Speak the Truth and Point to Hope: The Leader's Journey to Maturity [Paperback]

Lisa J. Marshall (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 278 pages
• Publisher: Kendall Hunt Publishing; 1 edition (February 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0757508235
• ISBN-13: 978-0757508233
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,365,891 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's all about Maturity, October 3, 2004

By 

Martha Johnson "Martha Johnson" (So. Hadley, MA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Speak the Truth and Point to Hope: The Leader's Journey to Maturity (Paperback)

Lisa Marshall tackles the often unstated and unacknowledged goal of leadership development. Not about techniques, charisma, knowledge, but about maturity, honed with a good dose of self awareness, authenticity, grown up caring for the common good. She dares us to speak a compassionate truth about ourselves AND about others AND about our external environment and to point to the possibilities that exist as we grown ups dare to care about our colleagues, and our mutual future in this world. I particularly liked the way she has provided a template for discussion of these issues in our offices and with our colleagues. This is the kind of substantive conversation that can actually change the world.

Martha Johnson Gilburg
South Hadley, MA

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Journey Like No Other, June 18, 2004

By 

Richard Skaare (Mechanicsburg, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Speak the Truth and Point to Hope: The Leader's Journey to Maturity (Paperback)

I used to judge a business book's value by how often I picked up a pen to underline interesting ideas. Too often, however, when I finished a book and reviewed my markings, I realized that what I thought was insightful was actually obvious. The author's enthusiastic writing style had tricked me. This is not the case with Lisa Marshall's book. I not only underlined ideas, but, after reading the book, remarked most of the key points with asterisks. Ms Marshall has something important to say, and she says it clearly, concisely, and convincingly.

I must admit that the book's title, Speak the Truth and Point to Hope, made me uneasy. Twenty-five years of advising cash-flow-driven small business owners and politically astute corporate executives had convinced me that truth and hope were Sunday words, not business words. Ms. Marshall persuaded me otherwise. Her ideas reflect her hard fought and successful development work with many 'wanabe" leaders in large business and government organizations. She knows, and cites in her book, numerous leaders who, at some point in their careers, understood that leadership is a journey (Marshall's core theme) that involves preparation, a calling, entering a pit, facing monsters, and returning home changed. They may not describe their metamorphosis specifically in those terms, but they inevitably talk about it through stories. And stories, Marshall rightly contends, create a common understanding of and loyalty to an organization's mission.

There are at least two ways to read this book: Consume it in its entirety in one or two sittings or first read the chapters where Ms. Marshall interviews a diverse mix of provocative individuals who have long understood and pursued the arduous, elusive, and yet enriching journey of leadership. Their stories will inspire you to digest the rest of the book.

Ms. Marshall has courageously taken on a subject that we who aspire to leadership want to avoid. Many of us prefer to lead by position, do only what can be measured, and protect the organization and ourselves. That is called management, not leadership. By contrast, says Marshall, a leader changes the agenda, senses possibility, keeps actions consistent with words, stays accountable, connects with people's needs, creates positive moods, and tells stories, one of which, interestingly, might become the strategic plan.

Put aside that stack of how-to-succeed business books, buy a copy of Speak the Truth and Point to Hope, and get ready for a journey unlike any you have taken before. And make sure you have a marker handy.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Inspired, Practical Guidebook Fills a LamentableVoid, August 27, 2004

By 

Dale Worsley - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Speak the Truth and Point to Hope: The Leader's Journey to Maturity (Paperback)

In Speak the Truth and Point to Hope: The Leader's Journey to Maturity, Lisa J. Marshall has the welcome audacity to express her belief that it's time for our leaders to grow up and become adults. She points out that much of our leadership is stuck in a perpetually adolescent "Peter Pan" stage. While this may be romantic and energetic-and thus seductive-it does not serve our organizations, our nations, and our planet well in the long term. Indeed our leaders and presumed followers generate and experience much suffering as a result. To move past a worship of youth and unreflective action, our leaders must have the courage to leave their seemingly safe places among the Lost Boys and undertake a classic hero's journey. She identifies the following stages for this journey: preparation, a call to action, a fall into the pit, a confrontation with the monster, a metamorphosis, and a return.

Through Marshall's book we come to understand the nuances of such a journey in the context of modern corporations and non-profit organizations. We are introduced to individuals who have become models of mature leadership and hear their stories, their ideas and their beliefs. We are given protocols, checklists and rubrics for the development of leadership in our own organizations. The book thus becomes as practical as it is inspirational. We become confident in using the book as a resource because of its foundation in research and its references to well-established theories of contemporary organizational dynamics.

I found the book to be a terrific read. Here are but a few of the many sentences that I found particularly useful or inspiring: "Ultimately the real monsters we face on our leadership journey are the ones carried inside, monsters that are illuminated by our responses." "Chief amongst the emotional responses is ego: that driving need to be the one in charge or in control, the one in the spotlight, the one who is right, the one who has all the answers, the one who has the most, the one who does it all." "Leaders create the right emotional context for the task to be performed." "Wisdom, the stuff of mature judgment, exists...in all four domains: it is possible to be intellectually wise, morally wise, emotionally wise and/or spiritually wise." "Intellectual maturity discerns that a few simple rules will generate all the complex behavior we need." "...when we fear and neglect those with the most maturity, we fail to recognize they are the ones who can shelter civilization from its own predatory frenzy."

I have recommended the book to the leaders of an organization for whom I serve as a consultant, the Education Alliance at Brown University's Secondary School Redesign Program. They have purchased a copy of the book for each member of the redesign team to use in the work of school renewal. It is a book that deserves much further distribution and use.