The authors
Eric Sanchez
& Stacie Monahan.
Partners at Maestro Strategic Partners, colleagues for nearly two decades before that, and co-authors of Invested Leadership.
Why they wrote it
The client’s biggest problem
is almost always leadership.
At Maestro, clients hire them to streamline operations, scale organizations, or implement new technology. No matter what they are hired for, they consistently find that the real value is in the leadership work.
The book started as a book about emotional intelligence and authentic leadership. During the research they realized that authentic leadership, without a focus on caring, can be a dangerous idea. For decades they had thought it was the greatest style. Then they realized it could also be the most toxic. Invested Leadership is what they built to fix that.
Neither of them claims to have arrived. Every great leader is a student of leadership, and writing the book was an extension of their own practice: pass it on, and build more leaders than you replace.
Eric Sanchez
Managing Partner, Maestro Strategic Partners
A US Marine and named inventor on thirty US patents. He engineered the nationwide claims operation behind one of the largest civil-rights settlements in American history, and was in the room when the Claims Resolution Act was signed. Over two decades he went from office manager to Vice President of Strategy at one of the Southeast’s largest firms, and founded a legal-technology company along the way.
Full biographyStacie Monahan
Partner, Maestro Strategic Partners
Twenty-five years as a senior executive, including seven years on the insurance side and eighteen years at one of the Southeast’s largest personal injury firms, where she became the first woman to reach vice president in that firm’s history. She specializes in system management and design, and is renowned for a high level of emotional intelligence and for developing emerging leaders.
Full biographyStacie’s motivation
My leadership journey began by witnessing the profound impacts, both positive and negative, that leaders have on others.
She was inspired by those who led with excellence and driven to do better by those who fell short, cultivating the strengths she admired and rejecting the weaknesses she observed. Now she is passionate about empowering others to become the kind of leaders who inspire action and create positive change.
A worked example
It took me ten minutes to write it.
Years ago Eric read that Indra Nooyi wrote letters to the parents of her direct reports. He wrote two. One went to Stacie, who handed it to her mother, in an Irish family that does not express much emotion. Her mother read it, handed it to her father, then went to her room, then came back and asked for it again so she could read it a second time.
That gesture is why, years later, when Eric asked Stacie to run Maestro with him, she said yes. Loyalty is born of trust, and trust is born of care.
Maestro Strategic Partners
The day job.
Eric and Stacie are partners at Maestro Strategic Partners, a Durham, North Carolina consultancy that helps organizations improve efficiency, innovation, and culture.
The consulting practice is where the ideas in Invested Leadership were tested, argued with, and revised, across dozens of organizations that hired them to fix something else entirely.
Start here
Bring them to your team.
Keynote, seminar, or coaching. Tell us the situation and we will tell you which one is honestly the right first move.