Step Up: Lead in Six Moments that Matter

An Amazon Top 10 Business Book on Leadership & Emotional Intelligence

Boost your personal impact and make a real difference by learning how to build Emotional Safety® with emotional intelligence and leadership.

No matter what your title or place on the organization chart, you have the potential to be a leader—or more precisely, the potential to exercise leadership in the moments that matter most. Leadership is not a job title or position, but rather an action. In certain moments and situations, anyone can rise to the occasion to act as a leader—gaining respect, confidence, and ultimately greater success in the organization.

But how can you recognize these moments where leadership is required, and then know what to do?

Step Up: Lead in Six Moments That Matter explains six critical “leadership moments”—everyday instances when you have a choice to shine or let an opportunity pass you by.

Based on our research and extensive client work, we identify six regularly occurring moments and help you understand how to act wisely and decisively when those moments arise, showing how to:

  • Get angry, not stupid
  • Avoid terminal politeness
  • Decide already
  • Act when you are the problem
  • Leverage pessimism
  • Reverse momentum

Step Up: Lead in Six Moments That Matter is a guide to exercising leadership when it matters most, boosting your personal impact and effectiveness, and making a real difference while creating a culture of Emotional Safety®.

{“If you think that emotional intelligence is about being nice or avoiding conflict and you see yourself as a leader, you’d better get this bookStep Up introduces you to the nitty-gritty of emotionally intelligent leadership. You’ll find examples and suggestions on how to handle negative emotions and arm yourself for those make-or-break leadership moments.”
J. Stein, Ph.D.
Author
Emotional Intelligence for Dummies
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“As Evans and Foster so wisely point out in Step Up, most often leadership is in the moment. Drawing on their considerable experience, Evans and Foster identify six critical opportunities to lead, and they offer practical and tangible ideas about how anyone can ‘step up’ and take ownership of these moments. This book artfully unravels many of the complexities and demystifies the actions needed to make something positive happen. Step Up is a valuable addition to the library of all leaders who want to make their teams and organizations more effective.”

Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner
Authors
The Leadership Challenge
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“Evans and Foster point out that leadership is something we all do, even if we didn’t understand our role as leaders before. With examples from widely-known leaders and case studies from their consulting practice, Step Up shows how to manage and listen to our anger and anxiety, improving our mental models and creating emotional safety around us. This lively, accurate, and practical book will inspire readers.”

John D. Mayer
Professor of Psychology
University of New Hampshire
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“Innovation requires decisiveness and tough discussions where assumptions and ideas are explored and challenged.  In Step Up, Evans and Foster give a roadmap to help any organization gain a competitive edge by igniting leadership at every level of the organization.”

Soren Kaplan, Ph.D.
Author
Wall Street Journal bestseller Leapfrogging
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“Evans and Foster provide a catalyst for reflection as well as resources and tools for practice. I look forward to sharing Step Up with the leaders I work with as an internal executive coach. I know this will make a difference for them and the teams they lead.”

Bob Andrews
Director, Executive Coaching
Gap Inc.
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“At the FBI, we realized that the most successful agents consistently demonstrated specific behaviors for building trust and credibility in the field. Evans and Foster do a great job of explaining the skills and competencies required for successful leadership. This is an easy-to-follow guide for generating leadership in both public and private sector organizations.”

Supervisory Special Agent Tim Turner (retired)
FBI Academy, Ed.D, Associate Professor
Anderson University and Columbia Southern University