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How Can CEOs Lead Civil Discourse On Sensitive Social and Political Issues? — with Amy Showalter

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In our increasingly complex business and societal environment, employee stakeholder activism continues to rise. Numerous studies show that CEOs are under increasing pressure to take a public stand and engage in the conversation.

Perhaps you’re considering how you are going to address this issue in the New Year and beyond.

That’s why we’re featuring this Fan Favorite episode. We speak with Amy Showalter, a grassroots and Political Action Committee influence expert, about how to acknowledge differences and maintain civil discourse about sensitive social and political issues inside and outside the workplace.

Amy is the Founder of The Showalter Group and author of the book, The Underdog Edge: How Everyday People Change the Minds of the Powerful. . . and Live to Tell About It. She is also a columnist for Bloomberg Government and Lobbyblog.com. Over 500 media outlets have featured her insight. This includes The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Politico, CNN Money.com, Foxnews.com, and CNBC.com. (read more about Amy Showalter below).

You’ll gain insights on:
  • The dynamics driving the growing trends of employee stakeholder activism
  • Why top leaders leaders need to actively navigate stakeholders’ concerns about sensitive social and political issues
  • The right way and wrong way for CEOs and other top leaders to encourage social/political conversations among employee stakeholders
  • Immediately useful ideas for encouraging civil discourse among employee stakeholders with competing social and political opinions

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Honoring an Innovative and Forward-thinking CEO

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“Doing well by doing good” is a concept that many CEOs and other top leaders aspire to. However this aspiration can sometimes be a challenge to consistently pull off. Given this, we are excited that Chief Executive has named Marc Benioff, Founder, Chair and co-CEO of Salesforce, as their CEO of the Year for 2022. The selection committee praised him as an “Innovative and forward thinking CEO” who has been able to consistently achieve “exceptional business results while fostering greater sustainability, prosperity and equity within the business community and broader society.”

The leadership that led to Marc Benioff being selected as Chief Executive’s CEO of the Year also exemplifies what we call “Growth Igniters® Leadership”:  a mindset of expansive thinking, curiosity, and cultural intelligence that is foundational for leading a bold vision in a constantly changing world.

In this “Quick Take” episode, we share how Marc Benioff’s leadership can serve as an inspiration:  First,  the importance of living into your core values as a way of informing all strategic and operational decisions within their organization and across your ecosystem.  Second, how fostering an environment of continuous learning and gaining perspectives from various stakeholders can help you and your company keep  pace with both challenges and opportunities as  the world keeps changing. Third, staying flexible about the different leadership and management capabilities and styles that are necessary as your company evolves and grows over time.

It is possible to do well by doing good and achieve exceptional business results. The challenge is to do it in a way that’s right for you, your team, employees, customers, partners, and other stakeholders in your ecosystem. – Pam Harper

This week on Growth Igniters Radio:

  • What led Chief Executive to name Marc Benioff as their 2022 CEO of the year
  • How Marc Benioff exemplifies what we call “Growth Igniters® Leadership”
  • Living into your core values so that strategic and operational decisions can drive both exceptional business results and benefits to the broader society
  • How continuous learning can support resilience and an innovative mindset
  • The importance of going beyond employees to gain perspectives from customers, partners, and other stakeholders in your company’s ecosystem
  • Staying flexible to the need for a variety of leadership and management capabilities and styles as your organization evolves and grows

Question to discuss with your team:
How can we move beyond inspiration and create our own way of doing well by doing good?

Resources Mentioned:

Accelerate to YOUR Next Level of Success

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The Surprising Truth About Impostor Syndrome in the C-Suite – with Kris Kelso

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Kris Kelso - overcoming Impostor SyndromeKris Kelso is a Keynote Speaker, Entrepreneurial Leadership Coach, and Author of the book Overcoming The Impostor: Silence Your Inner Critic and Lead with Confidence. In his book, Kris writes about how leaders can overcome that persistent voice inside their heads that tells them they’re not good enough. He is a certified leadership coach and has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs, leadership teams, and business owners realize their potential as highly-driven organizational motivators.

