Collaborative Leadership Quotes

Too many companies believe people are interchangeable. Truly gifted people never are. They have unique talents. Such people cannot be forced into roles they are not suited for, nor should they be. Effective leaders allow great people to do the work they were born to do.

There comes a time in your life when you can no longer put off choosing. You have to choose one path or the other. You can live safe and be protected by people just like you, or you can stand up and be a leader for what is right. Always, remember this: People never remember the crowd; they remember the one person that had the courage to say and do what no one would do.

Accountable Authentic Collaborative Courageous Passionate Lifelong learner Welcomes feedback Biased toward action Solution oriented Change agent

If you first take a minute, an hour or a month to let go of feeling annoyed, frustrated or critical of the person or situation that may be driving you crazy, you set yourself up for much greater leadership and personal success.

Who succeeds in forming and leading a Great Group? He or she is almost always a pragmatic dreamer. They are people who get things done, but they are people with immortal longings. Often, they are scientifically minded people with poetry in their souls.

Strategy is not really a solo sport – even if you’re the CEO.

Great Groups need to know that the person at the top will fight like a tiger for them.

When people don't know what’s going on, it’s human nature for them to imagine a version that’s ten times worse than the truth!

Leaders are people who believe so passionately that they can seduce other people into sharing their dream.

Mindfulness is the art of cosmic collaboration.

Some of the greatest advances happen when people are bold enough to speak their truth and listen to others speak theirs.

You won't benefit from diverse perspectives if you aren't open to utilizing differences.

When we aren't curious in conversations we judge, tell, blame and even shame, often without even knowing it, which leads to conflict." -The Power Of Curiosity: How To Have Real Conversations That Create Collaboration, Innovation and Understanding

Positive emotions are mark of human intelligence. Modern artificial intelligence systems are more focusing on incorporating higher human traits like self awareness, self control, social skills, leadership, collaboration and empathy in machine.

By encouraging a culture of collaboration, open communication, and constructive debate, boards can harness the collective wisdom of their members and make decisions that drive the company towards long-term success.

As a leader, it's your job to get everyone to share what they know.

When young people develop basic leadership and collaborative learning skills, they can be a formidable force for change.

Once leaders embrace the role of coach, they realize the weight of leadership is now balanced between themselves and their direct reports.

If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it.

Effective listening is the single most powerful thing you can do to build and maintain a climate of trust and collaboration. Strong listening skills are the foundation for all solid relationships.

First Globals are ready to go anywhere, experience everything, and work and live in exotic places, and for them, family life takes priority over work life and a flexible, diverse, collaborative, fun learning environment is key.

Employee Engagement: The state at which there is reciprocal trust between the employee and leadership to do what's right however, whenever and with whomever.

Leadership must come from all of us -- the private, public, and civil sectors.

We have to accept that much of reality is ineffable and so to understand it we can't rely on words alone.

People need to feel safe to be who they are—to speak up when they have an idea, or to speak out when they feel something isn't right.

When people feel trusted, they'll begin to understand they are contributors--and you'll get great ideas and happy people.

Mentoring is motivated by love.

Central to the performance of any team is accountability to the people and to itself, for the course to which the team is responsible.

Like other aspiring autocrats, Donald Trump cannot succeed alone. He depends upon enablers and collaborators. Every American should understand what his enablers in Congress and in the leadership of the Republican Party were willing to do to help Trump seize power in the months after he lost the 2020 presidential election—and what they continue to do to this day.

It's really important for our company to have a culture of healthy leadership and also healthy followership. We don't want to over emphasize leadership because it's not the most important thing. Leadership is important, followership is important, and collaboration is important.

When we look at the world through the lens of how, we see leaders shift, and others even transform, their habits of leadership from “command and control” to “connect and collaborate.” It’s a move from exerting power over people to generating waves through them.

The natural result of utilizing different perspectives is that people are more engaged because they feel their opinions are important.

The key to handling conflict is to make sure people understand it's okay to have an opposing view.

Sometimes the best way to get other people to give up their egos is for you to give up yours first.

The future will be envisioned and built collaboratively—or not at all.

