Lessons in Leadership
About the Book
As the founder and president of SCAD, Paula Wallace has reshaped higher education and transformed creative industries.
In Lessons in Leadership, Wallace describes a new model for leaders informed by her more than 50 years of experience as
an educator, entrepreneur, university founder, and chief executive. Drawing from research, interviews, and her own lifetime
of stories — as she transformed a tiny art school into the world’s most comprehensive university for creative professions
— she provides 10 practical and immediately applicable lessons for new and established leaders. With wit and warmth,
Wallace empowers readers to apply these lessons in their work, studies, and life writ large.
Purchase Lessons in Leadership at shopSCAD or Amazon. An ebook is also available for purchase from Kindle and Apple.
The Lessons
Meet a need
For any enterprise to be successful, a leader must identify a clear and present need, gap, or opportunity to improve the human condition.
Expect and champion change
Time marches on and what worked in the past will one day not, maybe sooner than you hoped.
Overdeliver
Surprise your clients, customers, and partners by surpassing their expectations in unanticipated ways.
Kill your darlings
As a leader, your mind is in perpetual motion, where new ideas endlessly appear. They won’t all be winners.
Aspire to be best-in-class
Meet a need and do so with unmatched quality and pizzazz. Surprise and delight make the world go ’round.
Teach each, don’t boss
The best leaders share knowledge and expertise with their teams. Teach the why, how, who, what, and where.
Triangulate
Discover your best ideas and solutions by applying the rule of threes through research, creativity, and timing.
Whisper, don’t yell
As a leader, you wield tremendous power and influence. Be calm, be confident, and be quiet.
Forget more than you remember
Discard past failures and treasure only the memories of your successes.
Transcend your title
Whatever leadership role you aspire to, the idea in your head of what this job will require of you is very likely too narrow. Embrace all of it.
About the Author
Further Reading
Explore more insights and inspiration from Paula S. Wallace in transformative titles on interior design, couture, and a life of creative leadership.
