Leadership is the buzzword of the twenty‐first century. Who is a leader? What qualities do the best leaders have? Are leaders born or made? It's a bull market for leadership books, and that should not surprise us. Because of the increasing rate of change in the marketplace we are looking for ways to adapt, improve, and increase performance. With over 20,000 books on leadership available, it's difficult to come across a new idea that the great thinkers and philosophers have not written about in the past 2,400 years. Therefore, I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel; I'm simply trying to share the proven leadership strategies that achieve business results. These strategies are based on research and my own experience over the past 34 years. These ideas are not based on consulting assignments; they are based on my street‐tested strategies and tactics working side by side with advisors, managers, and clients.

Within the wealth management industry, these questions about leadership are critically important as the industry overall is undergoing a revolution. In situations where advisors traditionally make recommendations and act (or not) based on their clients' responses, today's successful wealth management requires strong leadership to build client relationships and construct full wealth management plans to achieve the life goals of clients. Today, an advisor must be a leader. It is nonnegotiable.

Let's look at it from the history of humankind and how we survived and evolved over the years. For millions of years, humans lived as hunter‐gatherers. Then humans shifted to farming for thousands of years, then to the age of industry for hundreds of years, and then to the Information Age for several decades. And the next age upon us is the age of augmentation. Each shift has happened faster than the one before it. Our ability to evolve with each new phase requires strong leaders to learn and adapt faster than they have had to in the past.

Part One of this book focuses on identifying and defining the leadership qualities you need to set yourself apart from the 300,000 advisors in the United States. From communication to collaboration, from creating a vision to establishing a culture, from recruiting to coaching, and from courage to empowerment and gratitude, these are just some of the leadership topics covered in these chapters. The chapters I cover in Part One are based on my observations for the past three decades of what the most effective leaders have done to achieve success and what they are doing today to grow a wealth management business. The overall theme revolves around delivering a truly holistic, consultative and customized solution for the high‐net‐worth client. I emphasize the importance of creating deeper relationships versus focusing on transactions. Leveraging new technologies in your business creates more scale and efficiency, leaving you more time to build and deepen relationships. You may need to reevaluate your relationships with people in your life and on your team. Critical to this process is making sure that you are taking care of yourself. The focus is on the soft skills and that internal dialogue. It's about our belief system and the demons that we are trying to shake off and rise above.

Just as we approach the client relationship holistically we will approach the advisor's relationship the same way. Over the years I have seen tactical business plans that simply don't have staying power because the plan lacks vision, purpose, and strategy. Many advisors simply keep doing the same things and expecting different results. These qualities are becoming more critical than ever because the advice business is changing right in front of us. The historic purview was narrowly focused around investment solutions. The future of advice needs to be much broader in scope and depth. It needs to include discussion of liabilities, tax and estate planning, insurance needs, healthcare planning, assistance with budgeting and spending controls, cash flow analysis, and legacy planning. The past was about seeking alpha returns and that was the differentiator for choosing one wealth manager over another. The future will be about helping clients achieve their goals—all of their goals. Therefore, the right leadership will set the right vision and strategy to evolve to these changing needs and take market share.