Steve Farber
1 a student's review
As a college student I was not thrilled to be given the assignment of reading a book on the topic of leadership. I therefore turned to a friend and business owner who does a lot of reading on this subject. He recommended Steve Farber's The Radical Leap: a Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership and I loved every page of it! The Radical Leap's parable proved to be interesting and easy to read, a wonderful change from most of my text books. After finishing the book in one day I was excited at the prospect of using Farber's advice when I start my full time job after graduating this semester. Using a parable in which the characters discuss the meaning of leadership and how to become an extreme leader Farber teaches his readers how to become such a leader. He provides excellent examples and raises interesting questions for the reader to ponder. Too often when someone reads an informative book they reach the end and wonder what exactly they should have learned or how it applies to their life. Even if they do understand the concepts, they don't know where or how to start applying them. Such is not the case with Farber's book. If you need help applying Farber's ideas after reading The Radical Leap he gives you the specific questions you need to answer. As a person who was hesitant about reading anything on the topic of leadership I can honestly say that The Radical Leap: a Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership by Steve Farber has given me a new perspective. This book is excellent and I recommend it to anyone who is serious about pursuing a position of leadership or who wants to gain additional insight on the topic leadership. This book gives you a new and positive outlook at the workplace.
2 A great little parable
As a sales professional and sales trainer, I constantly read to improve my sales skills. I incorporate what I learn in sales into my training classes. This book is a parable to exactly what I teach. Although it does not give the technical information on how to imput those skills, this is one of those books that should be a "Must Read" for every sales person and business owner
Bob Paulson
CEO
www.thesalestrainingsite.com
3 When the Student is ready, the Teacher will appear!
I believe that putting "The Radical Leap" into my hands at this particular time in my life was Devine Intervention for when the Student is ready, the Teacher will appear. The teacher in this case is Steve Farber and "The Radical Leap". Not only did I like the relaxed way the book was written, the messages were easily gleaned from the text while it kept me reading on, in just two sittings I might add. There were so many great quotes in the book that I have already used in my business but a couple were, "Do what you love in the service of people who live what you do!" Another is, "Life is too short, don't live it without your heart!" At the end of the book there are a series of questions you ask yourself that can't help but cause you to think about the direction your life is taking. In my case it has caused me to change directions! I highly recommend this book unless of course you are absolutely satisfied with your life and your life's direction.
4 A Highly Evolved Leadership Paradigm. Great Book!
Steve Farber brings consciousness, authenticity, and a direly needed approach to authentic and successful leadership, where there is a true win/win for all.
The Radical Leap helps to make radical and important changes so that you can learn exactly HOW to reach the top, and bring everyone else up with you. His book reads genuinely, and the authenticity is a fresh breeze for anyone that wants to learn how to rise on all levels, along with others that are striving to be and do their best.
If you are looking for an outstanding book on leadership, and working in harmony with others for the Highest good of all, this is one book that will be a treasure of insight for you. Thank you Steve for this excellent and much needed contribution to humanity!
5 Great BOOK and a Great INTERVIEW
"Extreme Leadership" is a radical new approach to leadership that is creating waves and I hope that the next tidal wave will be American leaders creating major change in the workplace.
Steve Farber tells about Extreme Leadership through an insightful and entertaining story in the format of a modern parable, because we all know that a picture is worth a thousand words and a memorable story is even better. He says that if we truly want to make a difference in our organization and the lives of those who look to us for leadership, then we must all learn how to take 'The Radical LEAP.'
I interviewed Steve Farber on "The Inside Success Show" and loved it. He is a leader of leaders and Radical LEAP can now be your roadmap to your own Extreme Leadership!
If you aspire to be an effective leader - and become the best you can be - then I highly recommend you get this book and learn from a man who is sure to become a leadership sage.
Randy (Dr. Proactive) Gilbert, host of "TheInsideSuccessShow.com" and best-selling author of "Success Bound"
6 Excellent Perspective of Leadership
I first heard of this topic during a talk by Steve Farber at a recent conference. I was so excited about this approach that the book was on order before I left the conference! Someone has said that there is nothing new in this book. In a way, that is correct, as these concepts have been discussed over many years. However, I admire Steve's talent at putting these concepts together in a way that is so simple and direct. Following the genre of a fictional short story to put forth his theories is just a fun way to get these theories across.
I happen to strongly believe in the four major points, particularly the premise that says you have to love, i.e, have a passion for, what you are doing. If you do not have a passion for what you are doing, you are doing a major disservice to your coworkers and your customers, so go do something else! Steve highlights that concept very well, as well as the following precepts of energy, audacity and proof.
