📚 Choose Your Own Adventure Books by Archetype



💾 A Gen X/Millennial Crossover Crisis Wrapped in Paperback Nostalgia and Existential Workplace Dread

If you were an 80s baby like me, your first taste of free will wasn’t your boss handing you “full autonomy” or a life coach telling you to “step into your power”—it was a flimsy paperback with a holographic dragon on the cover and instructions that read: “Turn to page 84 if you want to fight the sorcerer. Turn to page 112 if you want to crawl into a suspiciously glowing cave.”

Naturally, I chose both. I always chose both.

And now, four decades, 42.5 bajillion therapist bills, and a small mountain of slide decks on “emotional agility” later, I’ve realized: being a leader in today’s world feels exactly like one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books—except all the pages are on fire, and your direct report just Slacked you a crying emoji.

So, in a moment of creative chaos (and possibly caffeine-fueled regression), I imagined what each of our six leadership archetypes might look like... if they were cast as 1980s adventure books.

Retro covers. Terrible fonts. Existential dread dressed as dragons.

Let’s begin.

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Signed in invisible ink,
Elise

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From Good Intentions to Actual Progress: Lessons from the Gym, for Leaders

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Do you know a single company CALMLY executing its 5-year strategic plan right now?

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What Taylor Swift’s Eras Can Teach Us About Managing Change

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The Human Solution

Leadership isn’t just a title. It’s a skill. And too often, managers are promoted for their individual contributions—then left to figure out leadership on their own. That’s a recipe for burnout, discomfort, and a whole lot of stress. At The Human Solution, we believe management is a professional skill set in its own right. And if you want to build high-performing teams and create a culture that thrives, your managers need the right tools—not just instincts.

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