After focusing on the ideas around respect and respectful leadership for many years, I finally decided to put pen to paper – or least fingers to keyboard – and, with the help of author Walter G. Meyer, write my next book which is called The Respectful Leader: Seven Ways to Influence Without Intimidation, A Business Fable. In this book, I introduce a fictional CEO, Des Hogan, who has been hired to turn around a struggling medical device manufacturer in southern California. On his first day on the job, Des discovers that disrespectful behavior by his leadership team is eating away at his company’s morale, productivity and profits. Unsure of what to do, he meets a self-described “little old lady” who works in maintenance and has no tolerance for disrespect. With her help and guidance, Des comes to understand how important respect and respectful leadership are to business success. But first, he has to look inside of himself before he can become the respectful leader.
We chose the business fable format for many reasons: it’s a quick and easy read; it’s clear and to the point, and it’s a fictional story that has the “ring of truth” within it: all of the characters, behaviors and situations are believable, realistic and familiar to almost anyone who’s worked in any kind of organization. We believe it makes the human and business case for respectful leadership very compelling.
I am very fortunate to have had the book accepted for publication by John Wiley & Sons, the largest and most prestigious of business book publishers in the world. The release date is July, 2016 and is currently available for pre-order at Amazon.com, BooksAMillion.com and BarnesAndNoble.com