For those who are serious about self-examination and taking actions to become more effective leaders, this book will provide tremendous insight towards those goals.
7 Great Read
I was the designer for this book cover. I design a lot books so I don't normally have a chance to read many of them. After designing the cover and reading the jacket copy I knew I had to sit down and read this book. Boy was I glad! This book uses such an entertaining story with a friendly approach that you do not even know you are learning. It helped me view my career with a renewed eye and helped inspire me to go in new and interesting directions. I put this book up with some of my other favorite business reads like: The Circle of Inspiration and The Tipping Point. I recommend this quick read to everyone.
8 Cookie-cutter receipes & Hallmark cards language
Whatever message the author is conveying gets lost in the third-rate "story" in this fable. Quoting: "I noticed that I really didn't give a flying *** if my thougts sounded like a Hallmark card." Well, most characters' thought did. The company VP gives a rousing speech, and the whole company "connects." Etc. All of the book sounded like a contraption far from the real world.
9 Pithy but bland
The Radical Leap turns out to be nothing of the sort. It's the same old story told a slightly different way - the dialog seems to be taken from a Nickelodeon TV sitcom episode than a serious business book.
10 It misses the mark....
Leadership is a difficult subject especially in the land of business and post Enron and Worldcom scandals.
This book borrows liberally from characteristics espoused in Ayn Rand's books, as Farber tries to pull an humanistic objectivism framework out of her work and characters, which I don't think is possible.
Don't get me wrong it is very readable and has a laudable goal but at the core of it Farber is missing the key ingredient to Love and Energy and without it Audacity and Proof will be little better than Mutt and Jeff.
Farber's book assumes self-love but that assumption is not possible in today's work force which is largely driven by fear. And without it the concept of love, trust and respect within an organization is impossible. In order to deal with it Farber must address the emotion/energy duad which is the leadership genre's haunted forest complete with trails of breadcrumbs and a gingerbread house; and up till now no one who has gone in has ever returned.
As such this book stands as another missed mark by business professionals and no doubt fires the starter's pistol on yet one more leadership tome and philosophy which the world (small 'w') can ill afford to endure.
11 Trust and love and humility are hardcore business principles
Imagine someone audacious enough to say that "trust and love and humility are hardcore business principles."
All around us, in the boardrooms and business offices of any number of formerly credible companies, many of the players have literally shredded the concept of honesty - the building block of trust; the only love is the love of compensation packages and power; and humility is a foreign concept long ago discarded for megalomania and self-righteousness and celebrity status.
Imagine someone audacious enough to suggest that people who work in business can change the world for the better.
Doing whatever it takes to meet or exceed analysts' short-term earnings projections to raise the value of the stock and increase shareholder value, now that is a readily observable hardcore business principle. Or at a more micro level, as one boss said to me early on in my career, "Your job is to help me make my bonus."
Imagine someone audacious enough to suggest that we need to reclaim our right and power to set an example of what's right in business and everywhere else, and to challenge the examples that are not.
In the past few years in business and in government, we have been confronted daily with evidence of an American culture in which fear drives behavior to conform rather than confront, in which intimidation greets those who would choose to live by personal codes of ethics.
And so it is a radical leap to suggest that trust and love and humility, and a desire to change the world, and the right to stand up for personal values have anything other than a wishful place in business.
Enter Steve, one of the duo of main characters in Steve Farber's The Radical Leap; A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership.
Steve, a 40-something leadership management consultant tutored under the wing and influence of some of the leading thinkers and writers in the field of leadership, is disillusioned by the lack of meaningful change among his clients. Despite his best efforts to preach and teach the art and the practice of exemplary leadership - mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspiration - he finds himself surrendering to a world in which the title leader has been cheapened by so many merely posing as leaders, by so many who simultaneously empower employees and warn them "don't screw up and check with me before you do anything."
The curious irony is that a casual polling of 20-somethings along the boardwalk in his San Diego beach neighborhood reveals that this generation - and by extension our next generation of leaders - look for and aspire to the very qualities in a leader that Steve has been preaching.
Enter Edg, the second of the main characters. Edg, a scruffy 60-something on a skateboard, first overhears our leadership management consultant as he is conducting his informal poll along the boardwalk. He wants to participate in the poll too, and offers his definition of leadership. And so begins the audacious lesson for Steve and for all of us, the lucky observers, as we watch the story played in 7 scenes over 7 days - each scene ripe with its own wisdom.
