Leadership for All: 8 Courses on Becoming a More Courageous, Inclusive, and Effective Leader

By Merinda Smith, Kim Martin, Pierre Quinn and 5 more

Leadership for All: 8 Courses on Becoming a More Courageous, Inclusive, and Effective Leader, an audio anthology by Everand Coach, is an exhaustive, forward-thinking deep dive into the world of modern leadership. Written by established corporate and nonprofit leaders, entrepreneurs, coaches, and scholars, the courses that make up Leadership for All consider the problems of leadership from the cutting edge and offer practical solutions for aspiring leaders. 

Leadership for All addresses leadership from a wide range of perspectives, from authenticity and inclusion to courage and social justice. In addition to practical leadership advice, these courses offer invaluable insights into successful leadership philosophies and mindsets. If you’re looking to grow your career, boost confidence in your daily life, or become more effective in approaching the things that matter to you most, you’ve come to the right place — these lessons in leadership are an invaluable resource for anyone undertaking a leadership journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Everand Coach
• Release date: Jan 30, 2024
• ISBN: 9781094469522

Merinda Smith

Merinda Smith is a certified leadership coach who places integrity, authenticity, and making a difference at the center of her coaching. Smith has coached hundreds of clients and had success in her own business ventures. In her spare time, she enjoys horse riding, scuba diving, and creating on a sewing machine or with colour and paints. To learn more about Merinda and her coaching services, visit her website, merindasmith.com.au.

Book preview

Leadership for All

LEADERSHIP FOR ALL

8 Courses on Becoming a More Courageous, Inclusive, and Effective Leader

MERINDA SMITH KIM MARTIN PIERRE QUINN SABA IMRU-MATHIEU DAWN REEBY SHAWN SINGLETON II JOSIAH IGONO MEREDITH TURNEY

EVERAND COACH

Contents

About Everand Coach

The Authentic Leader

Merinda Smith

Introduction

The Emotionally Intelligent Leader

The Self-Motivated Leader

The Courageous Leader

The Accountable Leader

The Balanced Leader

Conclusion

About the Author

Fearless Leadership

Kim Martin

Introduction

Know your values

Confidence 101

Trust, Accountability, and Goal Setting

The Feedback Formula and Receiving Feedback

Conclusion

About the Author

Courage and Crucibles

Pierre Quinn

Introduction

Leveraging the Power of Crucibles

What the Crucibles Reveal

How to Be a More Courageous Leader

Conclusion

About the Author

Leading with Coaching

Saba Imru-Mathieu

Introduction

What is Coaching?

The 4Q Coaching Model

Coaching Mindsets

Coaching Yourself

Leadership and Coaching

Conclusion

About the Author

Think Like a Leader

Introduction

Do You See Yourself as a Leader?

Thinking Like a Leader

What Leaders Do

Conclusion

About the Author

Reshape Your Thinking

Shawn Singleton II

Introduction

Knowing When and How to Take Action

It’s All About Your Character

Conclusion

About the Author

Unconventional Leadership

Josiah Igono

Introduction

Apprentice

Master

Leader

Conclusion

About the Author

Conscious Leadership

Meredith Turney

Introduction

Shift from Judgment to Curiosity

Shift from Individualism to Collaboration

Shift from Product to Purpose

Shift from Intention to Action

Afterword

About the Author

Copyright © 2024

All rights reserved

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Everand.com

For more, visit www.everand.com and follow @everand_us on Twitter andFacebook.

About Everand Coach

This ebook is brought to you by Everand Coach, an imprint from Scribd dedicated to short-form, inclusive, and insightful personal and professional growth courses written by credentialed experts.

Each Everand Coach course is available in audiobook format or as an ebook transcribed from the audio course — like the book you’re about to read. If you’re interested in the audio edition of this course, or if you’d like to read more personal growth content from Everand Coach, check out the Everand Coach imprint page. 

You can share your thoughts on this title by rating and leaving a review on the book page. Thanks for reading — enjoy!

The Authentic Leader

FIVE ESSENTIAL TRAITS OF EFFECTIVE, INSPIRING LEADERS

Merinda Smith

Introduction

Hello there! Thank you for joining me. My name is Merinda Smith, and this is The Authentic Leader, a course from Scribd Coach.

Leaders are all around us, in every area of our lives. There are leaders in the home, the sports field, and online. The workplace, in particular, is full of leaders — supervisors, project leaders, senior leaders. Think about the leaders in your workplace, or at the companies you’re familiar with. How many of them would you say are authentic leaders?

