Jim Kouzes

Since 1983 Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner have been researching leadership. They’ve examined real-life cases and analyzed 360-degree assessments from hundreds of thousands of leaders and over two million observers. From their analyses of the data they’ve found that there are Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® that leaders demonstrate when performing at their best. Exemplary leaders Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart. In this session, you will learn what leaders actually do to exhibit these practices and how you can apply them to your daily work.

The best leaders are the best learners. They engage in learning activities more frequently than their less effective counterparts. But to become the best you need a concrete framework for continuous development and evidence-based strategies to ignite the habit of lifelong learning. There are five fundamentals that create and sustain the conditions for exemplary performance, and you have to incorporate these into your daily routine as a leader. You have to believe you can, aspire to excel, challenge yourself, engage support, and practice deliberately to become your best.

Our research shows conclusively that people around the globe want leaders who are honest, forward-looking, inspiring, and competent. While these results aren’t surprising, they are extraordinarily significant to leaders because three of these four characteristics comprise what communications experts refer to as “source credibility.” Personal credibility is the foundation of leadership. In this session you will learn the six disciplines of earning and sustaining credibility, and you’ll learn how you can apply them in your work as a leader.

As surprising as it may sound, in challenging and difficult times we are likely to see more extraordinary leadership than in times of stability. Leaders, it turns out, don’t do their best when they’re maintaining the status quo or when they feel comfortable. They do their best when faced with adversity, crisis, setbacks, and great difficulty. Challenge is the opportunity for greatness. In this session, you’ll learn seven strategies for turning adversity into opportunity, and challenge into positive change.

The “Lone Ranger” view of leadership is pure myth. When it comes to superior performance, not one leader has ever done anything extraordinary by himself or herself. Collaboration out-produces both competition and individualistic efforts when it comes to achieving excellence. In this session, you’ll learn the essentials for fostering collaboration and strengthening others. You’ll learn what it takes to build trust and increase the sense of competence and confidence in your teams.

The challenges are immense and sometimes frightening. Against these odds leaders must provide encouragement and hope. In this session you will learn the Seven Essentials of Encouraging the Heart, and you will apply them to a specific leadership challenge that you face.

There are countless opportunities to make a difference. Each and every day there are many moments when you can choose to lead and many moments when you can choose to make a difference. All of these moments serve up the prospect of contributing to a lasting legacy. And the legacy you leave is the LIFE you lead. In this session you will learn the four primary ways you leave a legacy, and you will reflect on how you want to make a difference in all of them. When you leave this session, you will have a much clearer idea of the difference you want to make at home, at work, and in the community.

Leadership is not the private reserve of a few charismatic men and women. It’s a set of skills and abilities learnable by anyone. What you do is far more important than your title, your level, your function, your industry, your educational background, your gender, or any other demographic variable. The truest test of leadership is whether you turn your followers into leaders. In this session you’ll learn what people most expect of their leaders, who their most important leader role models are, and the universal and enduring practices that leaders demonstrate to make extraordinary things happen in organizations.