Prepare to be entertained, educated, and enlightened all at the same time. Based on a successful leadership and consulting career spanning four decades and four global industries, Paul S. Zygielbaum reveals the fundamentals of effective leadership, and especially the role of courage. He does so by leading us through many entertaining and illuminating stories of his work with executives, middle managers, first-level supervisors and individual contributors. His narrative invokes iconic characters from "The Wizard of Oz" to demonstrate the personal and professional qualities that are most important to successful leadership, presenting these ideas as lessons that Dorothy, cast as a student of leadership, learns along her Yellow Brick Road. At the end, the Wizard teaches Dorothy, and us, a last, transcendent lesson that is not only about leadership, but about living a successful life. Zygielbaum draws on various sources from business literature, as well as his professional interactions with top executives of global giants like Hewlett Packard, General Electric, and Raytheon, and stretching from the Washington Beltway's bureaucratic offices to Cold War Moscow's sequestered engineering laboratories. In specific areas of business knowledge, such as manufacturing and product development, Zygielbaum provides fresh insight into where success comes from, and he relates these ideas back to the fundamental qualities of leadership. This book stands out among modern business books by analyzing courage as an attribute and calling attention to the different kinds of courage that successful leaders must summon in various circumstances. Behind the words of this book, the reader will not fail to perceive that Zygielbaum is well qualified to discuss these matters. The book should appeal to leaders in any type of endeavor, as well as others who aspire to leadership or who seek to understand how to evaluate and interact more effectively with the leaders around them.
Paul S. Zygielbaum has over 40 years' professional leadership experience in engineering, manufacturing, operations, sales, strategic business development, and executive consulting. His contributions span the worldwide aerospace, electric utility, electronic communications and biomedical device industries. He is known especially for turning around troubled businesses. Most recently, Mr. Zygielbaum was a co-founder, member of the board, CEO and president of C8 MediSensors, a medical device startup, from which position he retired in 2013. Mr. Zygielbaum holds advanced degrees in engineering and business. He has published over 20 technical journal papers, reviews and articles in the fields of aerospace and energy technologies and public health. Mr. Zygielbaum has served as a volunteer on technical committees and boards of various engineering societies and on boards and committees of various non-profit human service and educational organizations. As a long-term survivor of mesothelioma, he is also a noted advocate for the rights of asbestos-poisoning victims, for banning the commercial use of asbestos, and for improving medical treatments for patients.