We watch Steve rekindle and reawaken his love for his work, his clients and his desire to shape the world for the better. We watch Edg coach Steve as he comes to the rescue of a corporate damsel in distress who is about to throw in the towel on her job as COO. We watch Steve help our damsel get reconnected with the love of who she is and what she stands for - love that energizes her to have the audacity to prove it to herself and her boss through her actions. And we learn the secrets and the source of Edg's own tutelage in leadership.
Edg, somehow, speaks from a place of experience and meaning and wisdom about the hardcore business principles of extreme leadership. "Leadership is intensely personal and requires us to live the ideas we espouse - in irrefutable ways - every day of our lives, up to and beyond the point of fear." "We are our own worst con artist, if we use safety and security in the same sentence as leadership." "When necessary, the Extreme Leaders will risk his or her own safety and security in order to grow the business and - just as important - develop as a human being." Edg challenges Steve and all of us, to "take our power back and become each one of us Extreme Leaders in our own right. We have to set an example of what's right in business and everywhere else. We have to be audacious enough to follow the examples we respect and challenge the ones we don't." And that is the foundation of the Radical Leap that Edg challenges us all to take.
The 60-somethings seem to know this. The 20-somethings seem to want this. It is the many of us in the middle, who are cynical or conflicted or searching for more meaning, who could benefit from Edg's challenge. Edg's audacity will remind us and inspire us to love what we fundamentally stand for. It will help us inspire those whom we hope to lead, and it will energize us to have the audacity us to take action to shape the world for the better.
Buy The Radical Leap; A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership; Observe and absorb its lessons; refer often to the Daily Handbook for Extreme Leaders which is offered at the end as a guide for putting extreme leadership into practice; buy lots of copies, give them to your colleagues and employees; set aside some time to talk about the principles and how you might put them into practice so that you can each, in your own way, change the world for the better.
And let us hope that this first week in A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership is followed by many more that will inspire us all to take the risks - the Radical Leap - to develop as human beings and leaders.
12 Isaac Cheah, Malaysia
What an inspiring leadership book! LEAP - simple leadership principles but effective and yet tough to follow and make it a reality in the real business world. I was very much encouraged by the book at the time I was facing corporate back slash for standing firm on ethical issue. We need more of such book! More, Mr. Farber!
13 This book is a must-read...
No matter if you are a student of life or a hard-driving CEO this book is a must-read! The three most influential books in my personal and business lives have been overshadowed and enhanced by Steve's astoundingly obvious conclusions. Buy it, read it and pass it on to a loved one.
14 Read it now, if you've got the guts....and pass it on
Earlier this spring I completed my first reading of The Leadership Challenge and as a result had become a real fan of Kouzes and Posner. I had also (a few weeks prior) completed the Leadership Challenge LPI as a part of an Executive Training program at the Darden School. A coworker dropped The Radical Leap on my desk and mentioned that I might be interested. That night I inhaled the story in one sitting and held on to the book for reference for a period of another four days. (The owner then wrestled it from my possession) The story captivated me, challenged what I thought were my strengths, exposed personal opportunities as well as the folly of some of my perceived "weaknesses". I also just flat-out pumped me up. Steve Farber has rolled up the best of Kouzes and Posner, Marcus Aurilius, Churchill, Mr Ed, and Phil Jackson. He has woven them into a tale of open-mindedness, willingness and personal responsibility.
If you're a leader, it'll rock your world and validate your daily struggle.
Who will benefit from it? Teachers, coaches, managers, supervisors, parents, and heck, just about anyone else who deals with human beings on a regular basis.
Thanks Steve, you've changed MY world.
15 Can You Change the World? Absolutely!
Within the last month, I have had the pleasure to hear Steve Farber speak on Extreme Leadership and to read this book. Its marvelously communicated paradigm for leadership not only lives up to the other 5 star reviews on this site, but has become an invaluable part of my daily life leading, managing, and enjoying the people I serve. Extreme Leadership has changed my world and inspired me to seek opportunities to do the same. Do yourself a favor: buy this book NOW. Read it as soon as it arrives. Prepare to delight in sharing this powerful paradigm with your friends and colleagues who also aspire to lead and serve people. You'll be glad you did.
16 Stories teach..
Incredible book! I enjoyed reading it so much, I almost didn't notice I was being taught powerful leadership lessons. Steve Farber is a masterful story teller, and has a wonderful grasp of what leadership is all about. Let's hear some more Mr. Farber!
17 The World is Craving this Kind of Leadership
I found this book so useful that I've already read it twice. The Radical Leap inspires me to consider greater possibilities for my work. It seems like work has become a world separate from the world most of us want to live in. Today's work environment considers emotions a weakness, ambitions beyond growth and profit irrational, and personal growth an unnecessary indulgence. Perhaps this explains the countless soulless institutions where behavior we would never accept in our own families is deemed not only okay, but considered heroic. Many organizations have created internal environments grossly out of alignment with individual beliefs, values and goals.