If You Respect Their Preparation, You never Drop the Baton

Be a creator not an imitator, competitor, or pretender. Real success happens when you create, collaborate, and dominate.

By adopting an agile mindset and providing improved engagement, collaboration, transparency, and adaptability via Scrum's values, roles, events, and artifacts, the results were excellent.

While CEO of P&G, John Pepper was once asked in an interview which skill or characteristic was most important to look for when hiring new employees. Was it leadership? Analytical ability? Problem solving? Collaboration? Strategic thinking? Or something else? His answer was integrity. He explained, “All the rest, we can teach them after they get here.

Dialogue isn’t a competition to be the smartest or the most correct person in the room; it is a collaboration to find the truth.

Empathy and understanding are the keys to successful business. By putting people first, we can create a culture of respect and collaboration that drives positive change.

Perceive conflict as positive, creative, and issue driven. Don't allow personal attacks.

Collaboration begins with focusing on the collective good rather than personal gain.

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. African Proverb

A quiet room, or a room led by a teacher, doesn’t promote student leadership, but an active, collaborative classroom does!

Culture is the constant constraint that controls creativity, commitment, collaboration, and cohesion.

High Performance Teams create cultures of caring, connection, commitment, collaboration and clear consistent communication

When we aren't curious in conversations we judge, tell, blame and even shame, often without even knowing it, which leads to conflict.

Don’t look for leadership just at the top of the tree. Listen to leadership wherever it is expressed.

These toxic residues lead to high turnover and low innovation, creativity, and collaboration. No team can win with these elements corroding their effectiveness long term.

Wise leadership requires collaboration; otherwise it will lead to failure.

Two good people are better than one good person. Together we can do what no individual can do. This is the power of synergy.

Meeting someone with the same vision doesn't mean you have to compete for success. It means you've found a companion to succeed together.

Transformation is within reach of anyone who is willing to change themselves, live good values value people, and collaborate with others to bring about lasting positive change. p182 Change Your World

I began looking for these four: Smart. It doesn’t mean high IQ (although that’s great), it means disposed toward learning. If there’s a best practice anywhere, adopt it. We want to turn as much as possible into a routine so we can focus on the few things that require human intelligence and creativity. A good interview question for this is: “Tell me about the last significant thing you learned about how to do your job better.” Or you might ask a candidate: “What’s something that you’ve automated? What’s a process you’ve had to tear down at a company?” Humble. I don’t mean meek or unambitious, I mean being humble in the way that Steph Curry is humble. If you’re humble, people want you to succeed. If you’re selfish, they want you to fail. It also gives you the capacity for self-awareness, so you can actually learn and be smart. Humility is foundational like that. It is also essential for the kind of collaboration we want at Slack. Hardworking. It does not mean long hours. You can go home and take care of your family, but when you’re here, you’re disciplined, professional, and focused. You should also be competitive, determined, resourceful, resilient, and gritty. Take this job as an opportunity to do the best work of your life. Collaborative. It’s not submissive, not deferential—in fact it’s kind of the opposite. In our culture, being collaborative means providing leadership from everywhere. I’m taking responsibility for the health of this meeting. If there’s a lack of trust, I’m going to address that. If the goals are unclear, I’m going to deal with that. We’re all interested in getting better and everyone should take responsibility for that. If everyone’s collaborative in that sense, the responsibility for team performance is shared. Collaborative people know that success is limited by the worst performers, so they are either going to elevate them or have a serious conversation. This one is easy to corroborate with references, and in an interview you can ask, “Tell me about a situation in your last company where something was substandard and you helped to fix it.

The way forward, I’m suggesting, is not to stop collaborating face-to-face, but to refine the way we do it. For one thing, we should actively seek out symbiotic introvert-extrovert relationships, in which leadership and other tasks are divided according to people’s natural strengths and temperaments. The most effective teams are composed of a healthy mix of introverts and extroverts, studies show, and so are many leadership structures.

In the era of globalization, everything is interconnected. A problem in one part of the world will definitely impact on other parts of the globe. Such phenomenon is also valid for defense and security context. A conflict in a state will bring implications in its neighboring countries or other countries extended in the same region. Therefore, collaborative efforts in tackling common defense and security problems are essentially required.

