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

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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

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.

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.

Lisa Marshall has taken on the subject almost always skirted in leadership studies: how does the leader grow? She has done this, and done it powerfully and very usefully. I am deeply grateful to her for the labor and the results.

It is not the role or power or technique of the leader that ultimately makes the difference for us. And when we look to leaders for that which is needed, the fact that they occupy an office or wield authority or know stuff doesn't, at the end of the day, hold meaning.

Is she true? Does he have the courage of his convictions? Will she pay the price that someone must pay? Can he suffer greatly, and still love? These are the questions that point to the deeper dimensions of true leadership. Is this leader a mature human being? Truthful, hopeful, resolute, kind?

Lisa Marshall decisively opens the door into this deeper conversation, and then invites us to understand the journey we are all called to take. "Speak the Truth and Point to Hope" is an extraordinarily important book for anyone who seeks to lead or live more meaningfully.

The book addresses an area I haven't seen before - leadership maturity. With thoughtful essays from enlightened leaders and the author's insights, I found new ways to approach the theory and application of leadership. It is also well-written and fun to read.

As someone who professionally coaches executives and organizations in the areas of leadership and effectiveness, I am constantly on the hunt for new, refreshing material that breaks the mold and elevates thinking and dialogue.

Lisa Marshall's "Speak the Truth" is such a book. Using the timeless story of the hero's mythic journey, Marshall reveals a path to leadership maturity that includes preparation; the call to action; a fall into "the pit" and confrontation of "monsters"; metamorphosis; and return. The result is an engrossing discussion of leadership as it appears in four essential domains: intellectual, emotional, moral and spiritual.

Although her approach is strongly metaphorical, the author manages to keep readers engaged through the liberal use of stories. Citations from a large number of current and classic works on leadership underscore her points.

Marshall includes the text of conversations about leadership with several fascinating figures that include renowned executive coaches, business leaders and authors, and a vice admiral. A significant bonus is included in two appendices that provide first-rate learning and discussion guide materials.

Anyone looking for a provocative and deeply thoughtful analysis of what constitutes mature leadership should read this book.

October 7, 2004

Reviewer: Manfred E. Keune

Among an abundance of books about leadership, Linda Marshall's book, "Speak the Truth and Point to Hope (The Leader's Journey to Maturity)" is a refreshingly daring, unique and challenging book. And it is more: it is an important book for our time.

First of all, the book is a tool for practices as well as reflection in private and public domains. The unique challenge for maturity in leadership is served well by the design and structure of this work. Ms. Marshall's extensive experience with business consulting and coaching, makes her inquiry credible to the highest degree, and there will be a grateful readership that shares her professional commitments through her inclusion of interviews of current leaders as well as her own reflections.

The importance of this book is further enhanced by its rare synthesis within the three culture dialogue of science, business, and the humanities. It represents some of the best writing in the discipline of ontological design, as it has emerged in the thought and practices of such leaders as Fernando Flores, Julio Olalla, and Richard Heckler-Strozzi. The humanities, best represented in this book by the poet David White and Joseph Campbell, may heed the call for serious reconstruction. I think that the importance of the poetic text and the story of the hero, which attain such prominence in Lisa Marshall's discussion in the domain of work and business, should be a wake-up call for many.

The "Leader's Journey to Maturity" brings a long and rich intellectual tradition into a unique focus for our time. It reminds us, in the haste and waste of accelerated change, to take a deep breath and consider the more profound possibilities of our humanity, in order to realize that time past is also present in time future. These paraphrased words of the poet are exactly the kind of practical wisdom that is alive in Ms. Marshall's book. Ultimately, the book aligns, in structure and spirit, with the functions of poetry in order to articulate the common concerns of our time which is eager for mature leadership that can see "that we have been afflicted with a basic "deprivation'" (Czeslaw Milosz) and "that all our work has suffered from the destabilizing national fantasy, the rupture of imagination implicit in our history" (Adrienne Rich).

Lisa Marshall has contributed a gift to our leadership literature. She effectively weaves history, her personal insights, literature, and the strength of gifted and proven leaders through her inquisitive interviews to create a treasure for the leader seeking.
If you are seeking the depth and essence of what leadership is in everyday organizational practice today, seek here. Speak The Truth And Point To Hope provides a beacon from which to pause and draw resolve in today's chaotic challenges and paradox.
Lisa provides a mirror for me to both examine my own leadership journey and to help others understand theirs. A literary tapestry woven with precious threads of leadership wisdom and thought provoking questions, her work helps me to clarify my leadership presence and direction. This clarity speaks to the truth and points to hope.