Ron Price has made a habit of continuous learning, applying lessons from all his life experiences to his expertise in leadership. This was true in the sixties and seventies, when he worked his way up from fixing tire tubes in his father’s franchise, into ownership of four franchises across the state of Michigan. It was just as true this past year when he sat down with co-author Randy Lisk to write The Complete Leader, available now through Amazon.

The Complete Leader program builds on Ron’s 30+ years of leadership experience—from strategic planning for churches and not-for-profits, to growing leaders for his wife’s direct selling business, AIM International, then growing the company itself into eight countries while serving as its president in the 1990s, and ultimately to his current role as President and CEO of Price Associates.

Today, Ron shares the impetus for creating The Complete Leader program, his own journey of leadership growth while writing it, how the title is a bit of a misnomer, and why it’s up to you to finish the book.

There are a lot of leadership books on the shelves. Why write another?

The original impetus behind creating the program was to complement the existing, mature leadership diagnostics we use with our clients. We were looking to build a tool for developing the competencies leaders need to be effective in the 21st century.

Through that lens, The Complete Leader isn’t a typical leadership book. It’s not intended to be read cover-to-cover. It’s more like an encyclopedia of just-in-time training tools.

When we discuss a particular skill, the material goes right to the core. It’s concise, less conceptual, and more practical. Well organized so that it can be applied immediately. If someone were preparing for an important presentation and wanted to charge their presentation skills, they could thumb directly to that section of the book and get immediate help.

How does The Complete Leader program and book build on your success in coaching others?

We have a very simple coaching model that has been tremendously successful: To start learning a new skill, you first define what you want to accomplish, then you practice those activities that move you in the right direction.

To create the book, Randy and I used the same approach. We talked about authors that had influenced us, about our experience with past clients, with programs we had used successfully in the past. From those conversations, we defined 25 competencies, and put them into four categories: Clear thinking, self-leadership, leading others, and being authentic.

With regard to the second part of the coaching model, I learned early on that any skill can be acquired through repetition. That’s why we talk about The Complete Leader as a program, not just a book. Each person is charged with adding to the corpus, by giving a presentation of their own on top of the core information in the book.

The book is meant as a catalyst, not a tell-all.

Is adding the reader’s own material to the book strictly necessary? Why not just read and absorb what you and Randy have to share?

Reading a book is a significantly different exercise from, say, watching a movie about the same story. When you read a book, you add your own voice and you go beyond what the author intended. In that way, when you read a great book about a particular leadership style, you make it your own.

Your “voice” is a unique and powerful thing: It’s generated from within, then shaped by external forces. By your experiences. By the people you choose to let influence you. Each person’s voice is a reflection of them.

When someone comes into their own, when they are comfortable with themselves and with their role, we say that they have “found their voice.” Having that voice is an essential part of becoming a leader, part of what we call “being authentic,” so we built it right in to The Complete Leader Program.

What does it mean to be “authentic”? And how can a person develop it as a skill?

When we set about organizing the book, we divided 24 of the competencies among 3 categories and gave one competency a category to itself: Leadership Authenticity. Being authentic is building your own unique leadership style and having the courage to keep learning from others.

Becoming ‘The Complete Leader’ is an aspiration; not something we can attain once and for all. In that sense, calling the program The Complete Leader can be a bit misleading. As we strive to become the best leaders we can be, eventually our focus shifts to helping others take the journey. And, ultimately, this is the most important test for any leader: what kind of leaders have you developed? If there is a complete leader, this is what sets her apart.

Give us an example of how you continue to build your unique leadership style.

Well, working on The Complete Leader had its own set of challenges. Luckily, I had a great partner in Randy. We share similar values but often see a leadership skill from different perspectives, having traveled very different paths.

One of the toughest challenges I encountered while writing the book was keeping up with our writing schedule, while also carrying a full load in the leadership performance business. The way Randy and I would work is we would discuss a particular competency, going over how we wanted to approach it, and then we’d leave with writing assignments. It was a challenge for me to keep pace with Randy. He offered to take on a larger share of the writing, but I resisted. I felt like I was letting Randy down, that I wasn’t doing my fair share of the work. But my insistence to keep up my end was hurting the project.

Randy wasn’t worried about it being equal. “It will all work out in the end,” he told me. And it did. What I gained from that experience was being open to organizing around strengths and neutralizing weaknesses as a team.