In what is known as the 70/20/10 learning concept, Robert Eichinger and Michael Lombardo, in collaboration with Morgan McCall of the Center for Creative Leadership, explain that 70 percent of learning and development takes place from real-life and on-the-job experiences, tasks, and problem solving; 20 percent of the time development comes from other people through informal or formal feedback, mentoring, or coaching; and 10 percent of learning and development comes from formal training.

Leaders with high emotional intelligence create a culture of trust, respect, and collaboration, where everyone feels valued and heard. They build teams that are not just efficient, but also empowered and fulfilled. Emotional intelligence is not just a nice-to-have for leaders, it's a must-have.

Only experience can refine a leader's art. High-uncertainty projects are full of anxiety, change, and ambiguity that the team must deal with. It takes a different style of project management, a different pattern of team operation, and a different type of project leader. I've labeled this type of management leadership-collaboration.

Although I play an important part in the facilitation of these lessons, the students take ownership of the problem-solving and reflection portions and display great leadership skills while collaborating with one another. Students rave about how much fun each experience is, and I’m meeting all of my objectives, Essential Questions, and Common Core standards along the way!

This book is about the difference between a self-focused inward mindset and an others-inclusive outward mindset. It will help you become more outward in your work, your leadership, and your life. It will guide you in building more innovative and collaborative teams and organizations. And it will help you see why you like many of the people you do and what you can do to become more like them.

The transformation of a business-as-usual culture into one focused on innovation and driven by design involves activities, decisions, and attitudes. Workshops help expose people to design thinking as a new approach. Pilot projects help market the benefits of design thinking within the organization. Leadership focuses the program of change and gives people permission to learn and experiment. Assembling interdisciplinary teams ensures that the effort is broadly based. Dedicated spaces such as the P&G Innovation Gym provide a resource for longer-term thinking and ensure that the effort will be sustained. Measurement of impacts, both quantitative and qualitative, helps make the business case and ensures that resources are appropriately allocated. It may make sense to establish incentives for business units to collaborate in new ways so that younger talent sees innovation as a path to success rather than as a career risk.

We need better cooperation between generations. A number of the old guard believe their relationships with those following in their footsteps is more collaborative than it actually is. Those next in line sometimes feel as if their elders are more interested in being paternal than being partners. Moving forward together will require leaders to subjugate their egos. They'll need to find at least one common interest that allows both generations to bring their strengths to the table.

One of the most effective ways to gain acceptance of a philosophy is to show it in your daily actions. In order to stage your leadership style, you must have an audience. By entering your subordinate’s environment – by establishing frequent human contact – you create a sense of commitment, collaboration, and community. You also gain access to vital information necessary to make effective decisions. Additionally, when personal contact is not possible, you can send surrogates to the field to obtain information.

...in certain regions the party is organized like a gang whose toughest member takes over the leadership. The leader’s ancestry and powers are readily mentioned, and in a knowing and slightly admiring tone it is quickly pointed out that he inspires awe in his close collaborators. In order to avoid these many pitfalls a persistent battle has to be waged to prevent the party from becoming a compliant instrument in the hands of a leader. Leader comes from the English verb “to lead,” meaning “to drive” in French.15 The driver of people no longer exists today. People are no longer a herd and do not need to be driven. If the leader drives me I want him to know that at the same time I am driving him. The nation should not be an affair run by a big boss. Hence the panic that grips government circles every time one of their leaders falls ill, because they are obsessed with the question of succession: What will happen to the country if the leader dies? The influential circles, who in their blind irresponsibility are more concerned with safeguarding their lifestyle, their cocktail parties, their paid travel and their profitable racketeering, have abdicated in favor of a leader and occasionally discover the spiritual void at the heart of the nation.

I’m a bottom-up manager who subscribes to the concept of “servant leadership,” as articulated by the late Robert Greenleaf. He believed that organizations are at their most effective when leaders encourage collaboration, trust, foresight, listening, and empowerment. In any hierarchy, it’s clear that the ultimate boss (in my case, me) holds the most power. But a wonderful thing happens when you flip the traditional organizational chart upside down so that it looks like a V with the boss on the bottom. My job is to serve and support the next layer “above” me so that the people on that layer can then serve and support the next layer “above” them, and so on.

