The Transforming Leader is written for people who strive to make a positive difference in the world. The book was conceived by the Fetzer Institute’s Leadership for Transformation project in collaboration with the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership and the International Leadership Association. As part of the process that led to the book, the project’s Stewardship Team held three retreats that brought together internationally known leaders, leadership educators, and theorists to sit in dialogue reflecting on three questions: How can we explore a variety of approaches to creating a bridge between our inner life and outer action for transformational effect? What is the commonality among these divergent approaches? And what of this can help you or me be an agent of transformation in a world on the edge of either destruction or renewal?

The leaders and leadership experts contributing to the book, many of whom participated in the dialogues, consistently stress their own experience that it is not just what a leader does that matters, or what they know about human beings, their motivations and ways of behavior, but who that leader is inside: How alive they are, how balanced, how healthy, how passionate, how aware, how engaged, how compassionate, how energized - how they connect with their deeper and wiser selves. Based on cutting edge leadership thinking and practice, the 20 essays that make up the work explore the many paths and lessons leaders can take to access the best parts of themselves and meet the challenges of today’s world.