Picture Yourself a Leader: Illustrated Micro-Lessons for Navigating Change

Picture Yourself a Leader is a problem solver’s guidebook that reveals common human stumbles and offers a hand to lift you up with engaging, illustrated vignettes of personal and professional experiences. Hone your leadership skills by recognizing your growth opportunities and be inspired to not just face them but overcome them while learning from others who have been there and persevered.

With decades of leadership lessons from the field, Elisabeth Swan uses her storytelling and illustration skills to bring her own missteps—and the stumbles of others—to life. Having shared each adventure with her professional community, she adds select insights to each lesson, and challenges readers to experiment with their own habits.

The book makes clear that the word leader can mean many things. Leaders aren’t necessarily associated with a slot on an organizational chart. Leading a life, family, or work team makes you a leader, and you can lead from anywhere. There are influential problem solvers who may not consider themselves leaders, yet they are. And there are leaders who don’t see that problem solving is their primary purpose, but it is.

Elisabeth’s collection of insights, challenges and opportunities offers invaluable guidance on how to work with others more effectively while illuminating how we influence others—knowingly or not. Each chapter invites the reader to recognize themselves and their potential as leaders regardless of whether it’s in their personal life or at work. The book provides pathways to help leaders pave better avenues for themselves, and with each challenge, Elisabeth adds curated advice and experience from leaders, authors, practitioners, and experts, broadening the conversation by adding alternative viewpoints, lived experience, and potential solutions.

Structured as an informal guide, the micro-lessons offer practical ways to improve how we think and act, with prompts for readers to consider in bite-sized portions.

Unlike other leadership and problem-solving books, Picture Yourself a Leader offers a welcomed departure from mainstream literature with its use of illustrations that the brain recognizes tens of thousands of times faster than text. Each story provides a quick exploration of a recognizable foible, showcasing the reality that we are all flawed human beings trying to be our best selves, falling into intangible potholes as we work with other people.

Expect to explore topics such as:

• Why it’s hard to listen.
• Why giving people credit can shift the culture.
• How facts and data don’t move hearts and minds.
• How culture is a contact sport and you can participate.
• Why silos are tribes that you can unite.

The book’s origins are rooted in structured problem solving.

Drawing on the problem-solving format of Continuous Improvement, Operational Excellence, Toyota Kata, Lean, and Six Sigma, this book applies the underpinnings of these methods to solving leadership issues. Regardless of the title, the approaches are grounded in systematic observation and experimentation to solve complex issues or achieve objectives when the solution is unknown.

Drawing on the problem-solving format makes it easy for readers to test new behaviors, adjust them, and then hone what works best. It’s a low-risk way for people to get the most out of themselves. Whether you approach it with structure or not—and regardless of the label—problem solving is something every human being engages in on some level every day.

This book is for professionals looking to build more innovative cultures. It’s a great companion for individuals looking to address the people-centric stumbles they’d like to overcome. It’s a great guide to return to—again and again—as new challenges arise. Beginners, seasoned professionals, and anyone in between can benefit from this book.

I am a President and CEO of Swan Consulting & Associates, Inc., Co-founder of the Just-in-Time Cafe, and I co-host the Just-in-Time Cafe Podcast with Tracy O'Rourke. I have over 30 years of experience advising public, private, and nonprofit organizations using Lean Six Sigma to help them transform their problem-solving cultures.Why I Love What I Do:I'm a translator. I love taking complicated topics and deciphering them so they make sense to myself and everyone around me. I love collaborating with my clients and colleagues to build a problem-solving culture together. I get a huge sense of satisfaction working with people to overcome seemingly intractable organizational barriers. After over 3 decades I get a kick out of sharing what I've learned so the people I work with don't have to struggle quite so much for so long or at least not as much as I did! I love the moment when a student no longer needs me.Favorite Quote:"I haven't failed. I just found 10,000 ways that didn't work." - Thomas EdisonFun Facts:I started performing ensemble comedy at ImprovBoston at the same time I started my Quality career. I'm not on the comedy stage any more but I use the tenets of Improv in everything I do.Professional Summary:I got my start in the 1980s at a consulting firm that pioneered Lean Techniques and helped with the reconstruction of Japan after World War II. During the mid 1990s, when Jack Welch brought Six Sigma into all GE businesses, I worked as a Green and Black Belt instructor for dozens of GE lines of business.I have trained and coached 1000s of people and continue to help organizations complete hundreds of Lean Six Sigma projects while supporting their transformation into a culture of problem solvers. Project work has included reducing workplace injuries in the hotel industry, reducing the time to open accounts in the financial industry, reducing the number of maintenance visits in telecommunications, reducing hospital readmissions and many more.Working in the Quality world means I've been engaged to develop improvement rollouts, design simulations, facilitate Process Walks, map processes and run Rapid Improvement Events (Kaizens) while working with leadership to make sure it's all supported and reinforced.I am am the co-designer, and Lead Instructor for the Lean Six Sigma Leadership course at University of California at San Diego (UCSD)Learn more at: www.ElisabethSwan.comNote: My name is commonly misspelled as "Elizabeth" with a "z" in case your searches come up empty!