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Growth Personal Development

Collaborative Global Leadership Development

Collaborative Global Leadership Development

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Global Leaders, especially well-developed and thoroughly equipped leaders, do not just appear; they get developed through conscious effort and intentional training.

With a focus on Zambia and the process of leadership development, in this episode (#110) of the Keep Leading!® podcast, I explore “Collaborative Global Leadership Development” in Zambia, with one of the world’s most renowned coaches, Nankhonde Kasonde-van den Broek. Nankhonde is the Founder and Lead Consultant at Nankhonde Kasonde Consultancy and the Founder and Creative Director of KHONDE. Our discussion highlights the necessary steps to make a 21st Century Global Leader at the micro-level impact the world at a macro level.

Key Requirements for Transforming Leadership at the Micro Level
Certain elements come with developing global leaders at the micro-level and their significant implications on the world. It all starts with understanding individual responsibility before the collective.

Resilience

Teaching self-sufficiency and resilience in conditions where external help isn’t the first option is one of the ways to stay on track.

These qualities are innate as an African and need to be shown more and deliberately to lead.

Seizing Opportunity

Recognizing the need to seize available opportunities to develop as a leader is essential.

Developing hard (technical) and soft (interpersonal) skills is necessary to increase leadership opportunities and efficiently lead when given a chance.

Responsibility

It is necessary to understand the responsibility and depth of work that comes with building a new leadership mindset from scratch without the oppressive limitations of pre and post-independence. (Zambia gained its independence from Britain in 1964)

It takes confidence, courage, and necessary skills to develop and exercise exemplary leadership.

History and the Future

When looking at building leaders who can effectively lead at a global level, looking at where they’re coming from side-by-side with the envisioned future is vital.

It’s a literal mind transformation that exceeds just building capacity and skills; it’s a total overhaul of what leadership used to mean to what is required of a global leader in this new age.

Collaborative Components of Leadership Development

Connection and Humanity

As a prospective global leader, the knowledge that our existence connects the world is foremost. It’s essential to understand its significance to your immediate environment and its ripple effect on the planet.

The Big Picture

With leadership development, equipping leaders with the ability to see and contribute to the bigger picture and goals is vital for sustainable growth.

While developing leaders in their local communities, building a bridge to connect with global progress and opportunities helps to see issues and details more clearly.

Influence of Culture

When creating tools to use in developing global leaders, it is essential to incorporate cultural and social influences into those tools.

The influences of Zambian culture and intelligence with foundations of global best practices can be intertwined with tools, building, adapting, and improving them.

Cross Referencing

Even as we build leaders on our stage, creating methods of referencing progress compared to global standards is important.

Having norms and comparison groups helps to appreciate what your current average is and where you stand is vital for sustainable growth and gives the best of both worlds.

A Common Goal

As we grow, seeing that we are for each other and not against each other is vital. We all have a common goal of growth and building leaders who can take the reins of leadership even when we are not doing so presently.

Taking elements that show results from one another and incorporating them with a shared vision of growth and support is always the way to go.

Eddie Turner is the Keep Leading!® podcast host—a podcast dedicated to leadership development and insights.  Subscribe and Share wherever you get your podcasts.  Follow Eddie Turner on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook! Visit www.EddieTurnerLLC.com to learn more!

 

 

Categories
Growth Leadership Personal Development

How to Make 6-Figures as a Freelancer

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Hello, everyone! I am Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator®. In this episode of the Keep Leading!® podcast (#109), I interview Alex Fasulo.  Alex is a full-time freelance writer, author, speaker, and copywriting business owner. In this episode, we discuss how you can make six figures as a freelancer. Alex shares worthwhile insights from her experience, having earned more than $1Million on Fiverr!

 

What Is A Freelancer?

Freelancer is a term for someone who works for themselves. As a freelancer, you are, in essence, an entrepreneur. You work with clients on a project. It’s part of the gig economy, much like an Uber driver who gets paid to drive. Some freelancers have anywhere from 10 to 20 clients a day. The best part is no two days are the same.

 

How to Start Freelancing?

#1        Spend time getting to know yourself and your interests.

#2        Write a list of what you want to do or what you would do if money were not an object.

#3        Find the freelancing platforms that match your aspirations—examples include Upwork, Fiverr, Contra, Continuum, and LinkedIn. Depending on your interest in fitness, cooking, music, photography, or writing, for example, other platforms may suit you better.

#4        Create a profile on the freelance platform you prefer.

#5        Start working part-time. The initial few years can be uneventful, but you can make decent additional income depending upon the project flow. (Like 68K +/- a year in an editing job).

#6        As you gain experience, work hard to enter the top 1% on the platforms like Fiverr Pro, Upwork, or other higher-tier websites.

 

How to Make Six Figures as Freelancer?

When you develop your specific expertise with experience, you understand the psychology, pricing, market, etc. It empowers you to become a full-time freelancer and helps you raise your fees. If you were charging $25 earlier, with experience, you can increase it to $100 and so on.

