BECOME A BETTER LEADER, RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE, RIGHT NOW.

In Leadership Maxims, Woody Hester shares 12 timeless leadership truths in the context of compelling, real-world stories about success and failure that prove to be powerful catalysts for organizational and personal success.

In 1970, at the age of 24, U.S. Army Captain Woody Hester returned from a tour of duty in Vietnam. He was assigned to his first staff position at the U.S. Army Air Defense Board at Fort Bliss, Texas. He was grateful. A break from the rigors of field duty and the stress of living in a combat environment were welcome. But it would be his first time managing the administrative side of project work and leading a diverse group of uniformed staff and civilians. Projects came with tight schedules and hard deadlines. Millions of dollars were at stake. Failure would cost him, and those who relied on him, greatly.

He was scared. He didn’t have time to learn and apply complicated leadership theory. He needed practical wisdom he could use immediately.

“No matter what you’ve accomplished, somebody helped you.” That was the first of a handful of his favorite leadership quotes and ideas (timeless truths) he tacked to a bulletin board over his newly assigned desk. He cut them out of trade magazines and articles he read. What he didn’t know at the time is that this particular timeless truth, the bulletin board itself, and later additions of other timeless truths would provide the practical wisdom he needed; that they would have a profoundly positive impact on his work at the Air Defense Board, and would continue to mean the difference between success and failure throughout his four-decade career in corporate and professional life.