leadership
Fully charged leadership The strongest leaders are not those who pretend they don’t feel emotion.
WHAT: VSCPA KnowledgeNOW Conference WHO: 245 in-person attendees, 27 via simulcast WHERE: Williamsburg Lodge WHEN: May 15–16, 2017 TOP THEMES: Business climate, technology, leadership, communication
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car with an empty gas tank won’t go anywhere, and the same concept is true of organizations. A leader who isn’t fully engaged and ready to leave does his or her organization no favors. So how can you make sure you’re providing your organization with the engaged leadership it needs?
what can happen under pressure when a leader isn’t in a good place.
Chip Colbert, cofounder and executive director of the Fully Charged Institute (FCI), deals with that issue every day. His session, at the KnowledgeNOW Conference, “Fully Charged Leadership,” covered how to find meaning in your life and work and using that meaning to be a more effective leader.
“The worst thing you can do as a leader and a human being is to be that inconsistent Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. When pressure gets high, you just snap and take heads off around you,” he said. “From my military experience, we have this antiquated notion of the strong, stoic leader who doesn’t feel emotion and has all the answers. We put a lot of stock into that strong leader prototype. But research shows that the strongest leaders aren’t those who pretend they don’t feel emotion. It’s those who can regulate and manage.”
Colbert founded the FCI after a 20-year career as a U.S. Army officer, and his experiences with military command informed his second career. He witnessed all types of leadership, both effective and ineffective, while in the Army, and he saw
Colbert focused on three main factors in his session — meaning, interactions and energy — and how they play into one another. Meaningful work is the base of the pyramid. If you don’t find meaning in your work, you won’t be as effective. He cited
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