Kris joins us to describe his experience with impostor syndrome and what it took for him to overcome this hurdle. He explains where impostor syndrome starts at the C-Suite level and how it can severely limit your ability to lead an organization. He shares why impostor syndrome primarily affects ambitious and driven leaders and discusses the critical relationships you need to overcome it. Kris also explains how being vulnerable often leads to receiving more respect as a leader, the concept of the ‘Comparison Trap,’ and what readers can expect to learn from his book. (Read more about Kris Kelso below)

“One of the most surprising truths I’ve uncovered about Impostor Syndrome is that  it tends to be more prevalent among high achievers.”
– Kris Kelso

This week on Growth Igniters® Radio:

● The surprising truth about Impostor Syndrome in the C-Suite
● The most prominent myths about Impostor Syndrome in the C-Suite
● What drives Impostor Syndrome among top leaders
● Correlating perfectionism with Impostor Syndrome
● Understanding the Comparison Trap
● How being vulnerable earns respect as a leader
● How Community can help fight Impostor Syndrome
● The three relationships you should have to beat Impostor Syndrome
● How to determine if you may have Impostor Syndrome
● Immediately useful ideas to begin overcoming Impostor Syndrome

Resources Mentioned:

● Learn more about Pam’s keynote address at Pam Harper Speaks

Connect with Kris Kelso:

● Kris Kelso official website
● Book: Overcoming The Impostor — find out more & download free chapter
● Kris Kelso on LinkedIn
● Kris Kelso on Instagram

Kris Kelso is a Keynote Speaker, a two-time entrepreneur, a Professional Certified Coach, and is the author of “Overcoming The Impostor: Silence Your Inner Critic and Lead with Confidence“.

Kris has worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs, business owners, and their leadership teams as a coach, facilitator, and mentor. He is a faculty instructor at the Professional Christian Coaching Institute, an advisor and instructor at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, and is a contributing writer for Fast Company Magazine, Yahoo Finance, and The Nashville Business Journal.

Kris has founded multiple companies and has served on the boards of directors of several non- profit organizations. He is an active member of Cornerstone Nashville, where he serves, teaches, and coaches other leaders. He lives with his wife and three teenaged sons in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee.

Accelerate to YOUR Next Level of Success

If you enjoyed this episode of Growth Igniters® Radio, please spread the word. Subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Join us on Facebook and LinkedIn. For more exclusive content, join the Growth Igniters® Community.

 

Part 2-How an Unconventional Leader Fosters High-Level Virtual Relationships — with Coco Brown

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Coco Brown, CEO of Athena Alliance

We speak with Coco Brown, the founder & CEO of The Athena Alliance, about the unconventional leadership she uses to build virtual relationships at the highest levels in her company and extended alliance network.

Coco joins us to discuss Athena Alliance’s goals and how the fully-remote network enables female leaders to advance their careers. She explains what it’s like to climb the industry ranks as a woman and how she maintains a culture of constant feedback despite running a fully-remote company. She describes the importance of breaking rules that don’t make sense and how to determine whether you’re taking too much risk. She also discusses the value of transparency and showing vulnerability as a leader.

This is part two of our wide-ranging conversation. It was such a wonderful interchange that we just couldn’t cut it short! Part one is immediately available as Episode 214.

The Athena Alliance is a game-changing digital ecosystem helping to position the top 10% of executive women for advancement and board opportunities while also transforming the boardroom towards a modern composition model.  She leads change and transformation, accelerating multimillion-dollar growth through vision, strategy, technology, and people leadership. To date, the business has established a network of 5,000+ C-level women, VCs, and CEOs from 200+ companies, achieved 200% annualized YOY growth and helped 400+ women successfully land board placements. Members and corporate customers come from hundreds of top brands, including Amazon, Autodesk, Bank of America, Intel, Intuit, Microsoft, Quinstreet, and Stripe.

Since 2013, Coco has served on 10 for-profit and nonprofit boards as a member, advisor, and committee leader, providing input and guidance around M&A, divestiture, audit, CEO succession and compensation, corporate strategy, financial planning, change management, and more. Nationally recognized as an expert in shaping the modern boardroom and modern leadership, Coco Brown is the first person many companies and CEOs call when they need help or advice around strategic planning, board makeup, or the changing landscape of board operations. Her connections are vast, and her thought leadership in these areas is considered generationally transformative. As a result, she was asked to become an Insights Council member with the prestigious Nasdaq Center for Board Excellence in 2022.

In addition to guiding and supporting executive leaders and boards, she is a sought-after speaker and writer and is frequently interviewed by business and industry publications. She has been quoted and featured in Bloomberg, Entrepreneur, Forbes, Fortune, InformationWeek, NACD Directorship, Nasdaq.com, Silicon Valley Business Journal, The Cube, The Street, and WSJ.

 

“What’s healthy is for leaders to get all way in the organization and make sure there are checks and balances that perpetuate the culture you want to have.”
– Coco Brown

 

This week on Growth Igniters Radio:

  • Coco’s role in Athena Alliance
  • Being a woman in a male-dominated industry
  • What motivated Coco to start Athena during the pandemic
  • What is Athena Alliance and the services it offers
  • What surprised Coco as Athena Alliance grew
  • Creating team intimacy in the digital world
  • The importance of transparency in building virtual relationships at the highest level
  • How to determine if you’re taking too much risk
  • Breaking rules that don’t make sense
  • Why feedback is critical in a fully remote world

Coco Brown’s Three Immediately Useful Ideas:

    1. Check your personal resistance to virtual relationships
    2. Foster a system of constant feedback
    3. Lead to promote transparency & Vulnerability

Resources Mentioned:

Connect with Coco Brown:

Accelerate to YOUR Next Level of Success

Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of Growth Igniters Radio. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Be sure to share your favorite episodes on social media to help us reach more visionary C-Suite leaders and corporate directors like you.

