The Together Leader: Get Organized For Your Success—And Sanity!

This book is focused on helping you think about your own time—and your people’s time—as a manager. This book is about developing tools, habits and systems to effectively and efficiently lead a team. This book is about creating plans for expected work, so we can deal with the unanticipated when it inevitably arises. This book is the nuts and bolts of effective time management in a leadership role: how to weigh the urgent call that comes through against the need to revise staff orientation, how to plan purposefully for a meeting and then follow-up. This stuff matters—and no one is teaching it—Until now!

This book is unique because it’s designed for leaders in mission-driven settings. Mission-driven settings may be a school, a district, or a nonprofit. Why is mission-driven work so different? It's because the goals are ambitious, the To-Do lists at never ending, and the passion for our work is enduring. And mission-driven leaders carry a second layer of duty as well: to CARE DEEPLY about the work and its impact. It’s personal. We are fighting the good fight, and any second not devoted to our mission can feel wasted or callous.

This book can work for you if you are a new manager. Or perhaps you’ve shifted careers from the corporate world into the nonprofit sector and you’re thoroughly confused about the culture. Or maybe you’ve made the move from teaching to school or district leadership, or you’ve quickly realized your MBA didn’t prepare you to really lead and execute. You might be trying to get your own mission-driven work off the ground. You might have unlimited vision and passion, but require finer execution skills to make your dream a reality. Regardless of who you are, let this book be your guide for managing your time, your energy, your people’s work, your meetings, your project plans, and your stuff. If we ourselves are not Together, we will not get the results we want for those we seek to serve. But if we are…big and meaningful change CAN happen