Chasing the Shouting Wind Along; Or, Writing the Second Edition

Kendara, an MBA student, was taking Ryan's class on leadership. As part of the class study, she had to read the first edition of this book and had to pick specific times to practice leadership every week. (We describe this learning process in chapter 12.) By the time Kendara got to the penultimate week, she said that she had only applied the leadership principles to "some simple issue, never really using it on something 'serious,'" and she had no intention to do so. She had a serious matter weighing on her mind when she sat down to complete that week's reading assignment, however: she needed to let her boss know that her workload exceeded her capacity. She had a meeting scheduled to discuss it, but Kendara had spent the entire morning wondering if her boss would think that she was incompetent and her career would be ruined.

As Kendara read her assignment from the book that morning, she said that it was like a lightbulb had turned on. She focused on her boss's concerns instead of her own, had a clear intuition about what she should say, and walked into the meeting with confidence. She laid out her points. In turn, Kendara's boss said she was impressed, and that it took a big person to admit being in over her head. Because Kendara had been honest with her, the boss now felt more comfortable trusting her. Kendara, in turn, left the meeting energized, relieved, and confident about her career prospects.

Kendara's story illustrates why we wrote a new edition of this book and is itself a metaphor for this second edition. Kendara's story is a story of second chances. Other students in her class had used the first edition of Lift to address serious leadership challenges and had benefited from doing so. Kendara did not mention any negative feelings toward the book and its principles, but when she gave the book a second chance, this helped her approach her class assignments more productively. In turn, her boss gave her a second chance, and everyone involved was better off for these second chances.

For the past six years, people have read and used this book, and we have used this book in our teaching and consulting, and many of the reports we have received suggest that it has had a positive effect. At the same time we have also learned many things about the book, and about teaching these principles, that suggest that if we give this book its own second chance we can enhance the positive impact it has upon the world. As Kendara's story and many others suggest, we have been pleased with the book's impact. But we do think that we can further enhance the book and its impact; hence this second edition.

The changes we have made are threefold. First, we have made hundreds of little revisions throughout the book: we clarified a point of research here, explained a story more fully there, and otherwise used six years of feedback to improve little things about the book in every way we could. Second, we added two new chapters. Chapter 12 provides a description of a method for teaching leadership that we have developed, refined, and digitized in the years since the first edition was published. We are seeing all kinds of exciting possibilities open up with regard to this learning method, and we wanted to share it with readers. In the new chapter 13 we have described some of our own personal learning that has occurred since the first edition was published. This has been one of the most delightful things about the first edition: how much learning it has created in us and in others.

The third major change was to clarify throughout that this is a book about leadership. To do this, we changed the subtitle, changed language, and even added icons to the chapters to help readers stay clear about the overall purpose of the book even when they are reading detailed chapter accounts. In the first edition we used the word influence more than leadership because we were worried that some people might not think of themselves as leaders, and therefore might not see the book as relevant. In this second edition we have decided to focus more squarely on leadership because we do in fact use this book to train and develop leaders, we offer a new and unique perspective on leadership, and we want everyone to rise to the call of leadership, whether it be in the boardroom or on the factory floor, in the company or in the home, on the sports field or in the backyard. As the subtitle of the first edition suggested, we want to help anyone and everyone to be a positive force in any situation. As the subtitle of this new edition suggests, we want people to realize that the choice to be a positive influence is a choice to lead.