We don't need scientific data to know that the performance of such organizations is impacted immensely by disenfranchised employees and customers. Farber's book describes a way of leading that can bring organizations back in alignment with shared human needs, values and beliefs. If only more leaders had the courage to practice what The Radical Leap promotes, our organizations could become institutions we could be proud of - and, in the process, change the world.
This book is so well written that it's a joy to read and hard to put down. It's funny, with up-to-the-minute humor. It's an intriguing mystery. It takes a stand for real leadership. Real leadership that inspires human development and organizations that matter. Not heroics. Not techniques. Not rooted in the limitations of financially-driven management. But leadership that can restore the beauty of human possibilities.
18 review
When is the last time you returned to the idealism of your youth
grounded in the bedrock of adulthood? Steve Farber has writtten a book that flows with the magentism of a great novel. I read the whole thing on a plane ride, and finished it with a smile on my face and warmth in my heart. He offers advice through personal experience from people who weed out empty drivel from the mainstream and condense their priceless ideas into punchy
concepts that pack a wallop. Farber's writing matches the excitement of his speaking (Hard to pull off, I assure you.) Like the best of the best, he unites business and personal passion. The book will lead you to greater enjoyment and achievement in business and life.
19 Extreme Inspiration
When is the last time you returned to the idealism of your youth grounded in the bedrock of adulthood? Steve Farber has writtten a book that flows with the magentism of a great novel. I read the whole thing on a plane ride, and finished it with a smile on my face and warmth in my heart. He offers advice through personal experience from people who weed out empty drivel from the mainstream and condense their priceless ideas into punchy concepts that pack a wallop. Farber's writing matches the excitement of his speaking (Hard to pull off, I assure you.) Like the best of the best, he unites business and persona
20 As leaders we all need to take this leap...and often!
I loved this book. It was a great journey and reminded me of EXACTLY what I needed to be reminded of in my leadership responsibilities. I keep it on my desk so that I don't forget about what it takes....it's a short story, and you won't need a MBA to enjoy it!
21 Radical!
This is a great read. Very intriguing and engaging characters and plot. You are drawn into the mystery, and before you know it, many life changing principles are downloaded into your brain!
The author really has a gift in bringing his message home to the reader and making it stick at a very deep level. A master teacher/storyteller for sure!
22 The Radical Leap
I loved this book. It was a real page turner. Being a manager, Leadership is a topic I'm quite familiar with. The author's approach is entertaining, fresh, innovative and relevant given today's preoccupation with pushing the envelope. It's an engaging story with delightful characters and lot's of chuckles with a few unexpected twists. Whether you're a leader an aspiring leader or just looking for an entertaining read, I highly recommend it.
23 How far can one 'leap' to radical leadership????
I guess that was my question when I first heard the title of this book...actually, if I am being truthful, my first thought was: what does one really mean when they talk about "leadership," anyway?? It seemed so broad to me...so general, so militant. Without spoiling the lessons learned in Steve Farber's book, let me just say that leadership is a seriously deep thing...a life changing experience when UNDERSTOOD and PRACTICED. Steve Farber shares this lesson in fable form...with wonderful and FUNNY!!! characters that touched my heart and my mind.
I learned so much and I really enjoyed the ride. Who knew?
24 The Radical Leap : A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership
Brilliant! Steve Farber is an awesome story teller. I would recommend this book to anybody who loves a good story and wants to see the light! I found this book to be uplifting and a true eye opener. Read it. You'll love it.
25 A Life Changing Read
Steve Farber has managed to give birth to a book which might have had Richard Bach's ILLUSIONS and WHO MOVED MY CHEESE as parents. I encourage everyone to read, learn and practice Farber's formula in Radical Leap: a personal lesson in extreme leadership. Here's a personal lesson that can bring you to a transpersonal way of sharing your life with "inspired audacity" among other qualities. I'm looking forward to more from Steve's delightful fount of wisdom and practicality. An inspiring must read!
26 Powerful/simple/effective
"The Radical Leap will capture your heart, appeal to your sense of discovery and challenge your intellect in less than 200 pages. Farber is both a creative storyteller and a serious practitioner of the authentic reality of leadership; what it is, what it requires, and most important, what it provides to the lucky few who discover its essence. If you want to challenge yourself to take the risks that are necessary to really make a difference, read The Radical Leap and apply it. It is a gem."
Terry Pearce,
Author, Leading Out Loud
Co-author, Clicks and Mortar
President, Leadership Communication
