5 Courage Activators for business leaders to get teams jazzed, overcome fear and complacency, ignite brilliance, open dialogues and power innovation. With vivid examples and practical "how-to" advice, Lead from the Middle shows business leaders how to spark creativity and power innovation in cross-functional teams, matrix structures and business transformations. It warns leaders that hierarchy traps, the bias against creativity and other conflict-prone realities create a "play-it-safe" mindset that inhibits brilliance and rewards mediocrity. Lead from the Middle gives leaders the antidote to fear and complacency. It shows them how to use the 5 Courage Activators to jazz teams up, ignite brilliance, open dialogues, bridge diverse cultures and power innovation. The 5 Courage Activators have 10+ years of solid research behind them, but this is not an academic book. It is a practical user's manual, written about business leaders for business leaders. One myth that Lead from the Middle debunks is brainstorming. Are teams most creative when they are "protected" from dynamic tension and vigorous debate? No, says research from innovation hotbeds like the Israeli high-tech miracle and dozens of American, European, Asian and African success stories. Whether you are a middle manager, a project orchestrator, a technical expert or "the big boss," Lead from the Middle gives you tools that you can use right away to seize promising opportunities, wrestle down real issues, mobilize the right people and achieve breakthroughs rather than incremental improvements. Leaders get a diagnostic tool to tell whether a team is oblivious or defensive, engaged or luminary - and a roadmap for success when they need to lift a fearful or reluctant team to a higher level with influence not authority. Leadership development practitioners get an action learning formula to build courage into leadership curriculum - and achieve a fast sustainable ROI by "walking the talk" of company values, even when they are not convenient. Brain research from Israel tells us that we all are hard-wired with the capacity for courage. Using that hard-wiring takes practice, perseverance and refinement until it becomes routine - and until it brings reluctant or fearful partners closer, rather than pushing them out of the way. Lead from the Middle shows how.