Wholly
Courage, and Imperfection
Leadership feels harder than it should.
Not because you're missing a skill, but because leadership has been reduced to pieces that were never meant to stand alone. Leading Wholly shows how to integrate the dimensions that actually make leadership work: curiosity, courage, emotional intelligence, diverse perspectives, and team expertise. Because leadership isn't about mastering one trait. It's about bringing them together.
Ideapress Publishing · September 2026
They don't toggle between modes; they lead as whole people. That's what makes leadership resilient instead of fragile. Adaptive instead of reactive. Human instead of mechanical.
of Leading Wholly.
Leadership becomes less about performing and more about integrating. The shift is subtle but the results are measurable: stronger teams, better decisions, and a leadership identity that holds up under pressure.
"Nathan Murfield's Leading Wholly offers a refreshing view of leadership grounded in curiosity, humility, and lifelong learning. His chapter on curiosity is particularly compelling, showing that the most effective leaders are not 'know-it-alls' but 'learn-it-alls' who ask better questions and stay open to growth. It powerfully reinforces a core truth: curiosity is the engine of coachability, keeping leaders receptive to feedback, learning, and continuous improvement."
"Leading Wholly is a deeply human and insightful leadership book that illuminates what authentic leadership truly looks like in practice. Nathan masterfully weaves together storytelling, science, and practical wisdom, making the book both engaging and immediately applicable. The six principles of Leading Wholly provide a powerful foundation for developing leaders and creating healthier, more effective organizations. This is a book leaders should keep close and return to again and again."
"Transparency leads better than perfection ever could, because performative leadership is a terrible strategy. Leading Wholly teaches us that people don't follow perfection; they follow trust, and trust begins when leaders show up as actual human beings."
"Leading Wholly offers a refreshing and honest perspective on leadership. Drawing on insights from multiple disciplines, it reminds me that strength comes not from perfection, but from embracing the full human experience behind every decision."
"You can't cultivate joy in a culture where the leader is splintered and exhausted. The disconnected leader creates disconnected teams. The armored leader creates armored culture. Joy – real joy, the kind that drives performance and retention and the work people actually want to show up for – requires internal alignment of the leader before you can dream of bringing that to the culture. Nathan Murfield builds that path, room by room, pillar by pillar. Leading Wholly is what happens when the leader does the inner work that connects intellect and intuition, success and struggle, strength and soul. Then the whole organization changes."
Nathan Murfield is an engineering executive, leadership strategist, and author of Leading Wholly.
Across industrial operations, engineering teams, and complex organizations, he has spent his career studying how leaders navigate pressure, uncertainty, and change. He holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Minnesota, an MBA, and completed the Program for Leadership Development at Harvard Business School.
His work sits at the intersection of systems thinking and human behavior; grounded in real-world leadership experience and shaped by a central observation: leadership rarely fails because of a lack of expertise. It fails when leaders become disconnected from the human dimensions of their work.
Leading Wholly is the result of that insight.
He is also the founder of Trafora, a coaching platform launching alongside the book this September.