Play & Book Excerpts
The Sixth Level
(Amplify Publishing)
© SFRWAKO, LLC
What This Book Is
This is a leadership book that describes a mindset and accompanying behaviors that transform the conventional paradigms of leadership.
It challenges us to find our authenticity in relation to others. It rejects formulaic scripts and roles; it embraces a “feeling intellect” (Rieff 1975). It connects and appreciates others, dispels fear and alienation, and fosters a sense of belonging and partnership.
The four Core Differentiators, when practiced together, elevate individuals, teams, and organizations through unifying principles that serve human interests. We explain the definitions of these in Chapter 1 and share examples of them in Chapters 5 through 8.
What You Will Discover
Based on women’s social psychology, The Sixth Level argues that women have more often and characteristically demonstrated forms of leadership based on human connection, which are Self-in-Relation. The characteristics of such leadership stand in contrast to leadership based on forms of domination and control. You will see these differences as you read each contributor’s narrative in Chapters 5 through 8. Our contributors lead organizations that collectively represent over $18.7 billion in annual revenue and over 47,000 employees. Each narrative recounts a specific point in time when the leader faced a challenge or opportunity that impacted their entire organization. Each leader reveals her principles and practices that enabled her to tackle the challenge or leverage the opportunity using unconventional and sometimes less tested strategies. These narratives illustrate a leadership approach to sustainable and profitable operations and change. Embedded in these illustrations are leadership principles that have improved the performance of the company organizationally and/or financially. In many of the cases, the exemplars express what they wanted the people in their workforce to experience.
The chapters also describe successful outcomes and how they served the entire organization. For example, what worked for Andreasson’s situation wouldn’t have necessarily worked in Slesh’s, but lessons from each can be applied to any workplace.
What This Book Is Not
This is not a “women’s book.”
This is a book for all of us who want to bring vitality to our organizations that is generative and affirming. Such leadership rejects hierarchies of power that are primarily transactional rather than relational.
This is not a “blame game.”
There is a difference in identifying and critiquing systems versus blaming people. In this regard, we contrast conventional leadership, which is entrenched in the patriarchal social system, to Sixth Level leadership. Both men and women are harmed by the worst of patriarchy and have been subject to its socializations. We did not make the system, but we are in it, we sustain it, and we have a hard time breaking through barriers because we are immersed in it. We have adapted to its demands or risked suffering stigmatization. But we are conscious and self-conscious beings, fully able, once we see it, to move toward our own health and the health of others. If you see that harm has resulted from your leadership practice, there is an alternative. The contributors’ narratives provide all of us with an awareness that there are different and better, healthier, and more sustainable ways to lead.
While we can each do our own individual part, together we can move more quickly and create an effective movement toward a new paradigm. The Sixth Level makes us ask tough questions of ourselves, our leaders, and the people in our organizations.
This does not solve all the world’s problems.
When we stop and consider all the world’s problems, from politics to the environment, for example, we can easily be overwhelmed. As such, the book limits its subjects to leadership and business. However, this book is a gateway, and when applied, the principles and processes can inform and facilitate the success of every healing cause and movement. We know that collectively we can do more than individually.
This is not a wait-and-see book.
This is a book that will make you think about the paradigms within which you live and how you might be contributing to our paralysis. We challenge readers to reflect on collective human history and think about our current state. Understand The Sixth Level and how each of the core differentiators work so that together we can create a movement, an ingenious way to move forward.
What Are the Takeaways of Each Section?
This book is set up to educate, offer viable and practical solutions, and prompt action through reflective exercises and activities.
Section One: Capitalize on the Power of Women’s Psychology for Sustainable Leadership provides the reader with an understanding that the cause of our crisis is systemic. Looking from the outside in, this book calls out a system that has infiltrated our thinking and our ways of living and has clouded our vision on what it takes to be a caring leader. To achieve our collective goals for creating sustainable communities that reach better financial returns, the reader should understand the psychological concept of toggling and how this activates the four Core Differentiators that lead to Sixth Level leadership.
Section Two: Case Studies of Sixth Level Leadership provides powerful personal narratives from seasoned leaders who demonstrate how Sixth Level leadership has achieved better outcomes for their organizations and their people. With a synthesis of lessons learned about the Core Differentiators, readers will have models and tactics to practice themselves in their own organizations.
