Great Leadership Going Forward

Two weeks ago, I wrote a short article about some of my takeaways from this year’s Global Leadership Summit. I received appreciative feedback, which was not a surprise, as the presentations throughout the summit were packed with a wealth of leadership principles and practices.

There are more, a lot more, and here are additional takeaways I’d like to share.

Beth Comstock formerly headed marketing for General Electric and had become Vice-Chair. She retired and is now on the Board of Directors of Nike, and she has authored a book, Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change.

In sharing her philosophy of highly effective leadership, Beth offered that as leaders we must:

• Be curious and eager to keep learning and discovering
• Learning quickly is a competitive advantage
• Be willing to take risks
• Have people who will challenge you, a new spark may well be just what is needed
• Imagine it forward, e.g., what could be next to continue our company’s success, spend 10-20% of time developing for the future
• Create a safe environment for our receiving feedback. We want honest and timely feedback

In fact, Beth encourages leaders to ask “Tell me one thing I do not want to hear.” I love this, feel it is brilliant.

We might well want to follow that request with “I heard you, and I would like your help.”

Following Beth’s presentation came Marcus Buckingham, who was a senior researcher with Gallup, now has his own company, and has authored well-regarded business books, e.g., First, Break All the Rules, and numerous since.

Marcus emphasized the importance of our awareness of how we feel about our work, about our self as a leader, our other team leaders, and our company.

If we are genuinely positive, this will strengthen our resilience, which is a vital quality in today’s very competitive and demanding business environment.

Marcus encourages a 15-minute meeting each week with each team member to:

• Ask about the week’s priorities
• Encourage innovation and risk-taking
• Ask how we may help

Nona Jones, a business executive, media personality, author, and ministry leader, offered that we may not make an impact while feeling comfortable. Rather, we must learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Business leadership is not for the faint of heart. We must be willing to step up, to speak up, and to offer our ideas for improvement, often for change going forward, as our business world changes.

Along the same vein, Juliet Funt, the founder of WhiteSpace at Work, teaches businesses how to become more efficient, encourages change by visioning “What is the best possible outcome of taking this risk?” Feel the fear, and do it anyway.

Additional key principles offered during the summit included:

• Never stop learning
• Seek new opportunities
• Serve others, which is our responsibility as leaders (and why we are here on earth)
• Learn by asking questions
• Listen to people with an open mind
• Be on time, if not early, try to never make people wait
• A leader must remain calm
• Successful organizations build cultures based on principles, not personalities
• Kindness is an important foundation of a culture
• In making decisions, take the time to understand options
• Find reasons to be positive
• Build bridges to connect, to unite
• Focus on principles, to do what is right
• Be forgiving
• A humble leader is inspirational

I expect you can see why I am so enthusiastic about the Global Leadership Summit. All these insights were discussed on the first day of the summit.

More to follow, and in the meantime, I encourage you to try to attend next August 5th and 6th. We have attended three times with leadership teams and it has been wonderful to see the leaders share their enthusiasm about helping their people excel.