If you’ve ever had the privilege of working or being on a team with an inspiring, authentic leader, you know just how electrifying it can be. Under authentic leadership, team members will do whatever they can to achieve a goal. They’re excited to go to work and come up with ways to help their teammates achieve shared goals.

Authentic leaders are hardly universal. In a major study on workplace stress, 35% of the 2,000 workers surveyed said that their boss was a major source of stress at work. The result of this stress is a staggering impact on the bottom line — stress is reported to cost industry about $300 billion every year. I would argue that these leaders aren’t being authentic.

What does authentic leadership look like, then? Authentic leaders are the ones who stand out from the crowd in a positive way. They have an entrepreneurial mindset and a keen ability to help their team, even — or especially — when the going gets tough. They have an almost magnetic ability to attract and keep people on their team, thanks to their ability to understand themselves and support others on the road to success. These qualities make people want to support their leader and achieve goal after goal after goal.

As the name suggests, authentic leadership comes from a place of transparency, genuineness, and self-awareness. It means being able to lead from the heart and own when you get things wrong, as well as understanding that when things go wrong it doesn’t mean failure — just an opportunity to implement strategies and improve the outcome next time. It means being willing to step outside your comfort zone and push yourself toward improvement and new knowledge.

When you come from a place of authentic leadership, you’re able to consistently show who you really are as a person and how you feel about the performance of those you lead. Authentic leadership will improve satisfaction among your team, making them more likely to remain with your organization. This creates a strong culture within the business and has a positive effect on the bottom line. Simply put, any business or organization needs authentic leadership if it’s to succeed.

Authentic leadership is not about having a position, title, or certain personal attributes. Being an executive or senior leader does not make you an effective or authentic leader. There’s much more to leadership power than a corner office or charismatic personality.

Authenticity is thorny because it’s mostly defined by what other people see in you. That means part of being an authentic leader is being aware of the way you show up as well as the strength you instill in others. Great leaders know that authenticity must be earned and carefully managed.

The information I present in this course will help you get there. You’ve already taken an important step toward being an authentic leader by being willing to hear me out: Authentic leadership entails a commitment to ongoing learning — about yourself, the way you interact, and the way others perceive you. Curiosity and self-awareness allow you to become your best leader; if you can cultivate these traits, you can have peace of mind knowing you’re doing your best.

In this course, we’ll talk about the five principles of an authentic leader. For organizational purposes, I’ve separated each principle into its own unit, but they’re all intricately intertwined — together, they form a holistic image of an authentic leader. The five characteristics we’ll talk about are emotional intelligence, self-motivation, courage, accountability, and balance. We’ll run through each of these in detail.

Before we begin, I want to disclaim that authenticity does not necessarily come easily. Cultivating authenticity is a process that takes time and commitment to the process. As you continue along the journey, you’ll find that it feels a lot like peeling back an onion: Each layer reveals a different aspect of yourself and important new truths.

Who am I to talk about all this? For one thing, I’ve been a business and leadership transformation coach for over a decade. But I’m also drawing from my experience in senior leadership roles in operations management. In my early days as a leader, I led from a place of ego and power — I came from Dutch stock, where we spoke our minds openly and demanded action, and I brought that energy with me to work.

But I quickly found out that that kind of outdated, top-down leadership was counterproductive. I was focusing too much on control and end goals and not enough on my team or emotional reactions, which made it difficult for me to achieve my own desired outcomes with staff and business dealings. It also stressed me out.

It wasn’t until I hit my thirties that I started on my journey of personal growth, worked on becoming mindfully aware in my role, and finding authentic leadership. My cultivation of authentic leadership started out slowly, then grew quickly as I realized the impact of what I was changing, how I was communicating, and how happy both myself and my team had become. I’m still continuing this journey of learning and growth today.

My hope for you with this course is that, by implementing the principles of authentic leadership in your own life and work, you can become a powerful, passionate, inspirational leader. On top of that, you’ll also be able to help others become the best version of themselves and achieve great things.

Enough preamble — let’s get started on the material. I hope you’ll join me for the next unit, where I’ll talk about the importance of emotional intelligence in leadership.

The Emotionally Intelligent Leader

Emotional intelligence is a key aspect of authentic leadership. You might think that good old-fashioned intelligence is enough — but research indicates otherwise. Some studies show that people with an average IQ and high emotional intelligence — EQ — outperform people with a high IQ 70% of the time. The explanation for this is simple: Emotions have a strong influence on people; we have emotional reactions to just about everything that happens to us. But we aren’t brought up to acknowledge them and generally lack the skills to manage our emotions in turbulent times. People with high emotional intelligence are good at recognizing emotional responses and managing them effectively.

