Learning from Life: Turning Life's Lessons into Leadership Experience

It’s widely accepted in organizations that experience gained from job assignments and formal training helps managers develop their skills in such areas as implementing agendas, working through relationships, creating change, and increasing personal awareness. If you are a manager who has set developmental goals for yourself, you will be able to achieve those goals through skills you learn and practice both on and off the job. This guidebook shows you how experiences from family relationships, friendships, volunteer work, and personal avocations can enhance your professional growth and effectiveness. This guidebook is for both women and men, to help them achieve a richer and more fruitful interaction between work and personal life.

This series of guidebooks draws on the practical knowledge that the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) has generated, since its inception in 1970, through its research and educational activity conducted in partnership with hundreds of thousands of managers and executives. Much of this knowledge is shared-in a way that is distinct from the typical university department, professional association, or consultancy. CCL is not simply a collection of individual experts, although the individual credentials of its staff are impressive; rather it is a community, with its members holding certain principles in common and working together to understand and generate practical responses to today's leadership and organizational challenges.
The purpose of the series is to provide managers with specific advice on how to complete a developmental task or solve a leadership challenge. In doing that, the series carries out CCL's mission to advance the understanding, practice, and development of leadership for the benefit of society worldwide.

Marian N. Ruderman is a research scientist at CCL. Her research focuses on the career development of women and the impact of diversity on management development processes. Marian is currently project manager of a major study of the choices and tradeoffs of high-achieving women. An associate member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence at Work, she holds a B.A. from Cornell University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in organizational psychology from the University of Michigan.

Patricia J. Ohlott is a research associate at CCL. She is currently project manager for CCL's study of the choices and tradeoffs of high-achieving women. Her research interests include the career development of women managers, the developmental impact of job assignments, and issues relating to the management of diversity in organizations. She has a B.A. in psychology from Yale University and is pursuing a Ph.D. at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business.