Catapulting change requires meticulous leadership that is mindful of all those elements that are seemingly trivial to most but produce positive outcomes that hit us as hard as tsunamis. It’s the sort of leadership that empowers and engages people to move deep with themselves, and yet it mobilizes them with others in a manner that is coordinated, collaborative, and cohesive. These are fostered because leaders have the innate ability to make you feel that you are working “with” them not “for” them in such a way that motivates you to spring off the mattress each morning to make meaningful contributions because you feel valued, respected, empowered, and connected to an overarching goal.

I've always believed that culture is defined and created from the top down, but it comes to life from the bottom up. This meant that I had to build our culture by working with the leadership group (i.e., the owner, general manager, and executives), the coaching staff, and the football team. To strengthen the culture among the leadership group, it was important to reiterate to the owner, team president, and general manager the shared beliefs, values, and expectations that we had discussed in depth when I was interviewing for the head coaching position. It was important to have collaborative conversations on a regular basis to discuss the changes we were making and why we were making them.

Nature vs. nurture is part of this—and then there is what I think of as anti-nurturing—the ways we in a western/US context are socialized to work against respecting the emergent processes of the world and each other: We learn to disrespect Indigenous and direct ties to land. We learn to be quiet, polite, indirect, and submissive, not to disturb the status quo. We learn facts out of context of application in school. How will this history, science, math show up in our lives, in the work of growing community and home? We learn that tests and deadlines are the reasons to take action. This puts those with good short-term memories and a positive response to pressure in leadership positions, leading to urgency-based thinking, regardless of the circumstance. We learn to compete with each other in a scarcity-based economy that denies and destroys the abundant world we actually live in. We learn to deny our longings and our skills, and to do work that occupies our hours without inspiring our greatness. We learn to manipulate each other and sell things to each other, rather than learning to collaborate and evolve together. We learn that the natural world is to be manicured, controlled, or pillaged to support our consumerist lives. Even the natural lives of our bodies get medicated, pathologized, shaved or improved upon with cosmetic adjustments. We learn that factors beyond our control determine the quality of our lives—something as random as which skin, gender, sexuality, ability, nation, or belief system we are born into sets a path for survival and quality of life. In the United States specifically, though I see this most places I travel, we learn that we only have value if we can produce—only then do we earn food, home, health care, education. Similarly, we learn our organizations are only as successful as our fundraising results, whether the community impact is powerful or not. We learn as children to swallow our tears and any other inconvenient emotions, and as adults that translates into working through red flags, value differences, pain, and exhaustion. We learn to bond through gossip, venting, and destroying, rather than cultivating solutions together. Perhaps the most egregious thing we are taught is that we should just be really good at what’s already possible, to leave the impossible alone.

Values constitute your personal “bottom line.” They serve as guides to action. They inform the priorities you set and the decisions you make. They tell you when to say yes and when to say no. They also help you explain the choices you make and why you made them. If you believe, for instance, that diversity enriches innovation and service, then you should know what to do if people with differing views keep getting cut off when they offer fresh ideas. If you value collaboration over individualistic achievement, then you’ll know what to do when your best salesperson skips team meetings and refuses to share information with colleagues. If you value independence and initiative over conformity and obedience, you’ll be more likely to challenge something your manager says if you think it’s wrong.

