Even the greatest organizations suffer great disasters. Are you ready for the storms that are looming? From a leader who has managed high-flying, high-stakes, and high-tech organizations comes a book about what it really takes to lead people and institutions through a major crisis, through the most perilous and unforgiving circumstances, and to survive and thrive against all odds. JetBlue co-founder and former Navy TOPGUN chief instructor Dr. Mike Barger helps us see why exceptional leadership is immensely challenging but vitally important when organizations find themselves amid turbulent times. He gives it to us straight in a book that is as relevant for aspiring leaders (like MBA students) as it is for seasoned leaders (Fortune 1,000 executives). Every leader will be forced to guide a team through a crisis, and it's time for everyone -- from small business owners to nonprofit directors to the corporate C-suite -- to make plans for being their best when the worst comes calling. LOVE Your Stakeholders, Every Step of the Way Every organization -- regardless of industry or size -- has valued stakeholders, like customers, employees, suppliers, investors, and competitors ... and many also work with communities, regulators, and the media. With so many stakeholders to think about, it can be easy to neglect them, forgetting about their unique (and sometimes competing) needs and perspectives. In a crisis, that neglect translates into further catastrophe. In his debut business book, High-Stakes Leadership in Turbulent Times, Mike Barger suggests that no matter where you work and lead, stakeholders are your greatest assets ... in good times and bad. Travel with Barger into emergency command centers and airport terminals, where key decisions were made during a 2007 JetBlue Airways winter-storm crisis now infamously known as the Valentine's Day Massacre. Learn how to step up when you mess up, how to engage and serve your stakeholders, and how to prepare yourself and your organization -- operationally, emotionally, and culturally -- before, during, and after the going gets tough. Learn to Effectively Navigate the Challenges of Significant Organizational Disruptions Crises and organizational disruptions have become increasingly common in today's fast-moving, constantly evolving business environment. The world is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA), and leaders at every level must be prepared for the unexpected. High-Stakes Leadership in Turbulent Times helps readers discover how and why an understanding of various stakeholder perspectives can inform and dramatically improve a leader's response to events that threaten an organization's very survival. Learn about developing individual and organizational resilience -- the ability to anticipate potential threats; to cope effectively with adverse events when they occur; and to adapt to changing conditions to ensure a viable path forward for yourself, your team, and your organization. Learn how to estimate what kinds of crises might be on your horizon, how your stakeholders are likely to react, and how to effectively communicate your way through it. A game-changing, organization-saving book ... complete with chapter-end activities, universally relevant action plans, and reflection questions to help you grow as a high-stakes leader.

What makes some leaders so effective when the stakes are high, while others fall short? Why are some able to not only survive but to lead their organizations to new heights even in risky, fast-changing times? The answer is succinct but multi-layered: such leaders display courage, judgment, and fortitude. High-stakes leadership does not require unnatural powers, nor is it predicated on a dangerous situation. The three signature character traits can be cultivated by anyone at any level in any organization, big or small. Organizational and leadership consultant Constance Dierickx describes high-stakes leadership in a simple, three-part model that illuminates the mindsets, strategies, and tactics leaders must draw upon to make tough decisions, take an unpopular stand, or ignore convention, providing real-world examples across a range of sectors and industries. Dierickx developed her model of high-stakes leadership to help her clients—executives at organizations ranging from start-ups to nonprofits to large, global companies—better define what they need to bring strategy to life. This, she found, is the great gulf in business, the vast space between idea and results. High-Stakes Leadership helps leaders sharpen their ability to: act decisively, with clarity and focus test ideas using reason, and course correct as needed be resolute and inspire others to continue, even in the face of challenges Leading requires the courage to make conscious decisions about what to do, the judgment to separate information from short-term trends, and the fortitude to remain true to oneself and one’s mission. When leaders do these things, they also become teachers, leading their teams by example, often without realizing it. The essential aspects of good leadership endure even as the environment and tactics change. Indeed, courage, judgment, and fortitude are not merely tools for survival, they are the means by which we sculpt the future.

