Invisible to Invincible:
How to Create a Work Culture Where Everyone Feels Like a Superhero
In this memoir manifesto, Ruth explores her quest for a healthy work culture and shares a framework for building environments where everyone thrives. Embracing a fun superhero theme, Ruth offers practical insights and strategies, showing that soft skills aren’t weaknesses—they’re superpowers that help teams and organizations soar!
In Invisible to Invincible: How to Create a Work Culture Where Everyone Feels Like a Superhero, Ruth Hetland combines memoir with manifesto to guide readers toward building stronger, healthier workplaces where individuals can thrive. Drawing from personal experiences throughout her career, Ruth reflects on her quest to find a work culture that matched the positive environment she had experienced early on. Through this journey, she introduces The STRONG Framework—a powerful approach for fostering environments where people feel seen, heard, trusted, supported, empowered, valued, and engaged.
Embracing a fun superhero theme, Ruth demonstrates how soft skills aren’t weaknesses—they’re superpowers that help teams and organizations reach new heights. In this book, you’ll discover how to unlock your own superpowers and create a culture where individuals feel strong, connected, and understood. Ruth believes that when people feel empowered to be their authentic selves, they can make a real impact—both in their roles and across the organization.
Whether you’re looking to spark change within your team, improve your leadership practices, or transform your organization from the inside out, Invisible to Invincible: How to Create a Work Culture Where Everyone Feels Like a Superhero and The STRONG Framework will help you unlock the full potential of your team and your workplace.
Recognizing and leaning into my strengths ultimately led me to helping others recognize and lean into their own strengths, including writing this book, to help others lean into their superpowers!
— Ruth Hetland
The Power Behind
Invisible to Invincible
A Foreword from Ruth's Original Team
Invisible to Invincible begins with a brief yet powerful foreword from Ruth’s first two team members as a new leader. Their reflections offer insight into Ruth’s authentic leadership style and the profound impact it had on their own professional journeys. These words lay the foundation for how The STRONG Framework fosters a strong team and a positive work culture.
The STRONG Framework: Unlocking Leadership Superpowers
At the heart of Invisible to Invincible is The STRONG Framework—a guide to building workplaces where team members feel seen, heard, trusted, supported, empowered, valued, and engaged. Rooted in the belief that soft skills are superpowers, this framework covering six key goals, with the first letter of each goal making up the word STRONG, comes to life through real-world stories from Ruth’s career, demonstrating how activating these superpowers enables teams to thrive.
Superpowers in Action: From the Page to the Workplace
Superhero-inspired language, character names, and movie references are woven throughout the book, reinforcing the connection between leadership and superpowers in action. Each chapter covering a STRONG goal concludes with a table listing the superpowers demonstrated within the chapter. Accompanying each superpower in the table are practical ways to activate it in everyday practice—empowering leaders to put their superpowers into action immediately.
Bringing Lessons to Life: Reflection and Creativity at Play
Each chapter covering a STRONG goal also ends with reflective questions, encouraging readers to apply what they learned in the chapter to their own teams and workplaces. To bring everything together, a continuing comic book storyline, created and illustrated by Ruth’s third team member, brings the lessons to life in a fun, visual way. As you follow the characters’ journey through the workplace challenges, you’ll see The STRONG Framework in action. It’s an engaging and memorable way to understand how these superpowers can be activated in real-world scenarios.
Readers Speak:
Here’s How Invisible to Invincible Has Impacted Them
A Reflective, Simple, yet Powerful Approach to Leadership
I enjoyed Ruth’s STRONG framework and reflective approach. It was helpful to read her analysis of her personal experiences and then answer the Reflection wrap-up questions for myself. It felt empowering to be reminded of the impact my own superpowers can have.
I also appreciate Ruth’s point of view as a more introverted person. It made me reflect on our society where outgoing, outspoken, louder voices are typically seen as more important, or “the majority,” when actually that may not be the truth. I feel like Ruth’s experience in a toxic workplace is all too common, and this is a refreshing reminder that it doesn’t have to be that way. We have the power to make change. We have the power to lead by example, even if we aren’t the loudest person in the room. The comic synopsis after each chapter was a unique addition, too.
If you are looking for thoughtful and powerful advice on leading a team, definitely give this a read!
— Callie
