Choosing to Lead Against the Current: The Courageous Operating System for Changemakers
Eveline Shen
North Atlantic Books (August 2025)

Here’s a system to maximize organizational strengths, minimize weaknesses, and sustain a compdetitive advantage

For every business book that is published, there are those who will find that book to be of incalculable value to their personal growth and professional development. Eveline Shen has written just such a book.  There are no headsnapping revelations in Choosing to Lead Against the Current but it does offer sound and sensible advice on how those who aspire to become an effective leader can “empower themselves to transform [their] world with integrity, impact, and purpose.”

HOW?

She introduces the Courageous Operating System for Changemakers. More specifically, she explains HOW to achieve these strategic objectives:

o Build a “well of courage”
o Find the right purpose, one that offers a compelling vision
o Cultivate success as an attitude and way of life
o Transform failure to become a valuable learning opportunity
o Increase your presence, appeal, and impact with others
o Take care of yourself
o Create and sustain momdentum
o “Soar” and prevail with the Courageous Operating System for Changemakers

Here are several of the passages that caught my eye:

o Operating Systems That Hold Us Back (Pages 17-27
o Everyday Acts of Courage (35-49)
o Developing a Purposeful Leadership Mindset (69-74
o Success and Failures (87-88
o The Multiple Dimensions of Success (88-93

o Defining Success for Ourselves (93-108
o Aligning Values and Success: A Case Study (99-104
o Examining the Benefits/Fruits of Failure (115-123
o Assessing and Addressing Your Leadership Needs (149-157)
0 Knowing and Growing Your Set of Internal Resources  (158-149)

o Activating Your Superpower of Self-Growth (172-178
o Powering Up My Leadership: A Case Study(179-184)
o Journeys of Self-Discovery (192-197
o Creating Momentum by Consolidating a Critical Mass of Support (226-233
o Working with the Staff on Defining Success  (249-261)

I commend Eveline Shen on a brilliant achievement. Business leaders and especially change agents will appreciate having an abundance of information, insights, and counsel available in a single source.

I conclude with some observations provided by two of the most highly respected authorities on organizational transformation. First, from John Kotter: “The single most difficult challenge to achieve is changing how you think about change.” And then from James O’Toole, who asserts that the strongest resistance to change tends to be cultural in nature, the result of what he so aptly characterizes as “the ideology of comfort and the tyranny oƒ custom.

* * *

Here are two suggestions while you are reading Choosing to Lead Against the Current: First, highlight key passages. Also,  perhaps in a notebook kept near-at-hand (e.g. Apica Premium C.D. Notebook A5), record your comments, questions, and action steps (preferably with deadlines), as well as res[onding togther “Your Turn” material. Pay special attention to the Illustrations in Chapters 1,2,3, and 6, and to each of the mini-case studies (Pages 99-104, 131-138, 179-184, 236-242, and 242-243).

These two simple tactics — highlighting and documenting — will expedite frequent reviews of key material later.