To order a copy, email kmw@wasylyshyn.com

This collection of poems, Standing on Marbles, is based on three patterns of leadership behavior the author has observed in her work with hundreds of senior business executives over the last 30 years. She describes these three patterns as Remarkable, Perilous and Toxic.   Her intent with these poems is not to over-simplify or to stereotype business leaders or to proffer these patterns of executive behavior as a definitive representation of leadership styles.  Rather, her intention is to use metaphorical thinking as a distinctive tool to examine a truth that most consulting psychologists working in business organizations know well:  there are great leaders (Remarkable), so-so leaders (Perilous), and terrible ones (Toxic), too.  

NOTE:  For readers who do not have an affinity for reading poetry, there is a kind of “cliff notes” section that explains the context of each poem.  What each poem means—well, like any projective technique, that is up to you.

In the spare lines of these poems, we can be reminded of our clients’ distinctive talents – talents that need to be affirmed.  We can also be reminded of our clients’ torments as they struggle to maintain balance in the increasing unsteadiness of 21st century business dynamics—torments that need to be identified, calmed, and placed into a fuller context.  This collection, this use of metaphor is a psychologically-informed attempt to help those of us working with business leaders to understand them deeply, to see them in ways that are distinct from most books on leadership—and through this seeing we may become even more effective resources to them than we already are.