Lead and Succeed: Proven Strategies to Develop and Enhance Leadership Skills for Recent Graduates and Early Career Professionals

In contrast to the many books on leadership featuring broad principles and prescribed steps, Scott Cowen's Lead and Succeed is unique in inviting readers to engage in a process of personal development as they begin to build their careers.

With honesty and candor, Cowen describes his own complicated and, at times, thorny path to becoming dean of the Weatherhead School of Management at the age of thirty-eight, president of Tulane University during the Hurricane Katrina crisis, and interim president of Case Western Reserve University during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as serving on several corporate boards during his fifty-year career.

Along the way, Cowen has met and worked with all kinds of leaders, and has seen leadership--and its challenges--in all its shapes and forms. He is clear-eyed, speaks from the heart, and knows what the next generation of leaders need to know in order to start making a lasting positive difference in the world.

Lead and Succeed is also an interactive workbook, with sections at the end of each chapter for writing akin to journal entries. "Reflection Prompts" ask readers to write about their own values, strengths, and vulnerabilities, and "Action Prompts" encourage them, in specific daily acts, to conquer fears, overcome setbacks, and act on deeply held beliefs. The back-and-forth between Cowen's thoughtful memoir and the reader's own unfolding story is the essence of this inspirational book, which shows readers not only how to "be" a leader, but how to become a truly outstanding one.

As both a seasoned leader and a leadership scholar, Scott Cowen brings a wealth of knowledge to the advice in Lead and Succeed. During his career, Cowen has taught and written extensively on leadership, served at the helm of large organizations in both higher education and the corporate sector, led two universities through major crises (Tulane University during Hurricane Katrina and Case Western Reserve University during the COVID-19 pandemic), was a leader in the transformation of public K-12 education in New Orleans, and has served on many for-profit and nonprofit boards.

Time magazine named Cowen one of the nation's Top 10 Best College Presidents and he was appointed to the White House Council for Community Solutions by President Barack Obama. He is a former chair of the Association of American Universities and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Cowen is the recipient of several national awards, including the Carnegie Corporation Academic Leadership Award and TIAA-CREF Theodore M. Hesburgh Award for Leadership Excellence in Higher Education. He also holds honorary degrees from some of the nation's top institutions, including Brown University, the University of Notre Dame, Yeshiva University, the University of Connecticut, and Case Western Reserve University.