Clearly EQ is crucial if you want to make it as an authentic leader. The good news is that a high EQ can be developed, even if you’re not born with it. Like anything else, it just takes practice. You’ll find that spending time to increase your EQ will also increase your personal success, along with that of your team. A higher EQ will have an impact on everything you say and do each day. In this unit, we’ll take a deep dive into emotional intelligence and how you can give yours a boost.

First of all, what exactly is emotional intelligence? Being emotionally intelligent means you can tune into your own emotions, as well as the effect they’re having on you and those around you. When you’re aware of your own emotional triggers, you then have the capacity to control your thoughts and reactions, which empowers you to make decisions calmly and with confidence. Emotional intelligence also means being able to intuitively tune into the emotions of your team members and how they’re affecting you. As an authentic leader, you’ll need to use all your available communication skills to help others.

According to the psychologists Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves, co-authors of Emotional Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence 2.0, there are four key areas, or competencies, that make up emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. Each involves either personal competence — skills that relate to yourself — or social competence — skills related to how you interact with others. We’ll talk about each of these competencies here.

The personal competencies include self-awareness and self management. Self-awareness is a foundational skill in authentic leadership. Being self-aware helps you understand what motivates you, what emotions you’re experiencing at a given time, and what pushes your buttons. People with high self-awareness recognize their own emotional triggers, or causes of an emotional response. If you’re looking to enhance your own self-awareness, I recommend journaling or a mindfulness practice. These exercises can help you connect with your thoughts in a given moment and identify your triggers.

While self-awareness is about the recognition of emotions, self management involves what exactly you do about them. Self management, in short, is how you react to your emotions. People skilled in self management are flexible enough to direct their emotional responses toward a productive solution. Emotions can be difficult to navigate — fear, for example, can be completely paralyzing. But this is where the personal competencies come together: Once you identify your triggers, you can change the course of your reaction and channel your behavior to a positive end.

The social competencies can be broken down into social awareness and relationship management. Social awareness is defined as the ability to pick up on emotions in other people and understand their causes. In a way, it means perceiving what others are thinking and feeling. But be careful not to get social awareness mixed up with mind-reading: None of us can see inside anyone’s head, so as a leader, you need to have conversations about the emotions of the people around you. Stay quiet, ask, and listen carefully without thinking about what you’ll say next.

Relationship management, meanwhile, is the ability to use awareness of your emotions and the emotions of others to successfully manage relationships. Relationship management, at its heart, is about connection and, once again, the ability to ask and listen effectively.

These four competencies are key to improving your emotional intelligence, and you’ll need to sharpen them if you want to lead with authenticity. As a leader, it’s critical that you have a strong sense of self, and remain open minded and aware of your emotions, strengths, weaknesses, and values. Self-awareness, being committed to learning about and understanding yourself, is the key to authenticity. As an authentic leader, you share your emotional intelligence by leading from the heart — not from your ego.

Learning how to understand and manage your emotions appropriately takes time and effort, just as implementing any new habit does. There will be many times when you find yourself in hard, stressful, emotionally fraught circumstances — this is life, after all. But you’ll soon realize that being able to tap into that skill is truly liberating; it provides you with the knowledge that you’re in control and have a choice in how you handle a given situation.

It’s important to note that effectively managing your emotions doesn’t mean tamping down your emotional responses. On the contrary, there are times when you’ll need to be vulnerable and display your strengths and weaknesses to your team. Showing them you have nothing to hide and communicating directly and honestly builds trust among your team and encourages them to feel comfortable sharing their errors as well. As an authentic leader, people will want to know that you’re human. It won’t cause anyone to lose faith in you; it’s actually an attractive quality.

A core way that leaders exercise and demonstrate emotional intelligence is communication. Communication and connection are at the very heart of all we experience in life — our relationships with ourselves and others. It’s absolutely critical to be able to communicate well in everything you do, and especially so when you’re a leader.

Great leaders work exceptionally hard to ensure that all of their communications are clear, concise, effective, and motivating. Naturally, you should do the same. A leader who can communicate their vision with passion, clarity, and force is inspirational, and they drive the people they lead to become bigger, better versions of themselves.

Effective communication requires both verbal and non-verbal skills. Contrary to what we often think of communication, it’s about much more than what you say. Effective communication is about understanding the other person, their emotions, and their intentions.

For our purposes, there are two main characteristics of communication that are essential for authentic leadership; I refer to them as clarity and inclusivity. Let’s wrap up this unit by zooming in on both.

