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Built to Think / Media & Press
Explore the ideas behind Built to Think by Leanne Terrace, discover interview topics, and access resources for your next story, podcast, or conversation.
The Book / At a Glance
When every consequential decision comes back to the leader, growth slows—even when the team is capable.
Built to Think explores why intelligent, committed people can become dependent on permission and why simply telling leaders to delegate more rarely fixes the problem. Leanne Terrace argues that the bottleneck is structural: organizations need deliberate ways for people to think together, make sound decisions, and act with accountability.
Drawing on three decades of leadership, consulting, and coaching experience, the book offers practical disciplines for clarifying decision authority, working through differences, solving the right problems, and making learning part of how a company operates.
It also addresses a defining question for leaders in the AI era: if AI accelerates the systems it enters, what happens when those systems are built around waiting for the boss?
Key Messages / Big Ideas
Four ideas at the heart of Built to Think—and four starting points for a meaningful conversation about leadership, growth, and AI.
Decision bottlenecks aren't simply leadership problems. They're often built into the way organizations operate—and reinforced by the habits leaders and teams develop together.
Leaders create greater capacity when they stop being the answer to every problem and start building teams capable of solving problems and making sound decisions themselves.
Technology alone won't create organizational intelligence. AI can accelerate work, but it can also accelerate the very bottlenecks and dependencies leaders need to change.
Sustainable growth depends on moving decision-making, accountability, and problem-solving closer to where the work happens—without losing alignment or trust.
For Podcasts / Interviews / Editorial Features
Explore six interview angles and expand any topic for suggested questions. Each conversation can be tailored to your audience.
Explore how capable people become dependent on leadership approval—and what changes when decision rights are clear.
Discuss the leadership identity shift that creates space for others to think, own decisions, and build capability.
Examine why AI adoption can amplify existing bottlenecks, and what organizations need before technology can deliver its promise.
Consider how organizations can distribute ownership and accountability without sacrificing clarity, coordination, or standards.
Unpack the disciplines that help teams surface different perspectives, work through friction, and solve the right problems.
Offer listeners practical ways to spot bottlenecks and begin changing the way decisions and learning happen.
Planning an interview or looking for a different angle? We can tailor the conversation to your audience.
Discuss an Interview →Media Resources / Press Materials
Access approved media information, imagery and supporting materials for coverage of Built to Think. Additional downloadable files will be added as they become available.
A concise introduction to Leanne Terrace for interviews, podcast descriptions and editorial coverage.
Request Bio ↗Expanded professional background and leadership experience for detailed media profiles.
Approved file being preparedFor interview requests, review copies, permissions or additional media materials.
Contact Media ↗View Leanne Terrace's current author portrait. Additional high-resolution and web-ready versions are being prepared.
View Photo ↗View the official Built to Think cover artwork. Additional print and web formats will follow.
View Cover ↗A consolidated press kit and dated PDF announcements, to be published once approved.
Downloads in preparationAdditional resources: Photographer credits, image usage terms, downloadable press packages, press releases and approved Amazon recognition wording will be included as materials are finalized.
Featured Praise
Thirty leading authorities, bestselling authors, and CEOs read the book before it went to print. These perspectives capture what they saw in the work.
Leaders who want to build capability rather than dependency will find this book both challenging and immensely practical.
The ultimate test of leadership is not how well people perform when the leader is in the room, but how capably they think and act when the leader is not. What I value most about Built to Think is Leanne Terrace’s powerful shift from Solver to Sponsor—and her clear-eyed understanding that AI can accelerate good thinking but cannot create the human conditions that make it possible. Leaders who want to build capability rather than dependency will find this book both challenging and immensely practical.
Jim Huling
Executive Coach and Co-Author of the #1 bestseller The 4 Disciplines of Execution
If every important decision has to come through you, growth will always have a ceiling.
The organizations that win in the future will not be the ones with the smartest tools, but the ones that have learned how to think. Leanne Terrace understands a challenge every growing leader eventually faces. Built to Think offers a practical way to build teams that can solve problems, make sound decisions, and adapt with confidence.
Dr. Marshall Goldsmith
Thinkers50 #1 Executive Coach and New York Times bestselling author of The Earned Life, Triggers, and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
The book I wish I had when I was still trying to be the one with all the answers.
During my leadership at WD-40 Company, I learned that people do their best thinking when they feel safe enough to do it without permission. Built to Think turns that belief into a real operating system with disciplines any leader can put to work tomorrow morning.
Garry Ridge
Chairman Emeritus, WD-40 Company & USA Today Bestselling Author of Any Dumb-Ass Can Do It
Break free from the hero trap and unleash real decision-making power across your organization.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed or stuck as your team grows, Built to Think will show you how to break free from the hero trap and unleash real decision-making power across your organization.