Section Three: The Sixth Level Advantage summarizes the model that produces better outcomes. The afterword shares a vision of what is possible when The Sixth Level is understood, adopted, and implemented. You will achieve compounded value using the reflective exercises that can help you be a more effective leader, create more unified teams, and build more sustainable organizations.
Call to Action
Each one of us has amazing power to influence and engage those around us. The Sixth Level demonstrates that a Self-in-Relation mindset combined with strong mutuality yields sustainable change and gains momentum for a movement.
This is a leadership book that describes a mindset and accompanying behaviors that transform the conventional paradigms of leadership.
It challenges us to find our authenticity in relation to others. It rejects formulaic scripts and roles; it embraces a “feeling intellect” (Rieff 1975). It connects and appreciates others, dispels fear and alienation, and fosters a sense of belonging and partnership.
The four Core Differentiators, when practiced together, elevate individuals, teams, and organizations through unifying principles that serve human interests. We explain the definitions of these in Chapter 1 and share examples of them in Chapters 5 through 8.
What You Will Discover
- A critique of the patriarchal paradigm that has systematically rendered invisible and rejected critical forms of women’s leadership that contribute to more
- Strategies and techniques for the workplace that embrace Dr. Jean Baker Miller and the Stone Center scholars’ theory on women’s social psychology.
- Models of Sixth Level leadership through exemplary cases by women leaders.
Based on women’s social psychology, The Sixth Level argues that women have more often and characteristically demonstrated forms of leadership based on human connection, which are Self-in-Relation. The characteristics of such leadership stand in contrast to leadership based on forms of domination and control. You will see these differences as you read each contributor’s narrative in Chapters 5 through 8. Our contributors lead organizations that collectively represent over $18.7 billion in annual revenue and over 47,000 employees. Each narrative recounts a specific point in time when the leader faced a challenge or opportunity that impacted their entire organization. Each leader reveals her principles and practices that enabled her to tackle the challenge or leverage the opportunity using unconventional and sometimes less tested strategies. These narratives illustrate a leadership approach to sustainable and profitable operations and change. Embedded in these illustrations are leadership principles that have improved the performance of the company organizationally and/or financially. In many of the cases, the exemplars express what they wanted the people in their workforce to experience.
The chapters also describe successful outcomes and how they served the entire organization. For example, what worked for Andreasson’s situation wouldn’t have necessarily worked in Slesh’s, but lessons from each can be applied to any workplace.
What This Book Is Not
This is not a “women’s book.”
This is a book for all of us who want to bring vitality to our organizations that is generative and affirming. Such leadership rejects hierarchies of power that are primarily transactional rather than relational.
This is not a “blame game.”
There is a difference in identifying and critiquing systems versus blaming people. In this regard, we contrast conventional leadership, which is entrenched in the patriarchal social system, to Sixth Level leadership. Both men and women are harmed by the worst of patriarchy and have been subject to its socializations. We did not make the system, but we are in it, we sustain it, and we have a hard time breaking through barriers because we are immersed in it. We have adapted to its demands or risked suffering stigmatization. But we are conscious and self-conscious beings, fully able, once we see it, to move toward our own health and the health of others. If you see that harm has resulted from your leadership practice, there is an alternative. The contributors’ narratives provide all of us with an awareness that there are different and better, healthier, and more sustainable ways to lead.
While we can each do our own individual part, together we can move more quickly and create an effective movement toward a new paradigm. The Sixth Level makes us ask tough questions of ourselves, our leaders, and the people in our organizations.
This does not solve all the world’s problems.
When we stop and consider all the world’s problems, from politics to the environment, for example, we can easily be overwhelmed. As such, the book limits its subjects to leadership and business. However, this book is a gateway, and when applied, the principles and processes can inform and facilitate the success of every healing cause and movement. We know that collectively we can do more than individually.
This is not a wait-and-see book.
This is a book that will make you think about the paradigms within which you live and how you might be contributing to our paralysis. We challenge readers to reflect on collective human history and think about our current state. Understand The Sixth Level and how each of the core differentiators work so that together we can create a movement, an ingenious way to move forward.
What Are the Takeaways of Each Section?
This book is set up to educate, offer viable and practical solutions, and prompt action through reflective exercises and activities.
Section One: Capitalize on the Power of Women’s Psychology for Sustainable Leadership provides the reader with an understanding that the cause of our crisis is systemic. Looking from the outside in, this book calls out a system that has infiltrated our thinking and our ways of living and has clouded our vision on what it takes to be a caring leader. To achieve our collective goals for creating sustainable communities that reach better financial returns, the reader should understand the psychological concept of toggling and how this activates the four Core Differentiators that lead to Sixth Level leadership.
