Decorated Navy SEAL, successful businessman and world-renowned speaker Brent Gleeson shares his revolutionary approach to navigating and leading change in the workplace—with a foreword by #1 New York Times bestselling author Mark Owen.
Inspired by his time as a Navy SEAL and building award-winning organizations in the business world, Brent Gleeson has created a powerful roadmap for today’s existing and emerging business leaders and managers to improve their ability to successfully navigate organizational change. Over the past ten years since leaving the SEAL Teams, Gleeson has become a well-respected thought leader and expert in business transformation. He has spoken to and consulted with hundreds of organizations across the globe and inspired thousands of business leaders through his highly insightful philosophies on leadership, culture and building high-performance teams that achieve winning results.
In TakingPoint, Gleeson shares his ten-step program that he has implemented in his own companies and for his high-profile clients - giving leaders and managers actionable insights and a framework for successful execution. TakingPoint brilliantly captures the structures, behaviors and mindsets required to build successful twenty-first century organizations. With a strong emphasis on communication, culture, engagement, accountability, trust and resiliency, Gleeson’s methods have helped hundreds of companies around the world transform the way they think about change, and can help yours do the same.
For the last five years, Gleeson has shared his philosophies through his weekly columns on Forbes and Inc. And now, for the first time ever, they are captured in this entertaining and highly prescriptive book.
Steps Include:
Never has change been more consistent and disruptive as it is now. Business leaders and managers at all levels can’t just react to change. They have to lead change. They have to take point.
Brent Gleeson is a highly sought-after keynote speaker and business consultant, a serial entrepreneur and a decorated Navy SEAL combat veteran. He has degrees in finance and economics from Southern Methodist University, studied English and history at Oxford University in England, and has a graduate business degree from the University of San Diego. As a member of SEAL Team 5, Gleeson served several tours in Iraq, Africa and other theaters of war. After returning to civilian life, he has built award-winning, multi-million dollar organizations that have been repeatedly listed on the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing private companies. He has won awards for leadership and was named a “Top 10 CEO” by Entrepreneur Magazine in their October 2013 issue. He has starred in several reality TV shows notably including Mark Burnett's NBC hit Stars Earn Stripes and Discovery Channel's One Man Army. He has been featured on many popular podcasts and local and national news channels such as CNBC, Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC and TMZ. For the past five years he’s written about leadership, organizational culture and business transformation in his two weekly business columns on Forbes and Inc. He sits on the executive board of the SEAL Family Foundation. TakingPoint is his first book.
“The experience that members of the military, like Brent, are bringing to the business industry are critical. For those that want to deepen their understanding of the lessons today’s veterans have learned, and how those lessons can make us all better change leaders, Brent is a person you’ll want to listen to!”General Stanley McChrystal, U.S. Army (Retired)
“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war. So should business leaders. Gleeson is amazing. Full stop. Take one look at his bio and it’s obvious that excellence is woven into his DNA. What becomes obvious in reading TakingPoint, though, is that it can become woven into ours as well. No matter what industry you’re in, it will face change. By outfitting you with a set of brilliant, battlefield-proven principles, TakingPoint will help you meet that change head-on and guide your team to success. TakingPoint is hands-down one of the best leadership books I have ever read.”Brad Thor
“With every page I turned of Taking Point, I was struck by how much Brent Gleeson’s ten principles apply to the entrepreneurs and business leaders we serve at Inc. As a Navy SEAL, Brent has seen these principles work in the most trying circumstances imaginable—in BUD/S training, in the crucible of combat and in his own successful businesses. That makes this one of the most credible business books I’ve seen in a long while. If you’re a leader in today’s incredibly fluid business world, you are called on to take point every day. And when you do, you can’t do any better than to be guided by the blueprint Brent lays out in this remarkable book.”Eric Schurenberg
“Brent Gleeson gets it. He’s done many amazing things in his still young career and, in Taking Point, demonstrates deep insight into how things really work best in life and in business…especially in highly fluid and chaotic environments. His philosophy about the importance of culture and engagement – light years beyond the traditional lazy platitudes about empowerment – are ideas that desperately need to be put to work in this new century.”Jeff Campbell
“The ability to successfully lead organizational change is a skill all leaders need now more than ever. In TakingPoint – inspired by Navy SEAL principles of discipline, accountability, resiliency and agility - Brent Gleeson shares his unique combination of tactics and strategies all leaders and managers need in today’s more volatile and unsettled business environment.”Congressman Scott Taylor