Warren Bennis, one of today’s leading thinkers on the art of leadership, spent years studying groundbreaking groups such as the Walt Disney Studios (while Walt was still alive), Xerox PARC, and Lockheed’s Skunk Works. Here are some of the highlights from his study of groups: • Great groups believe they are on a mission from God. Beyond mere financial success, they genuinely believe they will make the world a better place. • Great groups are more optimistic than realistic. They believe they can do what no one else has done before. “And the optimists, even when their good cheer is unwarranted, accomplish more,” says Warren. • Great groups ship. “They are places of action, not think tanks or retreat centers devoted solely to the generation of ideas.” Warren characterized the successful collaborations he studied as “dreams with deadlines.” Part

When it comes to assessment, the traditional model of assessment is assessment for learning. What people like to talk about now is that the twenty-first-century model is assessment of learning. But if assessment is merely the way we are able to determine how much learning has occurred, then the ultimate goal is assessment as learning, where assessment occurs in real time and is the process by which people reflect on their own thinking and diagnose how they’ve changed. There are schools that do this. There’s a remarkable school in New Hampshire that, for them, the thing that matters the most is that people who graduate from their school have seventeen specific habits of mind and work—everything from collaboration and leadership to curiosity and wonder. They’ve developed these really thoughtful behavioral rubrics that break down each of those habits by subskills.

These include: 1.Do the Right Thing—the principle of integrity. We see in George Marshall the endless determination to tell the truth and never to curry favor by thought, word, or deed. Every one of General Marshall’s actions was grounded in the highest sense of integrity, honesty, and fair play. 2.Master the Situation—the principle of action. Here we see the classic “know your stuff and take appropriate action” principle of leadership coupled with a determination to drive events and not be driven by them. Marshall knew that given the enormous challenges of World War II followed by the turbulent postwar era, action would be the heart of his remit. And he was right. 3.Serve the Greater Good—the principle of selflessness. In George Marshall we see a leader who always asked himself, “What is the morally correct course of action that does the greatest good for the greatest number?” as opposed to the careerist leader who asks “What’s in it for me?” and shades recommendations in a way that creates self-benefit. 4.Speak Your Mind—the principle of candor. Always happiest when speaking simple truth to power, General and Secretary Marshall never sugarcoated the message to the global leaders he served so well. 5.Lay the Groundwork—the principle of preparation. As is often said at the nation’s service academies, know the six Ps: Prior Preparation Prevents Particularly Poor Performance. 6.Share Knowledge—the principle of learning and teaching. Like Larry Bird on a basketball court, George Marshall made everyone on his team look better by collaborating and sharing information. 7.Choose and Reward the Right People—the principle of fairness. Unbiased, color- and religion-blind, George Marshall simply picked the very best people. 8.Focus on the Big Picture—the principle of vision. Marshall always kept himself at the strategic level, content to delegate to subordinates when necessary. 9.Support the Troops—the principle of caring. Deeply involved in ensuring that the men and women under his command prospered, General and Secretary Marshall taught that if we are loyal down the chain of command, that loyalty will be repaid not only in kind but in operational outcomes as well.

Even though the Internet provided a tool for virtual and distant collaborations, another lesson of digital-age innovation is that, now as in the past, physical proximity is beneficial. There is something special, as evidenced at Bell Labs, about meetings in the flesh, which cannot be replicated digitally. The founders of Intel created a sprawling, team-oriented open workspace where employees from Noyce on down all rubbed against one another. It was a model that became common in Silicon Valley. Predictions that digital tools would allow workers to telecommute were never fully realized. One of Marissa Mayer’s first acts as CEO of Yahoo! was to discourage the practice of working from home, rightly pointing out that “people are more collaborative and innovative when they’re together.” When Steve Jobs designed a new headquarters for Pixar, he obsessed over ways to structure the atrium, and even where to locate the bathrooms, so that serendipitous personal encounters would occur. Among his last creations was the plan for Apple’s new signature headquarters, a circle with rings of open workspaces surrounding a central courtyard. Throughout history the best leadership has come from teams that combined people with complementary styles. That was the case with the founding of the United States. The leaders included an icon of rectitude, George Washington; brilliant thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison; men of vision and passion, including Samuel and John Adams; and a sage conciliator, Benjamin Franklin. Likewise, the founders of the ARPANET included visionaries such as Licklider, crisp decision-making engineers such as Larry Roberts, politically adroit people handlers such as Bob Taylor, and collaborative oarsmen such as Steve Crocker and Vint Cerf. Another key to fielding a great team is pairing visionaries, who can generate ideas, with operating managers, who can execute them. Visions without execution are hallucinations.31 Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore were both visionaries, which is why it was important that their first hire at Intel was Andy Grove, who knew how to impose crisp management procedures, force people to focus, and get things done. Visionaries who lack such teams around them often go down in history as merely footnotes.

