Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction

Core Value 1: Identifying, Nurturing, and Using Our Unique Gifts and Talents
·Empowering Leaders Are Aware that Everyone Has Unique Gifts and Talents
·Empowering Leaders Develop Their Own Gifts and Talents
·Empowering Leaders Help Others Cultivate Their Gifts and Talents
·Empowering Leaders Facilitate the Sharing of Gifts and Talents
·Empowering Leaders Extend Gifts and Talents
·Uniqueness Contributes to the Tapestry of Life
·Our Higher Power Helps Clarify Life’s Purpose(s)

Core Value 2: Understanding and Manifesting Our Intention
·Intention Is a Fundamental Core Value of Empowering Leadership
·Thought Is More Important Than People Think
·Spoken and Written Words Are Keys to Manifesting Intentions
·Empowering Leaders Must Align Their Actions and Intentions
·Enlisting Spiritual and Non-spiritual Forces to Manifest Intentions
·Using the ‘Third Eye’ to Manifest Intentions
·Empowering Leaders Use Attention to Focus the Lens of Intention
·Empowering Leaders Focus Energy to Manifest Intentions

Core Value 3: Using Affirmation to Make Things Happen
·Affirmation Is an Important Core Value for Empowering Leaders
·Speaking Silently to Oneself Can Be a Useful Form of Affirmation
·Speaking Aloud Can Be a Useful Form of Affirmation
·Using Writing and Other Visual Arts in Affirmation
·Affirming Intentions Through a Pledge or Promise
·Repetition Can be a Useful Form of Affirmation
·Creating a Secular Mantra
·Creating a Personal Mission Statement Is a Useful Form of Affirmation
·Swearing an Oath Is a Powerful Form of Affirmation

Core Value 4: Having A Sense of Mission or Purpose
·A Sense of Mission or Purpose Can Drive Us Toward Our Best Destiny
·We Each Have a Special Role that Contributes to the Whole of Life
·The Light of Empowering Leaders Helps Others See Their Mission or Purpose
·A Sense of Mission or Purpose Helps Us Stay the Course Through Hard Times
·A Sense of Mission or Purpose Helps Us Take the Long View
·Empowering Leaders Are Agents of a Higher Purpose
·Empowering Leaders Are Supported by the Universe
·Manifesting Our Highest Potential


Core Value 5: Learning to Balance the Head and Heart
·Learning to Feed the Head and the Heart
·Avoiding the Danger of Imbalance
·Leaders Must Integrate the Head and the Heart
·Empowering Leaders Must Be Affective as well as Effective
·Leaders’ Actions Are Magnified
·Leaders Can Overcome a Dominance of the Head
·Leaders Can Overcome a Dominance of the Heart
·Leaders Must Create a Culture Where the Head and the Heart Are Valued

Core Value 6: Manifesting Your Vision
·Leaders Must Use the Power of Thought to Manifest Their Vision
·Visual Imagery Can Be Used to Help Leaders Manifest Their Vision
·The Power of the Spoken Word Can Help Leaders Manifest Their Vision
·The Power of Affirmation Can Be Used to Help Manifest Your Vision
·The Power of Prayer Can Help Manifest Your Vision
·The Powers of Synchronicity, Intention, and Attention Can Help Manifest Your Vision
·The Elements of Your Vision Can Be Assembled in a Non-linear Fashion
·Manifesting Your Vision Through Partnering with People and Your Higher Power
·See Your Commitment to Your Vision as a Promise to Yourself and Others
·Use the Energy of a Higher Power to Attract What Is Needed to Manifest Your Vision
·The Way You View Things Is a Key to Manifesting Your Vision

Core Value 7: Visualizing Your Way to Success
·The Power of Visualization
·Using Symbols in a Powerful Way
·Seeing with Your Third or Inner Eye
·Using Mental Imagery to Solve Problems and Shape the Future
·Using Visualization as a Mental Rehearsal of a Desired Outcome
·Using Visual Imagery to Foster Desired Outcomes
·Using Visualization as a Meditative Technique

Core Value 8: Using Expectation to Achieve Results
·Expectation Is an Important Value for Empowering Leaders
·Expectation Helps Shape Reality
·High Expectations Should Start with Ourselves
·People Will Strive to Justify Our Faith in Them
·Positive Expectations Foster Positive Outcomes
·We Are the Mirrors Through Which Others See Themselves
·Others Are the Mirrors Through Which We See Ourselves

Core Value 9: Intuition—Discovering Our Hidden Knowledge
·Intuition Is an Important Resource for Empowering Leaders
·Intuition Is Another Way of Knowing
·Empowering Leaders Should Strive to Trust Their Intuition and Feelings
·It Is Helpful for Empowering Leaders to See Intuition as a Sixth Sense
·How Empowering Leaders Can Become More Intuitive
·Intuition Is One of the Ways We Receive Communication from Our Higher Self
·Ways Empowering Leaders Can Assess How Intuitive They Are

Core Value 10: Using Awareness to Expand Our Perspective
·Awareness Is an Important Core Value for Empowering Leaders
·It Is Important for Empowering Leaders to Be Self-Aware
·Lenses of Awareness Empowering Leaders Will Find Useful
·Expanding Our Repertoire of Lenses of Awareness
·Trying to See from Multiple Vantage Points
·Expanding Our Awareness and Field of Vision
·Some Indicators of Awareness
·Awareness Involves Both Seeing and Understanding