“This book is a must-read for any business leader or manager! In a rapidly evolving business environment driven by new innovations and increasing consumer expectations, the Navy SEAL philosophy of ‘becoming comfortable being uncomfortable’ is a key message that resonated with me. Controlling what is seemingly uncontrollable in a company becomes a key to its existence. Brent clearly organizes and prioritizes cultural fundamentals and initiatives that will benefit companies at any stage of its life cycle and seamlessly connects the SEAL’s ethos to real life examples, highlighting the necessity of an empowered organization that must be held accountable for this empowerment.”Todd Hymel
“This is the first business book that I couldn’t put down! Brent’s vivid storytelling perfectly captures the Navy SEAL experience and makes it relatable to any business leader by defining leadership, culture, discipline, accountability and most importantly - adaptability. This book provides powerful principles for leading organizational transformation - but most impressively, it’s honest. Every member of my global organization will receive this book.”Quinn Lyzuun
“With humor and deep insight about how to effect crucial changes necessary to lead teams in an accelerating world, Brent takes point once again to show business leaders the way.”Mark Divine
“This is the best book on culture and leading change in an organization I have ever read. Gleeson has spoken to our senior leaders many times in Hong Kong, Sydney, Singapore and Charlotte. He has shared with us how the principles that forge Navy SEAL culture can be applied in any organization – especially as it relates to business transformation. TakingPoint captures it all!”Matthew Koder
“This is one of the most credible and entertaining business and leadership books I have ever read. As we all know, change is inevitable. The key to a successful business is how we, as leaders, manage the constant change. The ten principles in TakingPoint provide an extremely valuable roadmap for any leader to successfully navigate their teams through the rapid waters of change. TakingPoint truly delivers the best practices any leader or manager needs to help a team accept change, grow stronger, communicate better, and become more efficient and effective. TakingPoint is most definitely a must-read for anyone regardless of where they are at in their careers.”Alisha L. Nowlin
“Brent does a masterful job of using his broad leadership background as a Navy Seal, entrepreneur, and business consultant to create a powerful approach to leading change in today’s fast-paced business environment. He intimately grasps the importance of culture and the driving impact it has on strategy, engagement and execution. The transitions from Navy SEAL experiences to those in business also make this a very entertaining read! Amazing book!”Gordon Lansford, III
“I watched many men attempt Navy SEAL Hell Week but few stood out like Brent Gleeson. True leaders rise to the occasion during the brutal crucible of Navy SEAL training. This book brilliantly captures the principles that forge SEAL culture and translates them into actionable methodologies for leading business transformation. TakingPoint provides powerful tools any business leader or manager needs to lead through uncertainty – from the battlefield to the boardroom.”David Goggins
“A must-read! TakingPoint perfectly captures the principles our special operations warriors use every day and applies them to building resilient and agile organizations in today’s business environment. Brent helped transform our group of high-performing senior leaders into one aligned team through the TakingPoint program outlined in this amazing book.”Ryan Cork
“TakingPoint is a powerful model all leaders and managers should embrace in order to inspire themselves and their teams to lead and win. Brent Gleeson translates the SEAL’s core principles into an actionable business guide for leading successful and lasting transformation in any organization.”Jim Guscette
“TakingPoint is fantastic! Brent identifies well the necessary elements needed to engage in and manage change in today's uncertain environment. Applicable for business, non-profit and military organizations, Brent combines his upbringing, education, military and business experiences to capture what's required to 'lead through change.' Additionally, I'm humbled by Brent's unwavering support of the SEAL Family Foundation; he is an engaged Board Member who provides his time, talent and treasure to support our mission of building resilient families in Naval Special Warfare. Thank you Brent; the Navy SEAL community is better for your continued service.”William R. Fenick
“For those charged with the responsibility of leading their teams or organizations through transformative change, TakingPoint is a must-read. Smart, focused and immediately applicable, it is one of the most comprehensive books on the topic of leadership. As my company forges its way through major transformation, the ten principles outlined in the book are spot on. TakingPoint has provided an excellent shoreline for successfully leading my organization through its major transformation.”Tom Whaley
Gleeson, a Navy SEAL combat veteran and serial entrepreneur, has leveraged the principles of leadership, discipline, accountability and resiliency learned in training and applied down range for building high-performance teams in the business world. He has raised millions of dollars for his organizations, built winning teams, made costly mistakes, dealt with the inevitable obstacles and sold companies for significant returns.
