The leadership book that tells you what to actually say.
You were promoted. You have a team. The people are watching - and nobody taught you how to have the conversations that leadership actually requires.
Most leadership books give you principles. This one gives you scripts, frameworks, and twenty-two conversational skills you can use in your very next one-on-one, your very next difficult conversation, your very next Monday morning.
LEAD Where You Stand is the practical companion to LEAD with Clarity: The Architecture of Conversational Mastery. It translates the LEAD(TM) Coaching Model - developed over sixteen years of professional coaching practice across Asia-Pacific - into a field guide for leaders who will never attend a coaching programme but who lead people every day.
What makes this book different:
- It doesn't just teach you to think differently - it teaches you to talk differently. Every chapter includes word-for-word dialogue, coaching scripts, and conversational frameworks set in real organisational contexts.
- It teaches Short-Cycle LEAD - a five-minute micro-coaching method for the conversations that constitute most of real leadership.
- Twenty-two skills, not theory. Each skill is named, defined, demonstrated in dialogue, and paired with a self-evaluation so you can track your growth.
- It addresses the conversations leaders dread most - feedback, underperformance, delegation, managing former peers, and conflict - with complete worked examples.
- It is culturally grounded. Written from sixteen years of practice across Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand, this book navigates hierarchy, face, indirect communication, and relational complexity in ways most Western-framed leadership books do not.
The book is organised in four sections:
Section I - The Shift Nobody Trains You For: The identity transformation from individual contributor to people leader - the psychological and relational recalibration most programmes skip entirely.
Section II - LEAD in Action: The full LEAD model at practitioner level - Lead Outcomes, Examine, Explore and Evoke, Aligned Insights, and Decide and Act - through scripts, transcripts, and immediate-use exercises.
Section III - The Hard Conversations: Feedback that builds. Performance conversations that preserve dignity. Delegation as development. Leading former peers. Navigating conflict. Each chapter demonstrates exactly how the model works under pressure.
Section IV - Sustaining the Practice: The Learn-Apply-Embed framework for building conversational skills that last, plus a complete resource toolkit.
Includes ten appendices: LEAD(TM) Quick Reference, Master Skills Inventory, Individual Development Plan, Mentor Coaching Guide, the LEAD Conversation Compass(TM), Programme Design Guide, and more.
For: New and experienced managers, team leaders, senior leaders, military officers, HR and L&D professionals, internal coaches, and anyone responsible for developing people through conversation.
Part of the LEAD with Clarity series by Jedidiah 'Jedi' Alex Koh.
