Helping leaders escape from the beliefs and behaviors that limit them
Trade Up! outlines the steps to great leadership in Rayona Sharpnack’s theory of 'contextual leadership.' Sharpnack, a Silicon Valley luminary and an executive coach to some of the world’s most powerful woman executives, teaches leaders that the key to success is 'trading up' to a new mindset or point of view that will help them achieve their goals. Sharpnack reveals that a set of automatic responses are triggered when people fail to recognize the unconscious beliefs or perspectives they hold. Once these deeply held beliefs are brought to the surface and acknowledged, it is possible to let them go and create a new, more accurate belief system, or 'context,' that will create better and more powerful action. Sharpnack offers a practical methodology for recognizing one's context, and offers tools for how to shift it, or trade up, to bring about positive change. Filled with stories of leaders who have triumphantly traded up to achieve greatness, along with personal tips, exercises, and advice, Trade Up! challenges readers to answer the question 'How good am I willing to let my life be?'
Rayona Sharpnack (Redwood City, CA) is the founder and CEO of the Institute for Women’s Leadership (IWL), where she teaches and mentors some of the most powerful women in the world through her IWL workshops–Women Leading Change and the advanced Executives Leading Sustainable Change. She has been training managers and executives in the principles and skills of leadership since 1992, with clients that include Microsoft, Boeing, Agilent Technologies, Charles Schwab, FedEx, and The GAP. A popular speaker, Sharpnack has appeared at such venues as Harvard Women’s Forum, Hewlett Packard's National Women's Leadership conference, Institute of Executive Development, and National Association of Women in Medicine.