Join us on Facebook and LinkedIn. For more exclusive content and information, visit our website.

 

Part 1-How an Unconventional Leader Fosters High-Level Virtual Relationships — with Coco Brown

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:52 — 34.1MB) | Embed

Subscribe: RSS

Coco Brown, CEO of Athena Alliance

We speak with Coco Brown, the founder & CEO of The Athena Alliance, about the unconventional leadership she uses to build virtual relationships at the highest levels in her company and extended alliance network.

This is part one of our wide-ranging conversation. It was such a wonderful interchange that we just couldn’t cut it short! Part two is immediately available as Episode 215.

The Athena Alliance is a game-changing digital ecosystem helping to position the top 10% of executive women for advancement and board opportunities while also transforming the boardroom towards a modern composition model.  She leads change and transformation, accelerating multimillion-dollar growth through vision, strategy, technology, and people leadership. To date, the business has established a network of 5,000+ C-level women, VCs, and CEOs from 200+ companies, achieved 200% annualized YOY growth and helped 400+ women successfully land board placements. Members and corporate customers come from hundreds of top brands, including Amazon, Autodesk, Bank of America, Intel, Intuit, Microsoft, Quinstreet, and Stripe.

Since 2013, Coco has served on 10 for-profit and nonprofit boards as a member, advisor, and committee leader, providing input and guidance around M&A, divestiture, audit, CEO succession and compensation, corporate strategy, financial planning, change management, and more. Nationally recognized as an expert in shaping the modern boardroom and modern leadership, Coco Brown is the first person many companies and CEOs call when they need help or advice around strategic planning, board makeup, or the changing landscape of board operations. Her connections are vast, and her thought leadership in these areas is considered generationally transformative. As a result, she was asked to become an Insights Council member with the prestigious Nasdaq Center for Board Excellence in 2022.

In addition to guiding and supporting executive leaders and boards, she is a sought-after speaker and writer and is frequently interviewed by business and industry publications. She has been quoted and featured in Bloomberg, Entrepreneur, Forbes, Fortune, InformationWeek, NACD Directorship, Nasdaq.com, Silicon Valley Business Journal, The Cube, The Street, and WSJ.

Coco joins us to discuss Athena Alliance’s goals and how the fully-remote network enables female leaders to advance their careers. She explains what it’s like to climb the industry ranks as a woman and how she maintains a culture of constant feedback despite running a fully-remote company. She describes the importance of breaking rules that don’t make sense and how to determine whether you’re taking too much risk. Coco also discusses the value of transparency and showing vulnerability as a leader.

 

“What’s healthy is for leaders to get all way in the organization and make sure there are checks and balances that perpetuate the culture you want to have.”
– Coco Brown

 

This week on Growth Igniters Radio:

  • Coco’s role in Athena Alliance
  • Being a woman in a male-dominated industry
  • What motivated Coco to start Athena during the pandemic
  • What is Athena Alliance and the services it offers
  • What surprised Coco as Athena Alliance grew
  • Creating team intimacy in the digital world
  • The importance of transparency in building virtual relationships at the highest level
  • How to determine if you’re taking too much risk
  • Breaking rules that don’t make sense
  • Why feedback is critical in a fully remote world

Coco Brown’s Three Immediately Useful Ideas:

  1. Check your personal resistance to virtual relationships
  2. Foster a system of constant feedback
  3. Lead to promote transparency & Vulnerability

Resources Mentioned:

Connect with Coco Brown:

Accelerate to YOUR Next Level of Success

Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of Growth Igniters Radio. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Be sure to share your favorite episodes on social media to help us reach more visionary C-Suite leaders and corporate directors like you.

Join us on Facebook and LinkedIn. For more exclusive content and information, visit our website.

 

How Peripheral Thinking™ Can Fuel Innovation – with Paul Daniels Jr.

“You can find sparks of innovation by looking beyond your frame of reference”

Read Growth Igniters Radio Episode 208 TranscriptListen to episode 209. Scott and I speak with Paul Daniels Jr. about how insights from outside your focus can propel innovative thinking. Paul is a keynote speaker, entrepreneur, board advisor, and author. He is also the  Founder and CEO of Peripheral Thinkers™,  a collaborative think-tank of leaders who want to propel their companies beyond obstacles and change the trajectory of industries worldwide.

