Welcome to Friday 411, issue #131. In 4 minutes, with 1 insight and 1 action, you’ll know why you need a community of other leaders.
1 Insight
Great leadership happens in community, not in isolation.
Leadership can be lonely.
Leading people requires vision, courage, and the willingness to face uncertainty — often without anyone beside you who truly understands.
The higher you rise as a leader, the fewer people you feel you can really talk to. You
carry problems you can’t share with your team and questions you don’t feel comfortable asking your boss.
You’re not alone in this feeling. In 2018, the Center for Creative Leadership found that 76% of executives experience loneliness and 58% say it negatively affects their decision-making (source).
Leadership isn’t meant to be done in isolation — yet many leaders end up there.
We have been writing together for years, devoting this year’s writing to our new book,
Unleashed Leadership: How to Solve the 7 Issues Holding You Back from Your
Greatest Impact.
Leadership can be lonely.
Leading people requires vision, courage, and the willingness to face uncertainty — often without anyone beside you who truly understands.
The higher you rise as a leader, the fewer people you feel you can really talk to. You
carry problems you can’t share with your team and questions you don’t feel comfortable asking your boss.
You’re not alone in this feeling. In 2018, the Center for Creative Leadership found that 76% of executives experience loneliness and 58% say it negatively affects their decision-making (source).
Leadership isn’t meant to be done in isolation — yet many leaders end up there.
We have been writing together for years, devoting this year’s writing to our new book,
Unleashed Leadership: How to Solve the 7 Issues Holding You Back from Your
Greatest Impact.
And here’s what we discovered: writing a book can feel just as lonely as leading a team. When you write, you have no audience in front of you. Instead, you’re faced with a blinking cursor, trying to capture ideas you hope will matter to someone someday.
The exercise of writing Unleashed Leadership reminded us of something every leader
needs to hear: you don’t get unleashed alone.
The Power of Community in Creation
While our names are on the cover, Unleashed Leadership was forged through multiple communities.
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- A Consultant Who Helped Us Get Unlocked
We’ve been dreaming about this series since 2020 but have been stuck for a long time.
Earlier this year, we spent a full day with Jeremy Floyd, a consultant and friend. Jeremy listened as we shared our dreams and frustrations, then helped us identify inhibiting beliefs that were holding us back and a focused strategy for moving forward. He guided us to see what was possible and create a plan. That day unlocked us.
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- Our Publishing Team
We chose to partner with a company called Igniting Souls to publish our book series. Our first assignment was to land on a title. We knew we wanted Unleashed Leadership, but the subtitle was a struggle. We tossed around so many potentials, we soon buried ourselves under them.
As our deadline approached, Igniting Souls founder and CEO, Kary Oberbrunner, hopped on a call and helped get us unstuck. From there, our project manager and team of editors and designers kept our momentum going every step of the way.
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- A Beta Team That Clarified Our Ideas
Once we finished a rough draft, we sent it to a beta team who gave candid feedback that changed the book. They helped us see blind spots that we missed and encouraged us to expand on parts that resonated.
In the book, we have a section that describes every problem in a business starting as a leadership problem. One beta reader said that our original wording felt too harsh and direct. It seemed like we pointed leaders toward self-blame for problems rather than encouraging them to take ownership of solutions. When we re-read it, we totally agreed. We reworked several paragraphs, which took nearly 6 hours for us to get it right.
Every round of feedback made the book more practical, relevant, and relatable.
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- Authors and Mentors Who Shaped Us
Unleashed Leadership was written in community with people, many of whom we’ve never met — the authors, speakers, and mentors who’ve trained and inspired us over the years.
The book is short — 119 pages. But don’t be fooled by the small size.
Between the two of us, we’ve read thousands of books and spent thousands of hours studying, teaching, and applying leadership principles. From boardrooms to workshops, conferences to conversations, we’ve learned from some of the best minds in the world.
We stand on the shoulders of the experts and clients who have shaped our understanding of leadership.
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- Each Other — Dorothy and Garland
Then there was our partnership.
We divided the writing between us — Dorothy wrote some chapters, Garland wrote others — and then we swapped, edited, and reworked.
Our writing styles couldn’t be more different. Garland writes in short, simple sentences. Dorothy writes with depth and texture. This could have caused problems (and it certainly led to a few lively debates). But we recognized that the magic happens when our styles collide and combine.
At one point, Dorothy wrote a story about a character named Tamara. She wasn’t sure if it fit. I (Garland) read it, loved it, and suggested shifting the focus. She rewrote and improved it. When our beta team read it, many of them commented, “Tamara’s story was one of the most helpful parts of the book.” (You’ll see why when you read the book for yourself. 😉)
Leaders Need Each Other
If writing can be lonely, leadership can be downright isolating.
You can’t share every challenge with your team. You can’t always ask your boss for help. And as research shows, most leaders are fighting that battle in silence.
Isolation feels safe in the short term, but it slowly starves your leadership. When you isolate, you stagnate.
Leaders need people who push them forward, pull them higher, and keep them grounded. You need peers who tell you, “That’s close, but not quite it,” and mentors who remind you, “You’ve got this — keep going.”
Because leadership doesn’t thrive in isolation.
It thrives in community.
Why This Matters
Reminding leaders they’re not alone is the heartbeat of Unleashed Leadership.
We wrote this book to help leaders who feel overwhelmed, isolated, or stuck discover that they can get unleashed — but not in isolation. There’s a process and a community ready to help.
This January, we’ll be launching an Unleashed Leader Community. It will be a space where leaders from different companies and industries can connect, grow, and build each other up. If you’re leading leaders and want a place to sharpen your skills and theirs, this will be for you. Stay tuned for more info!
An Invitation
Unleashed Leadership launches on October 24.
We’re aiming for 100 reviews on Day 1, and we’d love your help.
If you’re willing to review the book on Amazon, we’ll send you a free PDF version before release, and during launch week, you can grab the Kindle version for just 99 cents.
We’ll also send you two bonus resources:
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- A 1-page cheat sheet summarizing the book
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- A 4-page quick guide with practical tools you can use right away
If you’d like to help, just reply and say, “I want to review the book.” You’ll get more information in the next few days.
1 Action
Take five minutes today to identify who’s in your leadership community — and who’s missing. Then reach out to one person who sharpens you and thank them for making you better.