Collaborative professionalism is about how teachers and other educators transform teaching and learning together to work with all students to develop fulfilling lives of meaning, purpose, and success.

In collaborative professionalism, we want deeper collaboration in stronger relationships of trust, support, and solidarity. We also want more professionalism involving good data and good judgment, more candid and respectful professional dialogue, more thoughtful feedback, more collective responsibility for each other’s results, and more courageous engagement with bolder visions of education that will help young people become change makers in their own and other people’s lives.

means seeing how changes such as these fit into the big picture, too. Are all staff members and, indeed, students engaged in developing the vision and mission of the school? Do leaders constantly explain how specific changes or team tasks fit into this larger vision? Can teachers and students articulate that connection as well? When asked what kind of school they are involved with, will you get the same sort of answer from teachers, students, bus drivers, janitors, parents, and administrative assistants, as well as the principal?

The more confident teachers are in their own authority, the more able they will be to let go of it a little so others can have autonomy and authority as well. In

countries that are implementing technology most rapidly are showing the least gains in student achievement.10 But this does not repudiate the benefits of technology per se. It is more a commentary on the indecent haste and spread of implementation that is often fueled by the massive financial investments made by technology companies in climates of austerity, where other funding for public education is otherwise in short supply.

What to Do with Freed Capacity Freeing capacity is a vital way for labor-intensive organizations to increase the proportion of revenue to labor. The effort, though, should not result in layoffs. Rather, freeing capacity enables an organization to accomplish one or more of the following outcomes: Absorb additional work without increasing staff Reduce paid overtime Reduce temporary or contract staffing In-source work that’s currently outsourced Create better work/life balance by reducing hours worked Slow down and think Slow down and perform higher-quality work with less stress and higher safety Innovate; create new revenue streams Conduct continuous improvement activities Get to know your customers better (What do they really value?) Build stronger supplier relationships Coach staff to improve their critical thinking and problem-solving skills Mentor staff to create career growth opportunities Provide cross-training to create greater organizational flexibility and enhance job satisfaction Do the things you haven’t been able to get to; get caught up Build stronger interdepartmental and interdivisional relationships to improve collaboration Reduce payroll through natural attrition

The practice that molded me at Intel and saved me at Sun—that still inspires me today—is called OKRs. Short for Objectives and Key Results. It is a collaborative goal-setting protocol for companies, teams, and individuals. Now, OKRs are not a silver bullet. They cannot substitute for sound judgment, strong leadership, or a creative workplace culture. But if those fundamentals are in place, OKRs can guide you to the mountaintop.

There are no individual solutions to collective problems. Nonetheless, it is individuals who must come together and figure out what to do. In all of this, there is the unaddressed question of leadership. The anarchist in me genuinely believes rotating leadership is a solution: people take turns taking the lead in the areas of their greatest competence, interest, or desire. Another similar collaborative idea might be: best idea wins. But art is so subjective, and for five different people five different ideas might each seem best. It has always been my thinking that if someone in the group feels strongly that we should do something, then we should do it, their strong desire shouldn’t be watered or sanded down by the democratic entropy of the group. I want the projects to be open enough to welcome the strongest impulses of each of the participants. This is my ideal, and like all ideals it is something I often fall short of achieving. Perhaps this ideal is not even best for every collaborative situation. In a sense, it is just another way of saying that I want to work in ways that are deeply collaborative while at the same time keeping our most intense individual artistic differences more alive than alive.

If Jesus put Simon the Zealot (an insurrectionist who hated the Roman occupiers) on the same team as Matthew the tax collector (a collaborator with the Romans) and then made them room together, I’m not sure why we can’t have some strong differences on the hot-button issues of our day and still march together under the banner of unity.

True collaboration is only possible in an atmosphere of trust. And that atmosphere is always set by a leader who has earned his team members’ trust and who trusts them in return.