David Meerman Scott
Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Fanocracy
Buyers pay for one thing above all: a company that does not depend on the founder.
I have personally advised more than 20,000 companies on scaling toward a high-value exit. Built to Think is the system that builds it. If you ever intend to sell, or simply want the option, this is the work that has to happen first.
Kane Minkus
2X Inc. 5000 founder, Top 300 in America; 3X bestselling author
Knowing when and how to ‘get out of the way’ is a core leadership skill — and this book shows how.
There is a yin and yang about great leadership. The leader may be a team’s greatest asset, but he or she is often at the same time the greatest impediment to collective performance.
Prof. David Clutterbuck
Author or Co-Author of 77 books covering HR, Coaching and Mentoring (and arguably the world’s leading authority in Mentoring)
Most leaders fail … because they do not know how to build ‘We. Q.’ or collaborative intelligence.
“Most leaders fail, not through lack of IQ or even EQ, but because they do not know how to build ‘We. Q.’ or collaborative intelligence, in their leadership team and across their organization. Having spent nearly 50 years helping leaders develop collaborative intelligence, it is a joy to see Leanne’s new book. Built to Think lays out practical steps organization and team leaders can take to lessen the dependency of the organization on themselves and build sustainable collaborative intelligence into their organization.”
Professor Peter Hawkins
Chairman of Renewal Associates. Global thought leaders in Systemic Team Coaching and Organizational Transformation. Co-Author of the recent best seller Team of Teams Coaching: Using teaming approaches to increase business impact and author of Leadership Team Coaching
This is an essential resource for navigating the intersection of human potential, leadership, and technological complexity.
“Built to Think tackles a critical question facing businesses and educators alike: how can leaders maintain deep integrity and stay true to human intention while building for scale in the age of AI? Leanne offers a practical system for cultivating capable, adaptable teams rooted in care, trust, diversity, and sustainability—creating the ideal foundation to successfully integrate AI strategies. This is an essential resource for navigating the intersection of human potential, leadership, and technological complexity.”
Laura Kinderman, PhD PCC
Principal and VPA BC, Yorkville University; Vice Chair, North Vancouver Chamber of Commerce; QIESR Invited Scholar, Queen's University
Deals slow down when something changes, and the question goes up the chain and sits there.
Built to Think builds a team that knows what it can decide and how to solve the rest together. Get the book, work the framework, and you'll feel it in your pipeline.
Todd Hartley
Wall St. Journal Best Selling Author
How you get results is more important than the results themselves.
“I have known Leanne Terrace not simply as an author and leadership coach, but as someone who has lived servant leadership. What makes this book so valuable is that she doesn’t stop with philosophy — she provides a practical approach for building organizations where people are equipped to think, solve problems, and adapt without everything flowing through the leader. For me, leadership has always come back to a simple belief: how you get results is more important than the results themselves. Built to Think carries that belief forward for a new generation of leaders.”
Art Barter
Founder & CEO, Servant Leadership Institute
A blueprint for leaders who want to build capability instead of dependency.
“Built to Think challenges one of leadership’s most persistent myths: that great leaders are great problem-solvers. The real work is building organizations that can solve problems without waiting for the leader. Terrace offers a practical, deeply human framework for moving from Solver to Sponsor—creating the clarity, authority, and discipline people need to think and act for themselves. Her insight on AI is especially timely. Smart, practical, and refreshingly counterintuitive, Built to Think is a blueprint for leaders who want to build capability instead of dependency.”
Devin C. Hughes
Organizational Culture & Leadership Expert | Author | Professor
A clear pathway to building teams that think, decide, and grow together.
“Leanne and I share a core passion for helping leaders build trusting, respectful workplaces — and this book really delivers. Built to Think is practical, respectful, and clearly grounded in her extensive and very accomplished thirty years in the saddle. It gives leaders what they need: a clear pathway to building teams that think, decide, and grow together.”
Gregg Ward MCEC BCC
Founder/Executive Director of The Center for Respectful Leadership and author of the best-selling, award-winning business fable The Respectful Leader: Seven Ways to Influence Without Intimidation
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The Book / Press Resources
Build teams that solve problems without waiting for permission in the age of AI.
Leanne Terrace explores how leaders can move beyond being the default decision-maker and build teams that think together, make sound decisions, and act with accountability.
Media Inquiries / Interviews / Speaking
Looking for a fresh perspective on leadership, team decision-making, or AI-enabled organizations? Invite Leanne Terrace to join your podcast, contribute to a story, or speak with your audience about the ideas behind Built to Think.
Get in TouchFor all media and speaking requests: [email protected]
Request an interview or explore a conversation tailored to your listeners.
Request an Interview ↗Ask for author information, imagery, book details, or review-copy availability.
Request Materials ↗