The Radical Leap

Steve Farber, a former vice president of the Tom Peters Company, presents his model of Extreme Leadership as a business parable. Its central character, Steve, is a leadership consultant who meets an enigmatic surfer called Edg on a California beach and learns the idea of the L.E.A.P.: cultivate love, generate energy, inspire audacity and provide proof. He is then called on to help a friend, Janice, with conflicts at her biotech employer and with bringing back its former chief executive. Leaders in this model accept risk, let employees see their mistakes and ask staff for feedback. It appeared on a list of 100 Best Business Books of All Time and was reissued in a tenth anniversary edition.

Drew McLellan, founder of McLellan Marketing Group, named it among the books he would suggest to young people interested in his career path.