Integrity Switch: A Guide for Aspiring, Developing, and Emerging Leaders

Integrity Switch is presented as a leadership training guide targeting aspiring, developing, and emerging leaders.

Aspiring: Have you discovered a gift, passion, or interest in leading others?

Developing: Do you recognize a need to grow, perhaps even change some aspects of how you are leading?

Emerging: Have you been placed in a position of leadership with little or no formal training? Perhaps you are on the verge of that opportunity yet feel unprepared.

Joel Dearing draws from an entire career, where leadership was required, and shares the lessons learned. "Coach D's" experiences as a collegiate coach, athletic administrator, college professor, and small business owner come to life with a special blend of stories, challenges confronted, and his own leadership training tools.

You will discover a unique leadership framework guided by four directional arrows representing challenging topics every leader confronts:

What forms the foundation of your leadership approach?What are your blind spots and how do you unpack failure?To what degree are you an independent thinker, framing and re-framing issues for yourself?What does it mean to stand in the gap with integrity and inspire others?

You won't want to skip the upfront material:

A dedication to a father.A foreword providing military leadership insights, previewing key elements of the book.A preface presenting a one-act play called "The Integrity Switch," which is the origin of the book's title.An introduction illustrating the development of both the A2B2 Leadership Framework and the leadership scales presented in each chapter.

Even the most experienced leader will need at least one pause to stop-and-think, and turn down a corner of one page, if only from one of the handful of touching memories shared about a dad mentoring his son.

Integrity Switch was intentionally written for readers who may prefer to browse the Table of Contents and start with any section or series of chapters. While coaches and sports leaders will appreciate the anecdotes, insights, and real triumphs and failures depicted, the lessons are relatable to leaders in any field.

Joel Dearing coached women's and men's volleyball over a span of 30 years and a total of 40 seasons (Roger Williams University 1981-89), then (Springfield from 1989-2010). Dearing had a career record of 899-384, coached 10 All-Americans and his Springfield men's team finished the 1996 season #1 and undefeated in NCAA Division III. During his career, he conducted volleyball clinics in Argentina, Aruba, Bermuda, China, and Ireland.Author of Volleyball Fundamentals (1st and 2nd editions) and The Untold Story of William G. Morgan - Inventor of Volleyball, Coach "D"also served for over 25 years on the USA Volleyball CADRE (National Faculty). He owned and operated Dearing Volleyball School, Inc. from1991-2017, and launched Dearing Leadership, LLC. in 2018. He was honored in 2013 by the International Volleyball Hall of Fame as the Mintonette Medallion of Merit Award honoree, and in 2019 by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes as an inductee into the FCA Hall of Champions. He was inducted into the Springfield College Athletic Hall of Fame (2015), the Roger Williams University Athletic Hall of Fame (2019), and the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Hall of Fame (2019). In addition to his coaching career, Dearing served as Director of Athletics at Roger Williams University and Graduate Program Director for athletic administration at Springfield College.