Leaders Get Real

Long-time friend, former colleague and best-selling author Steve Farber joins me as a Guest on LeadersGetReal. Steve's first book, The Radical Leap: A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership,received Fast Company's Readers' Choice Award and was recently named one of the 100 Best Business Books of All Time. His second book, The Radical Edge, was hailed as "a playbook for harnessing the power of the human spirit." His third book, Greater Than Yourself: The Ultimate Lesson In Leadership, was a Wall Street Journal® and USA Today® bestseller.

Steve has been named one of Inc's global Top 50 Leadership and Management Experts. Steve is currently an Inc columnist as well as a sought after speaker who combines quick-witted humor with poignant leadership truths. Steve's Radical LEAP framework is widely used across business, non-profits and education. He has been credited with redefining leadership in deeply personal yet practical terms and re-energizing thousands of people to make a significant difference in their businesses, lives, and the world around them.

In 1989, after having run his own financial services company, Steve became a director at TMI, and then worked for 6 years as Vice President and Official Mouthpiece (that's what it said on his business card) of The Tom Peters Company where he met several of his mentors including author / gurus Tom Peters, Jim Kouzes, and Terry Pearce. In 2000, Steve established his own company, Extreme Leadership, Inc, where he is president and CEO, as well as founder of the Extreme Leadership Institute.

He and his wife Veronica live in San Diego, California. He is proud of his "dubious achievement" of raising teenagers for 25 straight years.

Vanessa Russell has spent over 20 years leading technology and sales organizations in the tech industry. By day, Vanessa is a leader at Cisco Systems, running a 3.4 billion dollar global business, driving the adoption of new business models, products and services as a Senior Sales Business Development Manager, and leading a team of 22 systems engineers.

On top of that, Vanessa is the founder of Love Never Fails, a non-profit dedicated to the protection and restoration of women and youth who are being exploited by domestic human trafficking.Love Never Fails has educated thousands of children and community members and provides rescue, safe housing and transformative opportunities for dozens of women and their children each year.

Terry Pearce has authored four books; the most popular, Leading Out Loud, is currently in its third edition. He also wrote, Clicks and Mortar with then Charles Schwab Ceo David Pottruck, which was hailed by New York Times as the "best handbook for operating in the new economy of the internet." Terry is Founder and President of Leadership Communication, consulting with high-profile corporate, political and community leaders. Business Week magazine called him the "eminence grisè" of leadership coaches.

He spent 17 years with IBM early in his career. In the 80's he worked extensively in citizen diplomacy, and pioneered American business activities in the Soviet Union. He's also a former Senior Vice President for Charles Schwab & Co.

Terry was an Adjunct Professor at The Haas Graduate School of Business, at UC Berkeley, and has served as visiting faculty at The London Business School for the MBA program and the Sloan Fellowship Programme, and thought leader in Stanford University's Graduate School of Business Ethics and Leadership Roundtable.

Scott Kriens, Chairman and former CEO of Juniper Networks, has been in the tech industry for more than 35 years. Scott helped found Juniper in 1996. During his leadership tenure, he has served as CEO and now Chairman, growing the company to more than 10,000 employees in over 100 countries worldwide and $4 billion in revenue. Passionate about authenticity in relationships, in 2010 Scott and his wife Joanie founded 1440 Foundation, named for the 1,440 minutes in each day to live more connected, mindful and compassionate lives. Scott and the 1440 team are now building 1440 Multiversity, a state-of-the-art immersive learning destination opening in May 2017 in the Santa Cruz Redwoods, on the outskirts of Silicon Valley. The 75-acre campus will offer weekend and 5-day courses on leadership, personal growth and wellness, taught by world-class faculty, such as Peter Senge, Dan Siegel, Elizabeth Gilbert and more. It will house up to 375 guests and support individuals in leading more integrated lives.

Jim Kouzes is a bestselling author, an award-winning speaker and, according to the Wall Street Journal, one of the best executive educators in America. In this podcast, Jim discusses his most recent book, Learning Leadership. Jim is the co-author of The Leadership Challenge, which has sold over two million copies since its first edition and has been translated into 20 languages.

Amazon describes The Leadership Challenge as, "the most trusted resource on becoming a leader." Other books by Jim Kouzes & Barry Posner include: Credibility, The Truth About Leadership, Encouraging the Heart, A Leader's Legacy.

Kirsten Wolberg is a Vice President at PayPal. She was the executive who led the separation of eBay and PayPal into 2 public companies. Prior to leading that strategic effort, she was the VP of Technology. Currently, she is PayPal's Vice President of Talent. Kirsten has over 20 years experience in leading Technology, Product, Operations and Strategy. She served as Vice President of Technology at Charles Schwab. She also led salesforce.com's IT organization to the cloud as their Chief Information Officer, managing a $100 million dollar budget.