Even the greatest organizations suffer great disasters. Are you ready for the storms that are looming? From a leader who has managed high-flying, high-stakes, and high-tech organizations comes a book about what it really takes to lead people and institutions through a major crisis, through the most perilous and unforgiving circumstances, and to survive and thrive against all odds. JetBlue co-founder and former Navy TOPGUN chief instructor Dr. Mike Barger helps us see why exceptional leadership is immensely challenging but vitally important when organizations find themselves amid turbulent times. He gives it to us straight in a book that is as relevant for aspiring leaders (like MBA students) as it is for seasoned leaders (Fortune 1,000 executives). Every leader will be forced to guide a team through a crisis, and it's time for everyone -- from small business owners to nonprofit directors to the corporate C-suite -- to make plans for being their best when the worst comes calling. LOVE Your Stakeholders, Every Step of the Way Every organization -- regardless of industry or size -- has valued stakeholders, like customers, employees, suppliers, investors, and competitors ... and many also work with communities, regulators, and the media. With so many stakeholders to think about, it can be easy to neglect them, forgetting about their unique (and sometimes competing) needs and perspectives. In a crisis, that neglect translates into further catastrophe. In his debut business book, High-Stakes Leadership in Turbulent Times, Mike Barger suggests that no matter where you work and lead, stakeholders are your greatest assets ... in good times and bad. Travel with Barger into emergency command centers and airport terminals, where key decisions were made during a 2007 JetBlue Airways winter-storm crisis now infamously known as the Valentine's Day Massacre. Learn how to step up when you mess up, how to engage and serve your stakeholders, and how to prepare yourself and your organization -- operationally, emotionally, and culturally -- before, during, and after the going gets tough. Learn to Effectively Navigate the Challenges of Significant Organizational Disruptions Crises and organizational disruptions have become increasingly common in today's fast-moving, constantly evolving business environment. The world is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA), and leaders at every level must be prepared for the unexpected. High-Stakes Leadership in Turbulent Times helps readers discover how and why an understanding of various stakeholder perspectives can inform and dramatically improve a leader's response to events that threaten an organization's very survival. Learn about developing individual and organizational resilience -- the ability to anticipate potential threats; to cope effectively with adverse events when they occur; and to adapt to changing conditions to ensure a viable path forward for yourself, your team, and your organization. Learn how to estimate what kinds of crises might be on your horizon, how your stakeholders are likely to react, and how to effectively communicate your way through it. A game-changing, organization-saving book ... complete with chapter-end activities, universally relevant action plans, and reflection questions to help you grow as a high-stakes leader.

This text is designed to assist educational leaders in the ethical decision-making process. Theoretically, it is based on Gross’s Turbulence Theory and Shapiro and Stefkovich’s Multiple Ethical Paradigms of justice, critique, care, and the profession. The authors clearly explain these concepts and demonstrate how they can work together to assist leaders in dealing with challenging situations. Authentic ethical dilemmas are provided to be analyzed using Turbulence Theory and the Multiple Ethical Paradigms and to engage readers in applying these concepts to practice. The text is intended for use in a range of educational leadership, educational administration, and teacher education programs that prepare both educational leaders (administrators) and lead teachers.

'A marvellous banquet with four leaders whose lives provide lessons for all. Pull up a chair' Warren Buffett 'It is a safe bet that Leadership will soon sit on the nightstand of every chief executive officer in the land and will be avidly read by the legion of ambitious young people who want their jobs' Niall Ferguson, Sunday Times In this culmination of five decades of work, Doris Kearns Goodwin offers an illuminating exploration of the origin, growth and exercise of leadership through the lives of four US presidents Are leaders born or made? How does adversity affect the growth of leadership? Does the man make the times or do the times make the man? In Leadership, acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin looks at four presidents - Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson - to show how they first recognized leadership qualities within themselves, and were recognized as leaders by others. By looking at their entry into public life and how they confronted the dilemmas of their times, we can follow their development into leaders of their time. These stories of leadership in fractured times take on a singular urgency in today's polarized world and provide a much-needed roadmap for aspiring and established leaders. 'Colourful, fun and illuminating . . . a master storyteller' Daniel Finkelstein, The Times

A WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER “Five gritty leaders whose extraordinary passion and perseverance changed history…a gripping read on a timeless and timely topic” —Angela Duckworth, #1 bestselling author of Grit An enthralling historical narrative filled with critical leadership insights, Forged in Crisis, by celebrated Harvard Business School historian Nancy Koehn, spotlights five masters of crisis: polar explorer Ernest Shackleton; President Abraham Lincoln; legendary abolitionist Frederick Douglass; Nazi-resisting clergyman Dietrich Bonhoeffer; and environmental crusader Rachel Carson. What do such disparate figures have in common? Why do their extraordinary stories continue to amaze and inspire? In delivering the answers to those questions, Nancy Koehn offers a remarkable template by which to judge those in our own time to whom the public has given its trust. She begins each of the book’s five sections by showing her protagonist on the precipice of a great crisis: Shackleton marooned on an Antarctic ice floe; Lincoln on the verge of seeing the Union collapse; escaped slave Douglass facing possible capture; Bonhoeffer agonizing over how to counter absolute evil with faith; Carson racing against the cancer ravaging her in a bid to save the planet. The narrative then reaches back to each person’s childhood and shows the individual growing—step by step—into the person he or she will ultimately become. Significantly, as we follow each leader’s against-all-odds journey, we begin to glean an essential truth: leaders are not born but made. In a book dense with epiphanies, the most galvanizing one may be that the power to lead courageously resides in each of us. Whether it’s read as a repository of great insight or as exceptionally rendered human drama, Forged in Crisis stands as a towering achievement.

The business environment has become increasingly precarious, thus raising the stakes for nearly every managerial move. This collection includes articles on how to lead in a downturn economy, overcome a growth crisis, stay resilient through difficult periods, and more.