Drawing on more than 20 years of experience in the hotel and country club business and 10 years as a professor and the Dean of Wake Forest University’s Babcock Graduate School of Management, author Frank J. Schilagi provides the reader with a unique and practical approach to understanding effective leadership behavior. Incorporating insights gathered from his successes and failures in managing people throughout his career, Schilagi’s leadership philosophy has been used to create and implement successful operating strategies for numerous for-profit and nonprofit organizations and will work at all levels in any type of organization.

Schilagi, who has a Ph.D. in Individual and Organizational Behavior from the University of Georgia, decided to give back to the education system by spending ten years teaching before moving on to the corporate world.  After only a few years of professorship at Wake Forest University, his leadership ability was so apparent that, at the age of 32, he was offered the position of Dean of the Babcock Graduate School of Management.

Following ten years in education and several years of consulting, Schilagi returned to his true passion—business leadership—and became the President and owner of a successful consulting and management company. A millionaire by his mid thirties, Schilagi quickly established himself as an expert at turning around failing organizations. He subsequently owned and operated a variety of highly successful full and limited service hotels ranging in size from 100 to 450 rooms.  He also owned and managed Bermuda Run Country Club, a thousand acre private residential community with a 27-hole golf course considered to be one of the finest in North Carolina.  

In 1986 Schilagi created the first ever Bing Crosby Celebrity Golf Tournament in Bermuda Run.  Ultimately raising over fifteen million dollars for charities around the United States, it was the country’s largest celebrity charity golf event for a number of years. The concept proved to be so successful that it was emulated by international organizations such as Sara Lee and RJ Reynolds.

Schilagi has also created and/or presided over a number of other highly successful companies including:
·   River Cable, a premier cable company that merged with Time Warner Cable
·   TRIMCO, a preventive maintenance company whose clients include Bank of America, Hilton Hotels and other national corporations
·   American Data Systems, a commercial Information Technology company
·   Charter-Mandala, a private, in-patient mental health clinic
·   Loss Prevention Services, a private security company
·   United Citizens Bank, a community bank that eventually merged with the Royal Bank of Canada

Schilagi’s leadership has created and fostered numerous career opportunities for thousands of people throughout the southeastern United States, and the impact of his creativity and business acumen continues to resonate today around the country. Fueled by his passion for learning and his desire to help others maximize their leadership potential, Schilagi researched and wrote Reality Check for Leaders, which takes readers on a fascinating journey through the world of hospitality management while teaching his unique leadership approach along the way.