calls adaptive energy. The author offers the following principles for embracing struggle, a;long with the positive steps and exercises to transform them into a way of living as a leader:
* Becoming grounded
* Exploring new pathways
* Deepening adaptive energy
For me,the power of the book is how Steven Snyder uncovers the underlying psychological aspects of leadership, and builds on that self awareness to grow as a leader. The author points out that the struggle for leaders is within themselves. To overcome the often ingrained social mores that depict struggle as weakness, Steven Snyder repositions the concept of struggle as a powerful force for learning and developing leadership skills.
In this very hands on book, Steven Snyder shares the first person accounts of successful leaders who embraced the art of struggle to fulfill their destinies as effective leaders. Each chapter contains challenging questions that require the leader to look inward to seek out their own answers and understanding. The author also includes practical exercises to guide and assist the leader in this self discovery and self awareness building process. Implementing the exercises will break the old habits and limiting modes of thinking that prevent positive leadership breakthroughs.
I highly recommend the empowering and illuminating book Leadership and the Art of Struggle: How Great Leaders Grow through Challenge and Adversity by Steven Snyder, to any leaders at all levels who are seeking a insightful and powerful process to change how they approach struggle and adversity, so as to embrace these realities, and achieve both personal and organizational potential. This book will change how you think about leadership, its challenges, and the rewards of understanding the true nature of struggle.
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