Composure - How centered leaders make the biggest impact by Zoë Routh
Composure: How Centered Leaders Make the Biggest Impact is a guide to cultivating leadership presence and self‑mastery. Leadership expert Zoë Routh takes you on a hero’s journey where you identify your “Big Why,” tame your personal dragons and design quests that bring your values to life. She shows how centered leaders balance personal needs with a higher purpose and bridge the gap between horror and beauty through compassion. Through reflective exercises, storytelling and practical planning frameworks, you’ll learn to map your life plan and stay calm under pressure. Routh introduces the concept of emotional aikido, an adventurer’s tool for managing emotions and leading gracefully through turbulence. She emphasises that conscious living and self‑inquiry are the hallmarks of centered leaders and invites you to see your life as a series of quests that build wisdom and purpose. This book equips CEOs, entrepreneurs, managers and emerging leaders with the courage, compassion and composure needed to make a lasting impact.
Tame Your Inner Dragon and Lead with with Calm, Confident Purpose
Composure: How Centered Leaders Make the Biggest Impact
Your guide to cultivating leadership presence and self‑mastery.
Leadership expert Zoë Routh takes you on a hero’s journey where you identify your “Big Why,” tame your personal dragons and design quests that bring your values to life.
She shows how centered leaders balance personal needs with a higher purpose and bridge the gap between horror and beauty through compassion.
Through reflective exercises, storytelling and practical planning frameworks, you’ll learn to map your life plan and stay calm under pressure. Routh introduces the concept of emotional aikido, an adventurer’s tool for managing emotions and leading gracefully through turbulence.
She emphasises that conscious living and self‑inquiry are the hallmarks of centered leaders and invites you to see your life as a series of quests that build wisdom and purpose.
This book equips CEOs, entrepreneurs, managers and emerging leaders with the courage, compassion and composure needed to make a lasting impact.
Get Your Copy Now:
ALSO AVAILABLE AT THESE RETAILERS
Why You Need This Book
Unlock Unshakeable Composure and Become the Centered Leader Your Team Needs
Do you feel pulled in every direction — juggling daily crises while struggling to connect to a deeper purpose? You’re not alone. Many successful leaders find themselves drifting without a clear “Big Why”, overwhelmed by ever‑shifting goals and constant demands, or emotionally drained by high‑pressure interactions. Burnout and isolation can creep in when you least expect it, leaving you wondering how to stay calm and effective under fire.
Composure: How Centered Leaders Make the Biggest Impact is your roadmap out of the chaos. In this transformative guide, leadership expert Zoë Routh takes you on a hero’s journey to discover your personal mission, tame your inner dragons and cultivate grace under pressure. You’ll learn how to:
Clarify your purpose by identifying the core issue you want to solve and aligning your values, passions and talents with your mission.
Design a plan that actually works, from your lifetime vision down to daily actions, using Routh’s quest‑planning system.
Master emotional aikido to stay calm and present in the heat of conflict, leading with non‑aggression, empathy and flexibility.
Build resilience and renew yourself with practical practices to review, reconnect and reinvent beliefs, and daily refresh rituals that keep you centred.
See yourself as part of a larger whole, make decisions for the greater good and lead with deep, compassionate presence.
This book doesn’t just teach you theory—it gives you a step‑by‑step framework for moving from confusion to clarity, reactivity to composure and isolation to connected leadership. If you’re ready to lead with courage, compassion and a calm centre, Composure will give you the tools to make a lasting impact.
What’s Inside?
Chapter one: Growth - Framing the Quest
This opening chapter helps you identify your “Big Why” by reflecting on your values, passions and talents and seeing yourself as part of a greater purpose. Let’s bridge the gap between global horrors and beauty through compassion and use that insight to frame a personal quest. This is purpose-drive leadership at its best.
Chapter two: Focus - Choosing the Quest
Building on the Big Why, this chapter shows how to break a lifetime vision into actionable plans—mapping 20‑year blocks with theme words, then one‑year plans, 90‑day projects, weekly tasks and daily habits. It also invites you to craft a personal “coat of arms” (brand) and select “internal and external mountains” (skills and challenges) to focus your development. This is a great long-term planning framework.
Chapter three: Contribution - The Crucible in the Dragon’s Lair
Here I showcase my own battle with cancer to illustrate how leaders must first resolve their deepest personal challenges before they can guide teams through crises. There are key skills for helping others through crucible moments—fostering a sense of belonging, abandoning black‑and‑white thinking and aligning your attitude and presentation with your purpose. This is how we develop resilience through adversity.
Chapter four: Connection - Taming the Dragon With Grace Under Fire
This chapter introduces “Emotional Aikido,” a framework based on non‑aggression and non‑resistance that teaches leaders to stay present and calm amid emotional storms. Its four principles—mastering physical self‑care, mastering emotions, mastering inner voices and mastering the flow of energy from others—offer practical strategies for maintaining grace under fire. This is the ultimate superpower for your emotional intelligence skills.
Chapter five: Renewal - The Road Home, Or The Road Out Again
Here we emphasise the cyclical nature of growth and advocate for deliberate renewal practices, such as regularly reviewing plans and reconnecting with mentors and intuition. I also introduce a nine‑step Belief Buster Matrix and daily refresh rituals (centering, appreciation, visualising and exercise), and draws on the Shiva–Shakti metaphor to illustrate the need for both creation and destruction in personal evolution. Explore a new way of looking at renewal practices.
Chapter six: Oneness - The Path of Totality
The final chapter invites you to see yourself as part of an interconnected whole and to make decisions that serve the greater good. It describes how centered leaders think systemically, embrace paradox and practise world‑class self‑mastery habits while acting from compassion, courage and faith. Take confident steps with systems thinking and stoic calm on your leadership journey.
Table of Contents for Composure - How centered leaders make the biggest difference
Get your copy here now!
What they say about Composure
“With so many books on the shelves around leadership and how to lead, Zoe Routh's offering provides examples, practices and insights into how composure is an important aspect of leading. If you are looking for something a bit different in your leadership learnings, this is a great place to start.”
- Donna McGeorge, best-selling author of Red Brick Thinking