Owning the Room

Book excerpt: As a leader, do you “own the room”? Are you an “extraordinary leader”? In Owning the Room, Roger A. Gerard draws on his more than 45 years of leadership experience, both successes and mistakes, to explore these questions and reveal how leadership must be cultivated. Leadership is not for amateurs! It must be learned on the ground, by being a leader, and doing the hard work of leading others. Frankly, it’s the only way. In this book, Gerard serves as your holistic leadership coach and mentor – a voice that has been there, done that, and is still learning many years later. Owning the Room is segmented into three parts – Leadership Action as Intention, Making it Happen, and Deepening the Learning – and focuses on three fundamental dynamics of leadership: 1. Inspiring the mind through knowledge, 2. Inspiring the heart through care, 3. Inspiring purpose through accomplishment and humility along the way. Owning the Room details not only the "how to's" of ideal leadership, but also goes in-depth about what must happen when things go wrong. Effective leaders inspire people to hope, to focus on the possible, and to rise beyond. Take the keys in this book to own your room.