Phoenix Leadership for Business: An Executive's Strategy for Relevance and Resilience

The world continues to ride a wave of turmoil, challenging leaders like never before. New laws, competitive markets and the need to respond to the demands of corporate boards and stockholders unnerve even the most senior of leaders resulting in progressively shorter tenures of those in leadership positions. The modern leader needs to be increasingly resilient and their leadership must be entirely relevant to their organizations and the industry.

provides a brand new, innovative concept, that of the Phoenix Leader, with proven strategies and approaches to evolve your leadership approach to one that is flexible, powerful and effective. This book utilizes the strong metaphor of a Phoenix and identifies all of the necessary techniques that leaders need to improve profitability, resource management and organizational success thus improving their relevance to the company.

This book introduces a new paradigm created by Val Gokenbach for leadership in complex organizations and provides effective strategies that will guide leaders in the business field. Val possesses a doctoral degree in Management and organizational leadership and over 40 years of experience as a healthcare executive. She is also a leadership consultant, professor, executive coach and author on leadership topics. You, as a business leader, will learn to reinvent yourself by putting her proven concepts into effect to become a Phoenix in your organization.

Dr. Val Gokenbach has a true passion for leadership and has been in administrative positions for over thirty years. She currently is the Vice President for Baylor Health and the owner of Dr. Val Leading Leaders Consulting Group dedicated to improving the quality of leadership in organizations. As a senior executive, she has managed an expansive span of responsibility, which included Nursing and several support departments such as radiology, respiratory therapy, radiation oncology, nuclear medicine, oncology services, neurodiagnostic services, employee health, integrative medicine, schools of allied health, patient service departments and the emergency services. Her greatest accomplishment has been leading the nursing team to the receipt of the prestigious Magnet accreditation awarded on January 14, 2004 for nursing and organizational excellence and re-accreditation in 2008.

Val is also involved in several community initiatives and served as the creator of Safety City USA, the first free standing, non-profit interactive learning facility for the community, dedicated to the reduction in pediatric trauma and Nurses 4 Detroit a foundation for philanthropic nurses in the South East Michigan area. Currently she is an independent consultant in the areas of organizational structure and leadership growth and development and a Professor for American Sentinel University. She also serves as the Medical Administrator for Mitch Albom Charities where she runs the SAY Detroit Family Health Center dedicated to the care of the homeless and uninsured women and children and the Have Faith Mission an orphanage in Haiti.

She also lectures on leadership topics and is active on several advisory and leadership boards throughout the community. A well-known author, she recently released her new book Phoenix Leadership: A Healthcare Executives Strategy for Relevance and Resilience and her own wellness book Tap Dancing through Life: Seven steps to finding your rhythms and the life of your dreams. She is also featured in Chicken Soup for the Nurse’s Soul: A second dose and Nurse Executive: The four principles of Management from Springer Publishing.

She possesses a doctoral degree in management (DM) and organizational leadership, a master degree in business administration (MBA) and a bachelor’s of science in nursing (BSN) and is a Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellow, was a Magnet Commissioner for ANCC and an alumnus for Leadership America.