Section Two: Case Studies of Sixth Level Leadership provides powerful personal narratives from seasoned leaders who demonstrate how Sixth Level leadership has achieved better outcomes for their organizations and their people. With a synthesis of lessons learned about the Core Differentiators, readers will have models and tactics to practice themselves in their own organizations.
Section Three: The Sixth Level Advantage summarizes the model that produces better outcomes. The afterword shares a vision of what is possible when The Sixth Level is understood, adopted, and implemented. You will achieve compounded value using the reflective exercises that can help you be a more effective leader, create more unified teams, and build more sustainable organizations.
Call to Action
Each one of us has amazing power to influence and engage those around us. The Sixth Level demonstrates that a Self-in-Relation mindset combined with strong mutuality yields sustainable change and gains momentum for a movement.
PAUSE.
Think about what is at stake. Feel the energy for change.
NOTICE.
How the system distorts our humanity.
How much further our shared humanity could take us.
ACT.
Be better. Do better. Together.
NOW!
This is a call to action.
Think about what is at stake. Feel the energy for change.
NOTICE.
How the system distorts our humanity.
How much further our shared humanity could take us.
ACT.
Be better. Do better. Together.
NOW!
This is a call to action.
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Stacy Feiner, Psy.D., is an accomplished psychologist, entrepreneur, investor, and mother. She champions the aspirations and ambitions of family businesses with a pro growth, pro health approach that untangles conflict, strengthens emotional dynamics, and facilitates growth. Dr. Feiner founded her firm in 2018 to support the unique needs of private enterprises and ensure they thrive. Committed to optimal results, she collaborates with experts from various disciplines to execute unconventional solutions. Curious about people’s lives, Dr. Feiner has lived in eight US cities, traveled to nine countries, and lived in Japan. Trained as a Doctor of Psychology (PsyD), Dr. Feiner worked in college counseling as a psychotherapist and in corporate settings as a performance coach at Vassar College, Merrill Lynch (licensed 7 and 63), Key Bank, and BDO USA. In 2015, Dr. Feiner published her first book, Talent Mindset.
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Photo Courtesy: Stacy Feiner
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Rachel Wallis Andreasson, MBA, executive, writer, and collaborator, believes the right people come into your life at the right time for a specific purpose. Rachel has a passion for supporting women and helping them build their network. She joined her family business during its first major acquisition and then built infrastructure, people, and family governance systems for the next twenty-four years. She was the first woman to become president of the Missouri State Association for the convenience store industry, and she was awarded the Leadership Award by her peers while earning her MBA at Washington University. After serving in various leadership positions in her family business, Rachel became the CEO, overseeing 1,100 team members. Rachel serves on a bank board, is a mentor, and is a founding member of a community foundation where she continues to oversee a learning center that serves one hundred children in rural Missouri.
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Photo Courtesy: Rachel Wallis Andreasson
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Kathy K. Overbeke, DBA, family business consultant, entrepreneur, researcher, and author, draws on her experience as an entrepreneur and practitioner-scholar to help individuals and businesses discover strengths to conceive new possibilities and reach desired outcomes. She is a family business advisor and executive coach who works with Fortune 500, middle-market, and small businesses. Dr. Overbeke has published original research in academic journals and has presented her research internationally. She has also published in popular journals such as Psychology Today. She was an entrepreneur for over twenty-five years before returning to school to earn her doctorate in management. Subsequently she founded GPS: Generation Planning Strategies, LLC, joined the executive coaching staff at Case Western Reserve University, and became an adjunct professor of leadership, marketing, and independent studies at various colleges.
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Photo Courtesy: Kathy K. Overbeke
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Jack D. Harris, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York, owner and principal consultant, Harris Consulting Associates, LLC, brings more than forty-five years of successful experience in higher education as well as management and consulting positions with the government and businesses. Jack has served as a professor of sociology at Hobart and William Smith Colleges (HWS) since 1974. Dr. Harris was twice president of the New York State Sociological Association. Dr. Harris directed the men’s studies minor at HWS, the first degree program in men’s studies in the United States. He teaches courses on men and masculinity, the sociology of business and management, the sociology of community, and senior seminar research practicum.
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Photo Courtesy: Jack D. Harris
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