Let’s start by taking a look at clarity. At the most basic level, clarity is the ability to tell others exactly what you want, think, believe, and feel. Clear communication is honest communication — it’s expressing yourself candidly and without inhibitions, without being rude or aggressive. To communicate clearly and honestly, you need self-awareness and self management so you can be aware of how you’re being perceived and handle the communication satisfactorily. Clarity is also about using the correct medium to communicate your message and ensuring that other parties are understanding your message as intended.

Remember, for leaders, the purpose of clarity is to provide connection and build trust and transparency. This means you’ll want to make sure you’re understood in your communication with your team. Avoid jargon and create clear goals and timelines; otherwise, you’ll find that you’re trying to communicate in a way that’s needlessly complex. If you’re not clear on what you’re communicating, your audience won’t be either.

The final component of clear communication is speaking with confidence. Speaking confidently contributes to a sense of clarity in your communications. People who feel confident tend to speak concisely and convey what they want in a clear, efficient way — so bringing that confidence to the surface can enhance the clarity of what you’re trying to say. Make eye contact when you’re addressing someone, show confidence in your body language, and be mentally prepared to show up.

The second characteristic of effective communication is inclusivity. To make the best possible use of your communication skills, it’s not just important to be clear; you need to consider your audience as well. The purpose of communication is to engage listeners and create bonds built on trust between your team and stakeholders, so part of your role as an authentic leader is to inspire and include. This is where social awareness and relationship management come into play.

I recommend communicating using inclusive language, like we and us for example. Framing your language this way inspires listeners and builds your communication on shared effort and interests. It can also create a partnership between two parties who may not inherently have the same goals. But leaders don’t just include people by using we language — they also invite them into the conversation through asking questions and active listening.

That active listening component is important — authentic leaders are inquisitive. They ask questions of their audience to understand them and their needs better. Being an active listener means paying close attention to the person speaking and really seeking to understand their point of view. During active listening, don’t prepare how you’re going to respond as the person speaks; reflect back what is said to make it clear you’ve understood. This doesn’t just allow you to see the world through the eyes of another and provide support; it also builds trust and demonstrates empathy.

Finally, to be inclusive with your communication, remember to engage with nonverbal communication. Make eye contact and react to what you’re told.

That should be enough to close the book on emotional intelligence and communication. Let’s wrap up the unit with an exercise. I’d like you to think back on an interaction or conversation that didn’t go the way you had hoped. Reflect on the experience and consider the following questions: What are some emotional triggers that contributed to that conversation? How could you counteract those triggers in the future? And if you can counteract those triggers, how might that conversation go differently next time? Think carefully about your answers. You can write about your thoughts if you feel so inclined.

In the next unit, we’ll talk about self-motivation and how to become a self-motivated leader.

The Self-Motivated Leader

When you lead from a place of authenticity, you bring all of yourself to your work and participate fully and honestly in the workplace. As a leader, you bring a sense of interest and passion to your team, even when the going gets tough. Self-motivation is the fuel source of these traits. It’s what allows you to continuously improve, evolve, and embrace change rather than resist it. Self-motivation looks to others like a fire within you. When you share a powerful desire to change the world for the better with others and inspire with the gifts you have to offer, you’re on your way to being an authentic leader.

Self-motivation, and the other traits of an authentic leader, can reduce stress levels, increase trust, and inspire action and achievement from those around you. When you’re keen, it shows in your team. By the same token, a lack of motivation will affect your entire team, and accordingly, your whole organization. Without self-motivation, teamwork suffers, productivity decreases, and morale takes a hit. This can mean stress among you and your team, or even a high staff turnover rate.

If you want to enhance your sense of self-motivation, I know you’ll find this unit helpful. I’m going to share a few ways that we can become self-motivated.

So… How can we become self-motivated? In a way, you already have the answer within you. The first way to become self-motivated is by understanding more about yourself and what inspires you. When you know yourself and your sources of inspiration on a detailed level, you’ll be able to tap into that inspiration when you need it and show up for others in a big way.

To better understand yourself and what matters to you, look to your personal goals and passions. Consider your recent achievements, current goals, and the possibilities that excite you, then ask yourself: How can you align your goals with those of the team or business? What are the things you truly enjoy about your company, its mission, or your team? When you have a clear answer to these questions, you can tap into your sense of motivation authentically, without needing to fake it.

Of these goals, choose a goal, or a set of goals, that really resonates with you and stirs you up to want to accomplish great things. It might be a simple goal, like wanting to learn more about a certain topic or