STEWART FRIEDMAN
Professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and the founding director of the Wharton Leadership Program and Wharton's Work/Life Integration Project. World’s Leading Work/Life Integration Expert; Influential Innovator in Leadership Development; Best-selling Author, “Total Leadership” & “Leading the Life You Want”
Stewart D. Friedman
Stew Friedman is widely recognized as the world’s foremost authority on leadership from the point of view of the whole person. While on leave from the Wharton faculty in the late ‘90s –serving as the senior executive for leadership development at Ford Motor – he created the Total Leadership program; its purpose is to improve performance as a leader in all parts of life – work, home, community, and self (mind, body, spirit) – by finding mutual value among them.
A dynamic and engaging speaker, award-winning educator, widely-cited researcher, accomplished executive, sought-after consultant, compassionate coach, social policy advocate, and host of a national weekly radio show, Friedman teaches practical lessons on how to foster cultures of innovation and achieve sustainable, measurable results as an inspiring leader.
Total Leadership is a proven, systematic approach that has been shown to produce both economic value (through cost reduction and avoidance, productivity gains, new revenue streams, and reduced health care costs) and enhanced capacity to lead change through innovations that are truly sustainable because they succeed for all stakeholders who matter, not just those at work. Friedman’s message stands out in its appeal to the values and interests of today’s employees – of all generations – because it directly addresses family, community and social impact, and the private self, while focusing on business results. Telling riveting stories and drawing on hard facts, he breaks through the either/or thinking that has dominated the discussion about work and life. “Work/life balance is the wrong metaphor,” he says, and then proceeds to show audiences how they can pursue what he calls “four-way wins” by being real (acting with authenticity), being whole (acting with integrity), and being innovative (acting with creativity). The goal is harmony among the different parts of life, over the course of life.
Friedman has been on faculty at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania since 1984, and is founding director of the Wharton Leadership Program and of Wharton’s Work/Life Integration Project, both launched in 1991. Students talk about him “with a mixture of earnest admiration, gratitude, and rock star adoration,” according to The New York Times. In 1999, he took leave from Wharton to serve as senior executive responsible for global leadership development for Ford Motor, where his team’s efforts were recognized as a “global benchmark” for leadership development programs by an independent research group. He has been recognized twice as one of HR’s Most Influential International Thinkers and as one of “the world’s top 50 business thinkers” three times by Thinkers50. In 2015, he won Thinkers50’s Distinguished Achievement Award in the talent management field.
Friedman’s ground-breaking research contributes to his popularity. He has published 50+ articles for HBR.org, including one listed first among Harvard Business Review‘s Ideas that Shaped Management in 2013. His most recent best-selling book, “Leading the Life You Want: Skills for Integrating Work and Life” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2014), builds on another best-seller, “Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2008), which has been translated into seven languages. The program it describes is Friedman’s challenging Wharton course – 135,000+ students enrolled in his highly-rated Coursera MOOC version of it – has participants complete an intensive series of real-world exercises designed to increase their leadership capacity and performance in all parts of their lives by better integrating them. They work in peer-to-peer coaching relationships and complete much of the activity online in a cutting-edge social learning environment Friedman designed and launched in 2009. His Total Leadership framework is used by individuals and companies worldwide, including as an intervention in a multi-year study funded by the National Institutes of Health on improving the careers and lives of women in medicine.
Friedman worked for five years in the mental health field before earning his PhD in organizational psychology from the University of Michigan. He currently serves on a number of boards and has advised a wide range of companies and public sector organizations, including the U.S. Departments of Labor and State, the United Nations and two White House administrations. Listeners from around the U.S. and Canada tune in weekly to his “Work and Life” radio show. An inspiring presenter, Friedman delivers engaging keynote addresses and conducts immersive workshops globally on leadership and the whole person, creating sustainable change, and strategic human resources issues. By actively demonstrating the innovative tools he’s developed and freely shared, he energizes attendees at all levels. They leave his sessions charged up to pursue realistic action plans for producing positive change.
Honors and awards
A dynamic and engaging speaker, award-winning educator, widely-cited researcher, accomplished executive, sought-after consultant, compassionate coach, social policy advocate, and host of a national weekly radio show, Friedman teaches practical lessons on how to foster cultures of innovation and achieve sustainable, measurable results as an inspiring leader.
Total Leadership is a proven, systematic approach that has been shown to produce both economic value (through cost reduction and avoidance, productivity gains, new revenue streams, and reduced health care costs) and enhanced capacity to lead change through innovations that are truly sustainable because they succeed for all stakeholders who matter, not just those at work. Friedman’s message stands out in its appeal to the values and interests of today’s employees – of all generations – because it directly addresses family, community and social impact, and the private self, while focusing on business results. Telling riveting stories and drawing on hard facts, he breaks through the either/or thinking that has dominated the discussion about work and life. “Work/life balance is the wrong metaphor,” he says, and then proceeds to show audiences how they can pursue what he calls “four-way wins” by being real (acting with authenticity), being whole (acting with integrity), and being innovative (acting with creativity). The goal is harmony among the different parts of life, over the course of life.
