The New Success Paradigm
A Personal Leadership Discovery Platform
With its programmatic, step-by-step, involving approach, this book makes it enjoyable to contemplate success.
The New Success Paradigm by Stephen Lyall Engels is a tightly organized, systematic approach to personal leadership.
Becoming a leader, whether for personal or professional reasons, can be an elusive goal, especially since not everyone has natural leadership ability. To help attune individuals to leadership qualities and skills, Engels, a certified life coach, has created a system he calls Effective Leadership Solutions (ELS). This book, along with the accompanying workbook (also available as an iPad app), is an outgrowth of the ELS system.
The New Success Paradigm is divided into three parts: “Raising Your Level of Awareness,” “Building Your Personal Leadership Program,” and “Adding Successes and Value to Your Life.” The parts are logically organized and build one upon the other.
The first part concentrates largely on basic leadership principles, such as the three leadership “spheres” (personal, private, and public); four areas of responsible leadership (impact, decisions, example, and awareness); and a metaphorical river that includes life’s beginnings and inward search, an unfolding journey where individuality can be expressed, and making the most out of life by giving back. Each of these concepts evokes imagery that helps make the text memorable.
The second part of the book reinforces the river metaphor by delving further into three areas. Here, Engels addresses such specifics as finding inspiration, life balance, purpose and meaning, developing good relationships, and building a future through “optimism, hope and motivation.” The last part of the book lays out some key methods for achieving success, turning dreams into reality, and setting goals.
Each of the book’s thirty-four chapters begins with a “short fictional anecdote” about one or more individuals facing particular challenges or developing solutions that directly relate to the chapter content. This is an especially effective way of illustrating leadership principles through storytelling.
The book’s content is tightly integrated with the workbook’s twenty-seven “dynamic exercises.” Exercises on “Finding a True Passion and Pride in Your Life” and “Developing a Strategy for Mastering Your Life” are sure to provoke self-assessment, if not deep introspection.
The book’s chapters are short and interspersed with occasional relevant illustrations. Each chapter is preceded by an anecdote and closes with a bullet-point “things to remember” section. The workbook exercises are referenced throughout the text. This organizational structure breaks the material into small, digestible segments, making it easy to follow along. In addition, the book is written in a simple, informal style, and is quite positive, motivational, and uplifting in its tone.
With its programmatic, step-by-step, involving approach, The New Success Paradigm makes it enjoyable to consume what could otherwise be challenging and even intimidating subject matter.
Reviewed by
Barry Silverstein
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
