The Leadership Insight journal is an invitation; an invitation to enter into the quiet and contemplation it takes to be wise. It is an invitation to find our true selves, and thus the essence of our best leadership. The names on the cover and in the journal are those of individual leaders from around the world. As we open the journal, we recognize that we are joining the global community of leaders who have made, and continue to make, a difference in the world. The image on the cover, a celebration entitled Exuberant Life, reflects the best of what we strive for as human beings and as leaders. Enter into the quiet and contemplation it takes to be wise. It is an invitation to find our true selves, and thus the essence of our best leadership. "Leadership Insight is an amazing combination of wisdom and beauty! It will help executives reflect upon their leadership journey -- and become more effective as a result. I love Nancy Adler's work. No one combines insight on leadership, deep wisdom about life and a sharing of beauty like she does!
" -- Marshall Goldsmith, New York Times and million-copy best-selling author of MOJO and What Got You Here Won't Get You There "Nancy Adler's Leadership Insight is a magical work by an extraordinarily talented artist and highly respected scholar. It's a one-of-a-kind journal that draws you in and compels you to express yourself. The moment I opened the pages I felt calm and serene. Her paintings are beautiful and stunning, and her words are wise and inspirational. In this hurry-scurry world of always on, 24/7, instant connection, Leadership Insight offers us a necessary and welcome bit of quiet space for reflection and contemplation. We know that the most self-aware leaders make the best leaders, and recording in this journal is the perfect way to gain more insight into yourself, your relationships, and your world. I highly recommend you buy one for yourself!and many more as gifts for your friends." -- Jim Kouzes, Coauthor of The Leadership Challenge and Dean's Executive Professor of Leadership, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University "As we move through this century, we urgently need more leaders to actually lead.
It takes a certain kind of courage to stop, reflect, and look deeply into your heart and the heart of your business. Adler's Leadership Insight journal allows you to do just that because, in this instance, a great artist has shown courage in creating a series of worlds that will open your mind to possibilities. And we all need possibilities." -- Alastair Creamer, Co-Director Creamer and Lloyd London, England "The beautiful paintings and statements in Nancy's journal provoke reflection and give inspiration to every leader who is sensitive to capture the wisdom and translate it in his or her own language and vision for the future. An innovative piece of art in the leadership literature!" -- Danica Purg, CEO, IEDC Bled School of Management, Slovenia "The Leadership Insight journal is a welcome addition to the mass of material that is being thrown at leadership today because it invites potential leaders to get in touch with the artist within them and to become more reflective instead of badgering them with the usual litany of advice on what they should do or be. This is an important book with an important message." -- Edgar H.
Schein, Sloan Fellows Professor of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management "Leadership in law and management requires creativity: a fresh image or metaphor changes the picture, and cuts to the heart. This book opens a space of visual beauty that invites attentiveness and creative reflection. What a splendid gift in our busy time." -- Richard Sherwin, Professor of Law, Director, Visual Persuasion Program, New York Law School "Journaling on real paper with a real pen seems like a throwback to a different era. Until you try it. For leaders, finding that calm place where you purposely take the time to reflect is a powerful antidote to the rush-rush-rush of the rest of the day. Nancy Adler has created a beautiful book that will draw powerful thoughts from you to the paper. You will love the results."
-- Joel Barker, Futurist, film maker, and author of video "Innovation at the Verge" "Adler's Leadership Insight journal is not only exquisitely beautiful, it is a powerful invitation for managers worldwide to take time from their super-fast-paced lives to reflect; and from that reflection, perhaps we will begin to see more of the type of leadership that the world most desperately needs. ["Buy two, because you aren't going to want to write anything in the first one...which I know defeats the purpose, but that is certainly how I feel about my copy!]" -- Nakiye Boyacigiller, Dean, Faculty of Management, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey "Creativity and leadership have always been closely intertwined -- and nowhere more so than in Nancy Adler's brilliant Leadership Insight journal. Managers and leaders everywhere will find in these pages not only superb original paintings and powerful sayings from world leaders, but also the quiet reflection so urgently needed to decipher today's complex leadership challenges." -- John Alexander, Former President and CEO, Center for Creative Leadership "In a world focused on busyness, Dr.
Adler invites us to rethink how we go about our business, suggesting that reflective practice might offer us fresh insights to our leadership practice. Her Leadership Insight journal creates a space for us to move from action to reflection, and in the process be moved by the power of art!" -- Nick Nissley, Ed.D., Executive Director, Leadership Development at The Banff Centre, Banff, Alberta, Canada "Nancy Adler's Leadership Insight is significant not only for what it is, a beautiful and inspiring journal, but for what it represents: a commitment to reflection as the foundation of the kind of leadership our world so desperately needs. Extraordinary leaders' legacies are determined largely by the courage of the questions they dare to ask." -- Michelle L. Buck, Director of Leadership Initiatives and Clinical Professor, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University "Leadership Insight is the perfect gift for all those on your high potential list, or for anyone taking part in your leadership development effort. It carries a very important message: stop, reflect, consider and remember."
-- Beverly Kaye, CEO, Founder, Career Systems International, Co-author: Love Em or Lose Em "Nancy J. Adler is one of the rare breed of academics who have successfully combined the creative and analytical aspects of art and management to shed new insights on the attributes and skills to be possessed by global leaders in the Twenty-first century". -- Rosalie L. Tung, Ming and Stella Wong Professor of International Business, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada
Author Biography:
NANCY J. ADLER is the S. Bronfman Chair in Management at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She received her B.A. in economics, M.B.A. and Ph.D. in management from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).
Dr. Adler conducts research and consults on global leadership and cross-cultural management. She has authored over 100 articles, produced the film, A Portable Life, and published the books, From Boston to Beijing: Managing with a Worldview, International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior (5th edition, 2008), Women in Management Worldwide, and Competitive Frontiers: Women Managers in a Global Economy.
Dr. Adler consults to private corporations and government organizations on projects in Asia, Europe, North and South America, and the Middle East. She has taught Chinese executives in the People's Republic of China, held the Citicorp Visiting Doctoral Professorship at the University of Hong Kong, and taught executive seminars at INSEAD in France, Oxford University in England, and Bocconi University in Italy. She received McGill University's first Distinguished Teaching Award in Management and was one of only a few professors to receive it a second time. Honoring her as one of Canada's top university professors, she was selected as a 3M Teaching Fellow.