Friedman has been on faculty at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania since 1984, and is founding director of the Wharton Leadership Program and of Wharton’s Work/Life Integration Project, both launched in 1991. Students talk about him “with a mixture of earnest admiration, gratitude, and rock star adoration,” according to The New York Times. In 1999, he took leave from Wharton to serve as senior executive responsible for global leadership development for Ford Motor, where his team’s efforts were recognized as a “global benchmark” for leadership development programs by an independent research group. He has been recognized twice as one of HR’s Most Influential International Thinkers and as one of “the world’s top 50 business thinkers” three times by Thinkers50. In 2015, he won Thinkers50’s Distinguished Achievement Award in the talent management field.
Friedman’s ground-breaking research contributes to his popularity. He has published 50+ articles for HBR.org, including one listed first among Harvard Business Review‘s Ideas that Shaped Management in 2013. His most recent best-selling book, “Leading the Life You Want: Skills for Integrating Work and Life” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2014), builds on another best-seller, “Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2008), which has been translated into seven languages. The program it describes is Friedman’s challenging Wharton course – 135,000+ students enrolled in his highly-rated Coursera MOOC version of it – has participants complete an intensive series of real-world exercises designed to increase their leadership capacity and performance in all parts of their lives by better integrating them. They work in peer-to-peer coaching relationships and complete much of the activity online in a cutting-edge social learning environment Friedman designed and launched in 2009. His Total Leadership framework is used by individuals and companies worldwide, including as an intervention in a multi-year study funded by the National Institutes of Health on improving the careers and lives of women in medicine.
Friedman worked for five years in the mental health field before earning his PhD in organizational psychology from the University of Michigan. He currently serves on a number of boards and has advised a wide range of companies and public sector organizations, including the U.S. Departments of Labor and State, the United Nations and two White House administrations. Listeners from around the U.S. and Canada tune in weekly to his “Work and Life” radio show. An inspiring presenter, Friedman delivers engaging keynote addresses and conducts immersive workshops globally on leadership and the whole person, creating sustainable change, and strategic human resources issues. By actively demonstrating the innovative tools he’s developed and freely shared, he energizes attendees at all levels. They leave his sessions charged up to pursue realistic action plans for producing positive change.
Honors and awards
- Outstanding Teaching Award in 1990 (University of Pennsylvania Undergraduate Division)
- One of Working Mother's 25 most influential men for having improved conditions better for working parents
- Outstanding Teaching Award in 1993 (University of Pennsylvania Undergraduate Evening School)
- MBA Core Curriculum Teaching Award in 1996 (University of Pennsylvania)
- William Whitney Teaching Award in 2007
- Winner of the CEO Read Best Business Book Award 2008 - Personal Development [6]
- Excellence in Teaching Award: Core Curriculum, 2011 (University of Pennsylvania)
- Thinkers 50, 2011
STEWART FRIEDMAN - SUGGESTED KEY NOTE TOPICS & PROGRAMS
Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life
Life is a zero-sum game, right? The more we strive to win in one dimension (such as our work), the more we sacrifice performance and satisfaction in the other three: family, community, and private self. Not true, says Stew Friedman. Drawing on decades of research, teaching, and practice in many organizations around the world – detailed in his best-selling book “Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life” – Friedman persuasively shows us how we don’t have to make trade-offs between life’s most important domains, and certainly not as often as we think. A trade-off mindset makes people feel all manner of painful emotions; it hurts those we care about most, and it prevents us from leading and performing effectively in every part of life. Friedman provides a proven blueprint for becoming a more successful leader in all four domains of life: work, home, community and self (mind, body and spirit).
Leading the Life You Want: Skills for Integrating Work and Life
You might be skeptical, but you can create harmony between work and the rest of life, says Stew Friedman. Building on his best-selling “Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life” and on decades of research, teaching and practice as both consultant and senior executive, Friedman describes the skills needed to do so, and illustrates them with riveting original stories of exemplars of great achievement and impact, including Sheryl Sandberg, Michelle Obama and Bruce Springsteen.
Friedman’s stories paint vivid pictures of the ways these very different leaders act with authenticity, integrity, and creativity – and they prove that significant professional or public success is accomplished not at the expense of the rest of life, but as the result of meaningful attachments to all its disparate parts. The good news, says Friedman, is that anyone can practice and hone these skills. Drawing from another best-seller, “Leading the Life You Want: Skills for Integrating Work and Life,” he provides evidence-based exercises for how cultivate them and offers practical insights that will inspire, inform, and instruct attendees on how to take realistic steps now toward leading the life you truly want, just as it has for employees at Bloomberg, Morgan Stanley, Warby Parker, Google and many other organizations.
