“TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP BEGINS WITHIN”

Sonia L. Aranza

Aranza Cross-Cultural Strategies & Global Leadership Development
FWN100™ Global 2015 & U.S. 2007

Even the ambitious among us settle. Whether we admit it or not, we say “Pwede na” or “that will do” to many aspects of our lives. To confront this, we must be willing to transform. Transformation requires change. Change is disruptive. Inconvenient. Frightening. We are born and we die. In between, we have this adventure called life. One would think that the impermanence of life would motivate us to live with gusto and seek to continuously evolve. The sad truth is that many of us don’t. Transformation is hard work and no one can do the work for you. Transformational leadership begins within.

Sonia Aranza’s journey examines lessons learned from disrupting a comfortable life, confronting inconvenient truths and facing fear in order to transform. Born in the Philippines and immigrated to the United States at eight years old, she was ridiculed for how she spoke English. Today, corporate giants and global organizations pay Sonia Aranza to speak. She designs, develops and delivers innovative keynotes and seminars to top Fortune 500 companies and organizations around the world on the subjects of global leadership, cross-cultural communications and diversity & inclusion strategies. She has been able to sustain the success of her enterprise for 20 years, a feat many fledgling entrepreneurs do not accomplish. Her global leadership development work has taken her from China to Costa Rica. She is paid to do what she loves! Never in her wildest dream as an immigrant little girl from the Philippines did she imagine doing this.

How did the transformation happen? Why did she risk leaving a comfortable job on Capitol Hill as Director of Constituent Relations for a member of the United States Congress? Why dive into a life of uncertainty as an entrepreneur? In her inspiring essay, she answers these questions and reveals important leadership competencies that others can adopt to have their own transformation. She describes four specific leadership competencies and provides examples from her own journey to make the competencies easy to understand. Her aim is to inspire readers to disrupt their safe way of thinking and continue to evolve! Sonia Aranza firmly believes that you are never too old and it is never too late to transform. Her essay is a call to action to say “No!” to the “Pwede na” mentality and challenges us to confront self-imposed fears in order to live the life we prefer. Transformational leadership truly begins within!