The Book
Your Best 10 Minutes
The 5 Cs of Creative Leadership
Leadership isn’t about titles or endless meetings. It’s about moments.
Coming 2026 · not yet available to buy
Be first to know when it’s out.
You’re on the list. One email, at launch.
One email at launch. Nothing else.
About the book
Your best 10 minutes start now
The book’s premise is that leadership turns on moments — the ones where you connect, clarify, care, act with courage, and coach for growth.
It gives you the tools to turn those moments into impact. Five capacities. Ten minutes. One repeatable system.
Written for the people who carry a team without a leadership title to hide behind — owners, founders, and managers promoted for being good at the job, not for being trained to lead. You rarely get a whole day to fix a team. You almost always get ten minutes, and how you spend them is most of the job.
What’s inside
Five parts, one per C
Each part explains the capacity, shows the moments where it applies, and includes a self-assessment plus case studies with commentary from Frank’s collaborators.
-
Connecting
How you show up, and why nothing else works without it.
Leadership Begins with How You Show Up · Management by Lunching Around · Being Authentically Present · When the Medium Shapes the Message · Managing Virtual Teams · People Communications Calendar · Town Hall Meetings · Storytelling · Trinkets and Trash · Recognition and Ceremonial Dances · Fireside Chats · Thank-You Cards · Gratitude Journals · Employee Surveys · Internal Networking
-
Clarity
Cutting through the noise to the few things that actually matter.
Cascading Clarity · Creating Your Own Mission and Vision · Onboarding · RACI Charts · Explicit Praise · Expectation Agreements · New Manager Assimilation · Organization Charts · Your Personal Operating Manual
-
Compassion
Holding a high standard without losing the person.
The Rise of Anxiety in a Fragile Workplace · Why Compassion Builds Healthier Workplaces · Self-Compassion · Compassionate Leadership · Building a Culture of Compassion · Your Authentic Self · Defining the Compassionate Workplace · Bereavement at Work · Volunteer Days · Managing Terminations · Compassion for Change Management
-
Courage
The conversation you keep avoiding, and the call you keep deferring.
The Mirror of Courage · Making Tough Decisions · Why We Put Off Tough Decisions · Holding the Line · The Courage to Bend the Rules · Giving Genuine Feedback · Courageous Conversations · Asking for Feedback · Admitting You’re Wrong · The Art of Apology
-
Coaching
Developing people so the team grows without you carrying it.
Creating a Coaching Culture · Responsibilities in a Coaching Culture · Readiness for Coaching · Performance Improvement Plans · Coaching vs Performance Management · Performance Gap Analysis · Coaching Models · Question Examples · Coaching Upwards
With a foreword by Roz Usheroff.
From the book
Too often I have witnessed that a lack of courage, or the wrong kind of courage, can dramatically impact companies and careers.
The author
Frank Newman, CHRL
Go deeper
Beyond the book
-
The 5 Cs
The framework in depth, with the research behind each capacity.
Explore the 5 Cs › -
Resources & tools
The Rule of Three, Saints and Vampires, the Mirror of Courage.
See the resources › -
The knowledge base
Sourced notes on the evidence, and the Ontario specifics.
Open the knowledge base ›
Start now
You don’t have to wait for the book.
The ideas in Your Best 10 Minutes are already how Frank works with teams across Ontario. If something here lands, that’s usually the place to start a conversation.