New Choices for Men and Women in Work and Family
Millennials see the world very differently from other generations. Stew Friedman shares why that is and what it means for our society, our organizations and our families. Since founding the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project in 1991, Friedman’s research, teaching, and advocacy for the evolution of social policy and business practices has influenced both the public sector (including projects with the White House and the U.S. Departments of Labor and State) and many private sector organizations. His ground-breaking research of two generations of Wharton students as they graduated – Gen Xers in 1992 and Millennials in 2012 – found that men and women are now more aligned in their attitudes about dual-career relationships. Drawing on this historic research, Friedman’s thought-provoking talk shows:
Enhancing Your Reputation by Building Social Capital
Everyone needs the support of others in order to succeed – at work, at home and in the community. So how do you cultivate your reputation as someone others should want to help? In this high-energy session, Stew Friedman teaches the fundamentals of social capital – understanding the practical meaning of “six degrees of separation,” the universality of the reciprocity principle and more – and then leads an interactive exercise in which all attendees ask for help and give it to others. Not only does everyone gain real, practical assistance on a project that matters to them, attendees learn how to cultivate their networks by discovering what others need and providing it in a low-cost way that works.
Employees at all levels in organizations as diverse as KPMG, the OECD (Paris) and Ford Motor Company have enjoyed and valued the experience of actively learning how to design and enact a strategy for building lifelong support by enhancing their reputations as people worthy of others’ trust.
Life is a zero-sum game, right? The more we strive to win in one dimension (such as our work), the more we sacrifice performance and satisfaction in the other three: family, community, and private self. Not true, says Stew Friedman. Drawing on decades of research, teaching, and practice in many organizations around the world – detailed in his best-selling book “Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life” – Friedman persuasively shows us how we don’t have to make trade-offs between life’s most important domains, and certainly not as often as we think. A trade-off mindset makes people feel all manner of painful emotions; it hurts those we care about most, and it prevents us from leading and performing effectively in every part of life. Friedman provides a proven blueprint for becoming a more successful leader in all four domains of life: work, home, community and self (mind, body and spirit).
Leading the Life You Want: Skills for Integrating Work and Life
You might be skeptical, but you can create harmony between work and the rest of life, says Stew Friedman. Building on his best-selling “Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life” and on decades of research, teaching and practice as both consultant and senior executive, Friedman describes the skills needed to do so, and illustrates them with riveting original stories of exemplars of great achievement and impact, including Sheryl Sandberg, Michelle Obama and Bruce Springsteen.
Friedman’s stories paint vivid pictures of the ways these very different leaders act with authenticity, integrity, and creativity – and they prove that significant professional or public success is accomplished not at the expense of the rest of life, but as the result of meaningful attachments to all its disparate parts. The good news, says Friedman, is that anyone can practice and hone these skills. Drawing from another best-seller, “Leading the Life You Want: Skills for Integrating Work and Life,” he provides evidence-based exercises for how cultivate them and offers practical insights that will inspire, inform, and instruct attendees on how to take realistic steps now toward leading the life you truly want, just as it has for employees at Bloomberg, Morgan Stanley, Warby Parker, Google and many other organizations.
New Choices for Men and Women in Work and Family
Millennials see the world very differently from other generations. Stew Friedman shares why that is and what it means for our society, our organizations and our families. Since founding the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project in 1991, Friedman’s research, teaching, and advocacy for the evolution of social policy and business practices has influenced both the public sector (including projects with the White House and the U.S. Departments of Labor and State) and many private sector organizations. His ground-breaking research of two generations of Wharton students as they graduated – Gen Xers in 1992 and Millennials in 2012 – found that men and women are now more aligned in their attitudes about dual-career relationships. Drawing on this historic research, Friedman’s thought-provoking talk shows:
- How views about work and family have changed in the past 20 years
- Why men and women have different reasons for opting out of parenthood
- How family has been redefined
- Why we are all now part of a revolution in work and family
- What choices we face in our social and educational policy
- How organizations and individuals – especially men – can spur cultural change
Enhancing Your Reputation by Building Social Capital
Everyone needs the support of others in order to succeed – at work, at home and in the community. So how do you cultivate your reputation as someone others should want to help? In this high-energy session, Stew Friedman teaches the fundamentals of social capital – understanding the practical meaning of “six degrees of separation,” the universality of the reciprocity principle and more – and then leads an interactive exercise in which all attendees ask for help and give it to others. Not only does everyone gain real, practical assistance on a project that matters to them, attendees learn how to cultivate their networks by discovering what others need and providing it in a low-cost way that works.
Employees at all levels in organizations as diverse as KPMG, the OECD (Paris) and Ford Motor Company have enjoyed and valued the experience of actively learning how to design and enact a strategy for building lifelong support by enhancing their reputations as people worthy of others’ trust.
Employees and managers alike indicated that your Total Leadership seminar was an eye-opening experience, helping them to realize the impact of support in life matters beyond work. It was evident that in order to be a progressive leader, managers need to continuously experiment with the way work is done and take individual actions.
Merck Research Laboratories