Paul’s unique perspectives on challenging conventions and creating unlimited paths to success in any market condition have influenced companies of all sizes, including General Electric, UnitedHealthcare, Budweiser, WebMD, and AT&T. (read more about Paul below).

You’ll gain insights on:
  • How looking at unrelated ideas and putting them together in new ways can uniquely fuel innovation
  • How interacting with people from other walks of life can turbocharge innovative thinking
  • Immediately useful ideas for for applying peripheral thinking to propel innovation in your organization

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Why Leaders Need the Language of Mystery, Ambiguity, and Artistry – with Libby Wagner

“New language can help leaders create high trust cultures that fulfill their purpose and mission”

Read Growth Igniters Radio Episode 208 TranscriptListen to episode 208. Scott and I speak with Libby Wagner, a poet, speaker, and trusted advisor about how leaders can find new language to connect more powerfully with stakeholders. She works with leaders of organizations large and small, across the globe, to create high trust cultures fulfilling their purpose and mission. She is the author of Amazon Best-Seller, The Influencing Option: The Art of Building a Profit Culture in Business, as well as five collections of poems.

Libby has been quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Harvard Business Review. Her work has shaped many organizational cultures, including Keurig-Dr Pepper, Philips, Boeing, and many others. She is one of the only poets working in organizations, and she inspires others to access and express their leadership voices to have courageous conversations where they balance truth-telling and compassion. (read more about Libby below).

You’ll gain insights on:
  • Why applying new language during major transformation and growth can lead to valuable outcomes
  • The art of going beyond jargon and cliche to lead your organization through ambiguity
  • Immediately useful ideas for for applying new language to leadership for creating trust and connection

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The Next Big Wave for Business: Multi-Stakeholder Societal Benefit — with Andrew Hollo

More top leaders are prioritizing strategies that address society’s biggest needs

Read Growth Igniters Radio Episode 205 TranscriptListen to episode 207. Scott and I speak with Andrew Hollo, the director and principal consultant at Workwell Consulting. We discuss the growing trend for businesses of all sizes to collaborate with their diverse stakeholders on strategies that create a lasting positive impact for society and build financial value.

Andrew is one of Australia’s leading experts in realizing the potential of organizations and groups to develop big ideas and gain collective results. In over 20 years, Andrew has led almost 1000 projects for clients who deliver substantial public value: government and non-government, privately held and non-profit organizations.
(read Andrew Hollo’s bio below).

You’ll gain insights on:
  • Why multi-stakeholder societal benefit matters now more than ever
  • Top leadership implications for CEOs, C-Suites and Boards
  • Immediately useful ideas for leading an organization to create multi-stakeholder societal benefit

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Becoming an “Intentional Leader” — with guest Tim Hebert

 Our guest shares insights from his CEO journey and highlights from his new leadership book

Read Growth Igniters Radio Episode 202 TranscriptDownload and listen to episode 203. Scott and I speak with returning guest Tim Hebert, CEO of Trilix, a business and technology consulting firm. We discuss insights from his transformational leadership journey and what it means to become an “intentional leader.”

Tim is a visionary entrepreneur, innovator and adventurer. He is also a seasoned speaker and author of a new book The Intentional Leader: How inner authority can unleash strong leadership. (read more about Tim Hebert below).

You’ll gain insights on:
  • Why Tim believes intentional leadership especially matters in what he calls “today’s leadership crisis”
  • The keys to transitioning from what Tim call “Ghost Mode” to being an intentional leader
  • Immediately useful ideas for fostering personal insight and cultivating habits of intentional leadership

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Get a Jump Start on Increasing C-Suite Innovation in 2022

Rapidly evolving trends in the business environment means there’s no time to waste

Read Growth Igniters Radio Episode 196 Transcript

Which trends are most impacting your business right now: Digitization? Sustainability? M&A?  The ‘Great Reshuffle’? Strategic Partnering? All of the above?  Something else?  The one thing these trends have in common is that they’re happening all at once, faster than ever before. Successfully accelerating business innovation in this environment starts with aligned leadership by the CEO, C-Suite and Board. That’s why Scott and I are ringing in the New Year by re-releasing one of our most popular episodes.

Listen to Fan Favorite Episode 196: “Is Your C-Suite Ready for Business Innovation?” We discuss the reason behind the increasing push for C-suites to lead  for “business innovation” and why C-Suite innovation is essential for meeting the rapidly changing needs of customers, employees, investors, suppliers and other stakeholders in the year ahead. (For your jump start, be sure to download a brief self-assessment “Five Questions To Ask When You Need to Move Even Faster”).

You’ll gain insights on:

  • How business innovation impacts every aspect of your company
  • The paradox of “readiness” for business innovation
  • Three immediately useful ideas for leading beyond the blockages and accelerating business innovation

Read More