News Release

31 humanitarian leaders identify the pivotal choices for making a lasting impact on those in need

Book Announcement

SAGE

How do seemingly ordinary people become the kind of leaders who have a meaningful and often lasting impact on the lives of those in need? The authors share their insights and the stories of these remarkable people in a groundbreaking new book, The Humanitarian Leader in Each of Us: 7 Choices That Shape a Socially Responsible Life (a SAGE book).

Based on five years of research, authors Frank LaFasto, Ph.D., and Carl Larson, Ph.D. traced a path of the pivotal choices of 31 humanitarian leaders. They identified leveraging one's own life experiences to connect deeply and personally with a need in society, leading the way for others by creating energy and passion for a worthwhile cause, experiencing a sense of fairness, believing we can matter, and having a predisposition to respond as some of the choices that are key to becoming the kind of leader who takes charge of making a positive difference in the lives of others.

Among the 31 people LaFasto and Larson interviewed were: Susie Scott Krabacher, a former Playboy centerfold who has devoted her life to helping women and children in the desperate slums of Haiti; Ryan Hreljac, who at age 6 launched an organization to build wells in countries where water is scarce; Larry Bradley, a U.S. Army major in Iraq who mobilized an international effort to save the life of one local boy; Bill Sergeant, who led Rotary International's campaign to eradicate polio from the face of the earth; and Inderjit Khurana, a teacher in India who founded a string of train platform schools to educate impoverished street children.

The authors wrote, "We believe that leadership is too often examined as something that occurs in moments of great drama, with the world as its stage, media scurrying and floodlights glaring. We have been reminded, through this research, that leadership often occurs in relatively lonely moments, in small acts of great courage."

In this inspirational new book, LaFasto and Larson expand the domain of leadership, proving that with motivation, energy, and perseverance, anyone can take charge of making a difference in society. The authors show how each of us can translate our good intentions into good deeds—and enrich our own lives along the way.

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The Humanitarian Leader in Each of Us: 7 Choices That Shape a Socially Responsible Life. Click here to read more about the book. Email Camille.gamboa@sagepub.com for more information or if you would like a review copy of the book.


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