He is an acclaimed speaker on topics ranging from leadership and culture to change management and building high-performance teams. Companies of all sizes from across the globe hire him for speaking and consulting with a desire to leverage his expertise in building teams that evangelize change and achieve winning results.
After tours in Iraq, Africa and other theaters of war Gleeson transitioned to the world of entrepreneurship applying battletested leadership principles to building teams designed to overcome the odds and achieve results. Using the guiding principles he learned in the SEAL Teams, Gleeson has built award-winning multi-million dollar organizations that have earned the prestige of being repeatedly named in the Inc. 500|5000 list of fastest growing private companies.
He has spoken to thousands of business leaders, professional athletes and first responders all over the world and consulted with hundreds of organizations large and small seeking new ways to develop their leaders, improve the culture and get better results. He has inspired thousands to push themselves beyond their comfort zone and achieve seemingly impossible goals.
With degrees in finance and economics from Southern Methodist University, English and History from Oxford University in England and an MBA from University of San Diego, Gleeson’s extensive experience is both academic and real-world in nature. Gleeson has won awards for business leadership and was named one of the “Top 10 CEOs” in Entrepreneur Magazine’s October 2013 issue for his exemplary approach to building high-performance teams in business.
His clients include reputable brands such as Bank of America Merrill Lynch, PayPal, Nestle, Toronto Raptors, Morgan Stanley, Raytheon, Boeing, A&E Networks, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Care Fusion, The North Face, Lilly, Blue Cross Blue Shield, UBS and the U.S. Navy.
For the last four years, Gleeson has had weekly columns on both Forbes.com and Inc.com, two of the most highly trafficked business content sites in the world. His columns – that garner thousands of views and social shares each week – focus on the topics of business leadership, culture, change management and building teams that achieve great results.
Since his inception as an entrepreneur, Gleeson has been featured on many business podcasts and local and national news and TV channels such as CNBC, Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC, TMZ and the Discovery Channel. He has also starred in several reality shows such as Discovery Channel’s ‘One Man Army’ and Mark Burnett’s NBC primetime hit ‘Stars Earn Stripes.’ For ‘Stars Earn Stripes’ Gleeson and several other special operations professionals – including the late Chris Kyle (former teammate and “American Sniper”) – were selected out of two thousand candidates to be paired with celebrities to compete and raise money for charities like Wounded Warrior Project and Hire Our Heroes. Gleeson currently has two TV shows in the works with Mark Owen (former teammate, SEAL Team 6 member, and author of the best-seller ‘No Easy Day’) and CAA, where the focus will be a special operations approach to improving businesses.
Gleeson is on the Executive Board of the Navy SEAL Family Foundation and his family is an ambassador family for March of Dimes. He is married with three wonderful children.
July 10, 2017
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