Leadership Chronicles of A Corporate Sage: Five Keys to Becoming A More Effective Leader
by Susan J. Bethanis, EdD

ReaderStrength Rating:
Focus 4
Build 4
Adapt 4
Overall Rating as a leadership resource 4
(Please see "How Do We Evaluate Resources?" in right column)

What is a corporate sage?
A corporate sage is a person who works in a corporation who is recognized for their wisdom and effectiveness.

If you are like Max, the main character in the semi-fictional story from the book Leadership Chronicles of A Corporate Sage: Five Keys to Becoming A More Effective Leader by Susan J. Bethanis, EdD, you probably never thought about becoming a corporate sage. Max is a young hot-shot performer at a technology company in Silicon Valley. As senior director at Solono Technologies, he led his team through the 1999 boom, the aftermath of 9/11, several rounds of layoffs, and a resurgence of the high technology industry. Two months before the story begins he was promoted to vice president of information technology and now he reports to the CEO. He is asked by his new boss to work with an executive coach.

The book takes us through Max's six month coaching experience and allows us, the readers, to see his transformation from fast-paced hot-shot to corporate sage.

Why would you want to become a corporate sage?
The obvious benefit to making a transformation from high potential employee to corporate sage is the improved performance of your team. This gets the attention of the people in power. The hidden benefit includes a higher degree of meaning and personal satisfaction with your work. Max learned to "slow down to go fast" and to develop others along the way. Slowing down and developing others created a new focus for his day-to-day work. Where Max once spent most of his day "putting out fires" he gradually discovered that people could solve their own problems and he found time to focus on strategy and vision.

Recommendation
We recommend this book because the coach teaches the basic elements of leadership that we teach. While she uses other terminology, she does assist Max to focus on the results or outcomes he wants to see in the future. She assists him to build new skills such as listening and coaching-in-the moment. And she teaches him to gain feedback from his peers and use that information to adapt how he communicates.

As you can see , we gave the book top ratings. The information presented meets our criteria for developing all leaders, but it is especially helpful with understanding the dynamics of working with high potential employees.
 

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How Do We Evaluate Resources?

All of the books we review are evaluated on how they support a leader’s progress in applying our working definition of leadership.

We teach leaders to: Focus, Build, and Adapt:

Focus: A leader is able to see a new future

Build: A leader can build from his or her strengths as a foundation, adding on new skills, knowledge, and attitudes to create the new future.

Adapt: A leader is skilled at using feedback from their own thinking, other people’s reactions, and results/information from their environments to self-correct and keep moving toward the new future they envisioned.

Here is our rating system:

Outstanding 4

Good 3

Satisfactory 2

Unsatisfactory 1

Focus- How well does this book inspire a vision of a new future?

Build- How well does this book teach new knowledge and skills?

Adapt-How well does this book assist readers in examining and optimizing their own behaviors?

Overall Rating as a Leadership Resource: We average the ratings in the above three categories.