You already know the difference between working in your organization and working on it. You have read the books. You understand the concepts. And yet eighty percent of your time still goes to holding things together, deescalating what was going to escalate anyway, running the review that produces the same update it produced last month, and making decisions the system should have been designed to handle. The Systems-Building Leader offers a field guide that moves beyond insight and into practice. Each chapter closes with a diagnostic Field Guide Tool that converts the argument into structured action you can apply with your specific team on a specific Tuesday morning.