In our highly disjointed world at VeraComm, where functions don’t communicate well and don’t significantly collaborate, we fail to improve as a whole. Everybody seeks opportunities for improvement, but because we’re separated from each other, the best we can do is improve our individual step in the process and no more. We fail to understand that problems at one step can be caused by fundamental issues at another. And with learning cycles as slow as ours–pretty much equal to the frequency of releasing, every eight or ten months–we just can’t learn. Cause and effect are so widely separated from each other on the timeline that we simply cannot connect the dots. •

Dialogue teaches you to listen through your emotions, not to become distracted or distanced from the truth because of them.

What can I do to get people more engaged? What can I do to get people working collaboratively? What do others need from me? What do they have to contribute that I haven’t been noticing?

The key to organizational success is to integrate next generation of leaders, tap into their way of looking at the world, solve problems in a very collaborative working style.

A good leader gets his team to adopt the right attitude and collaborate with discipline

You must consistently and assiduously attend to your connection to a higher power and become increasingly aware of when your conditioning or human-animal reactions are limiting you. The more you strengthen the link to Spirit in your own life, including and especially by paying attention to it by spiritual practice, the more you are guided by and in collaboration with a wisdom and love beyond your capacity as an individual. It’s this ability to tap into collective and divine consciousness that most qualifies you for leadership. People will look to you for guidance not because of what you know or have done; they will look up to and trust you because of who you are.

Success relies on your capacity to cooperate, ability to regulate your emotions, capacity to delay gratification, and capacity to focus your attention.

in the content and bring ideas to discuss during the session. Then, when everyone was together, Craig facilitated a dialogue on the topic and ensured that everyone had a chance to share their thoughts and connect them to both their group and the work that they did. Prior to these sessions, Craig shared that his colleagues often squabbled over resources, resisted collaboration on even simple ideas, and it felt like people were actively working against one another to build up their own department while breaking down others. He was amazed that, as he introduced these leadership concepts, like team trust, credibility, and accountability, both the conversation and cooperation among peers gradually shifted. The risk that he took—reimagining meetings and sharing new ideas—transformed his environment.

Exclusivity detracts collaboration. Inclusivity attracts participation.

June Brought, a leadership collaborator of mine, works in corporate wellness for the successful women’s clothing company Eileen Fisher. The company has flourished since its founding in 1984, currently earning revenue of more than $300 million a year. What truly sets the company apart, however, is its early adoption of conscious capitalism and a sincere desire to enhance the lives of all its stakeholders. Eileen Fisher was one of the first clothing companies that insisted on using sustainable materials such as organic cotton, and implemented programs to reduce fabric and fiber waste. Eileen Fisher’s philanthropic efforts focus on business leadership grants to develop and benefit the careers of young women around the world. The company is also committed to enhancing the well-being of its own employees at every level, which is why June was hired. According to June, “Eileen Fisher is not just another company that claims to care about the well-being of its employees but really only cares about how they can contribute to the well-being of the bottom line. Eileen Fisher truly is concerned with its staff as human beings first.” One of the tools June uses to help individuals at Eileen Fisher and elsewhere find a healthy balance between life and work involves what she calls “completing your own circuit.” She believes it is essential that we plug into our own beings first in order to feel empowered, fulfilled, and complete. As June explains, when we outsource our power to a job, a romantic relationship, or any external condition, “we compromise our emotional welfare and risk having someone cut off our power.” She says that completing our own circuit involves a deep internal knowing that “we are fully charged and complete unto ourselves without any need for outside support or validation.

teachers lead by working directly with students and others who influence student learning inside and beyond the classroom. Teachers act on behalf of students by planning instruction, creating curriculum, collaborating with colleagues, taking initiative, taking the lead, and co-constructing practice on numerous levels.

In the landscape of leadership, true value is not revealed in the conveniences of time, but through the resolute spirit that confronts hardship, where the core of worth outshines momentary ease!

Toxic leadership in academia stifles innovation, hinders collaboration, and undermines the very essence of knowledge creation.

May your humanity and curiosity be the foundation for collaboration, reciprocity, ans co-elevation!

There are more than seven billion people in our human community, and we all have something unique to offer.