It’s out.
Read the Terrain: Leadership Under Real Conditions is officially a book you can buy, hold, dog-ear, and argue with in the margins. (Please argue with it in the margins. That’s how I’ll know it’s working.)
I wrote it for one person. She got the job because she was the best in the room. She’s the calm one in every meeting, the one everyone leans on, and nobody holds her steady. Somewhere along the way she started wondering if she even likes this anymore.
If that’s you, this book is for you. If that’s someone on your team, hand it to them.
Each of the eleven chapters names a leadership pattern that smart, capable people fall into without noticing. Then I tell you where I learned it on the trail, usually the hard way, at least once with a wheel in the air. Every chapter ends with steps you can take this week. Not journal prompts. Steps.
The whole book comes down to one argument: leadership breaks down when we optimize for looking good instead of reading what’s real. Force fails. Reading wins.
“You can be surrounded by people who count on you and
be a stranger to every one of them.”
Where to get it
📕 Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
📗 Barnes & Noble (paperback and eBook)
📘 Bookshop.org: (paperback and eBook)
Bookshop.org supports independent bookstores, so if you have a favorite indie, this is a great way to buy and help them at the same time. You can also walk into your local store and ask them to order it by title. That tells a bookstore someone wants it, which matters more than people think.
Your help is valued.
Leave a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads once you’ve read it. Reviews are how new books get found.
Forward this email to one leader who needs it.
Thank you for being here for the long, bumpy road to this day. I couldn’t have gotten here without the people who read early drafts, sent notes, and kept asking “when’s the book coming out?”
The answer is today.
This week’s question: What’s one thing at work you’ve been handling by looking calm instead of reading what’s real?
Hit reply and tell me. I read every one.