Core Value 11: Using Your Higher Self to Tap into Your Inner Wisdom
·Our Higher Self
·An Inner Guiding Light
·Energizing Our Higher Self
·Accessing Our Higher Self
·Listening to Our Higher Self
·Our Connection to Others
·Our Power Expands When We Act and Speak in Accord with Our Higher Self
·Being Full of Power as Opposed to Being Powerful
·Our Higher Self Endeavors to Guide Us to Do Our Best
·Our Higher Self Helps Us Become Better Versions of Ourselves
·Our Higher Self Helps Us Become Who We Really Are

Core Value 12: Using Openness to Expand Possibilities
·Openness Is a Core Value for Empowering Leaders
·The Higher Aspects of Openness
·Empowering Leaders Create Open Systems
·Empowering Leaders Must Be Open to Many Things
·Opening Your Heart and Mind
·Openness Maximizes Growth and Creativity
·Openness Is the Key to Creating Infinite Potentiality

Bonus Chapter 1 : The Gift of Synchronicity—Our Hidden Guidance System
·Understanding the Gift of Synchronicity
·Meaningful Coincidences Help Shape Our Future
·Meaningful Coincidences Help Us Fulfill our Life’s Purpose(s)
·Increasing Our Awareness of Synchronicity
·Increasing Synchronicity in Our Lives
·Our Synchronistic Helpers
·Expecting the Unexpected
·The Rule of Two’s or Three’s

Bonus Chapter 2: The Gift of Syntropy—Constructive Action
·Syntropy Is an Important Gift for Empowering Leaders
·Making the World Better Is an Important Principle for Empowering Leaders
·Empowering Leaders Must Counter the Force of Entropy
·Finding Order and Opportunity Within Chaos and Disorder
·Fostering Syntropy Within Your Organization
·Being a ‘Strange Attractor’

Afterword
About the Authors
Selected Bibliography

About the Author

Stephen L. Sokolow, the executive director of the Center for Empowered Leadership, is a former superintendent of schools. He previously coauthored The Wise Leader as well as The Spiritual Dimension of Leadership. Dr. Sokolow and his wife, Laney, have two grown children and live in Allentown, New Jersey.

Paul D. Houston is president of the Center for Empowered Leadership and Executive Director, Emeritus of the American Association of School Administrators. He is a prolific author and national speaker on education and leadership. Dr. Houston has three grown children and lives with his fiancée, Dr. Sandra Chapman, in Tucson, Arizona.

Reviews

This book is an outstanding sequel to The Wise Leader and is essential reading, not only for those in leadership positions but for anyone who truly wants to become his or her best self. The 12 Core Values are an invaluable framework for developing skills and attributes that foster empowering relationships. The authors have drawn from the best in social, spiritual, personal, and organizational development, as well as from their own rich experiences and lifelong journeys. I am pleased and proud to recommend The Empowering Leader.
*Bill Milliken, Founder of Communities In Schools and Author of The Last Dropout and From the Rearview Mirror*

Here they go again. Paul Houston and Steve Sokolow have a track record of writing about leadership that cuts to the chaste. In The Empowering Leader, the two draw on experience and wisdom to reveal the heart and soul of leadership. Today's organizations are dominated by the coolness of rationality rather than the warmth of rapture, sentiment and significance. A better path will be hewn only by leaders who are in touch with their potency and passion. Houston and Sokolow show the way. A refreshing departure from today's managerial status quo.
*Terrence E. Deal, author of Leading with Soul and Reframing the Path to School Leadership*

The Empowering Leader, 12 Core Values to Supercharge your Leadership Skills' takes us much beyond their last book The Wise Leader into the depths of effective leadership. We learn about Intention, Intuition (your hidden knowledge), your Higher Self, Openness (to expand possibilities), and much more including two bonus gifts for going deeper—Our Hidden Guidance System, and Constructive Action. If you want to do the right thing, and make it happen in practice, read and absorb The Empowering Leader. Sokolow and Houston take their years of experience and insight into the future of leadership. Here is a book that is at once inspiring and action packed.
*Michael Fullan, professor emeritus, OISE/University of Toronto*

The terrain that leaders of all stripes must now navigate has become increasingly complex, challenging and potentially depleting. The way through the darkest of hours is not only to find the light, but also to be the light. The Empowering Leader handily addresses this seemingly un-addressable truth with enough purity, clarity and direction to make it useful to all who would consider such a prescription. Courage, taken from the French word, “le Coeur” or the heart, is what is called for to address the grittiest of challenges, and acting on behalf of the greater good, instead of self-interest or monetary gain, requires a source of self-renewal and sustainability for both the leader and those who are following. This book provides a lifeline for continuing in the face of tremendous challenges to great leaders.
*Alan M. Blankstein, Founder, Solution Tree and HOPE Foundation, award winning author of "Failure Is Not an Option"*

Stephen and Paul are gifted storytellers and leaders. In this book, they open doorways to new ways of thinking that will stretch and widen any reader's capacity to inspire others. The world needs what they offer within these pages.
*Dawna Markova, author of Collaborative Intelligence: Thinking with People Who Think Differently*