But, remember freelancer job is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It requires a lot of patience to attain a 6-figure earning. You must develop your expertise/skill to scale up to the top 1% of the freelance platform. Additionally, don’t spend all your earnings. Save first! Then spend as you wish without falling into debt. Later, invest it in your freelance business to grow it further.

 

How Freelancing is the Future of Business?

Today, instead of hiring a permanent employee, corporations are hiring freelancers and independent contractors. In the United States, entrepreneurs are familiar with services like Upwork and Fiverr. Freelancing is a win-win for both parties.

Company Side

  • Companies no longer have to pay for commercial spaces.
  • As freelancers are independent contractors, companies don’t have to pay for healthcare or other benefits.
  • Freelancers have specialized expertise. Therefore, companies don’t have to spend resources to develop them. They can search for the expertise they require for the job and choose a freelancer to work with them on a project based on that expertise.
  • Companies can use a freelancer repeatedly if they like the work or say goodbye after one project.

Freelancer Side

  • You can work from home or anywhere in the world.
  • You can do whatever project you like matching your interest.
  • You can put in as much or as little time as you want. If you only want to work four hours a day, you might not hit 6-figures, but still, you can have a moderate income.
  • Freelancing provides you a lot of flexibility.
  • Being a freelancer is being an independent contractor allowing you to lead your work.

 

How Does Sharing Your Work  Help You Grow as A Freelancer?

  • It brings more transparency about freelancing work and inspires others like single parents, grandparents, and other people to make a decent income.
  • It helps in advancing your brand separate from Fiverr and Upwork.
  • It boosts your social network following and opens more avenues to promote your skills, like eBooks.
  • It also creates more authority for your name in the area of public relations.

 

 

Eddie Turner is the Keep Leading!® podcast host—a podcast dedicated to leadership development and insights.  Subscribe and Share wherever you get your podcasts.  Follow Eddie Turner on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook! Visit www.EddieTurnerLLC.com to learn more!

Categories
Growth Leadership Personal Development

Attracting Top Leadership Talent

Visit KeepLeadingPodcast.com to access the full content for this episode!

 

Hello, everyone! I am Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator®. In this episode of the Keep leading!® podcast (#108), I interview Bill Humbert – The Recruiter Guy, an expert talent attraction consultant. We discuss how companies can attract top leadership talent.  Here is the summary of our conversation.

What’s the best way to find jobs?

When companies get the right person in the top leadership position, they accelerate the company and make it more profitable. Statistics indicate, 76% of all jobs are filled through networking. 8% of jobs are secured by candidates “posting and praying” their resumes receive attention and are acted upon. Recruiters fill the final percentage.

Top leadership talent knows posting for a job or going through a recruiter rarely leads to offers. Therefore, networking is the best way to find top leadership talent.

Difference between Talent Attraction and Talent Acquisition

Talent Attraction

It is about becoming a company where people want to come work.

Talent Acquisition

It’s the administrative process. This is where attracted talent fills out an application and submits their résumé.

What Actions Should Companies Take to Secure Top Leadership Talent in the Attraction Phase?

#1        Remove recruitment of top leadership talent from HR.  Instead, place it under the COO or the CFO. Why? Recruiting and talent attraction is a sales process.

#2        Create a solution to fill the need identified in the top leadership by developing a good job description. It is the foundation of the entire sales process in the attraction phase.

#3        Pay attention to the company website and make it easy to find the career page. Consider it as a sales pitch (like growing companies) to mention on the home page saying – ‘We’re hiring.’

#4        Make the application process for the job, especially for senior-level, one click. It will enable companies to capture a whole lot more of the candidates for the post.

Mistakes Most Companies Make While Attracting Top Leadership Talent

#1     Writing poor job descriptions

It hinders appropriate talent attraction as the right person slips by due to the failure of the recruitment system to match them up.

#2     Over-reliance on applicant tracking systems

It puts a firewall while scanning a person’s résumé against the job description. If a person does not have an 88% of the right keywords, that resume gets ignored.

#3     Forcing people to put in a salary requirement with no room for negotiation.

Attracting top leadership talent is like a sales situation – it’s all about negotiation!

What Can Companies Do Now?

#1        Ask their managers to maintain a list of the top talent in the industry that they would go after if they need them.

#2        Take the recruitment of top leadership positions out of the hands of HR and allow managers to make the call.

 

Eddie Turner is the Keep Leading!® podcast host—a podcast dedicated to leadership development and insights.  Subscribe and Share wherever you get your podcasts.  Follow Eddie Turner on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook! Visit www.EddieTurnerLLC.com to learn more!

 

Categories
Growth Leadership Personal Development

Handling Conflict as A Leader

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Hello, everyone! I am Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator®. In this episode of the Keep Leading!® podcast (#107), I interview Dr. Jen Goldman-Wetzler. She is an organizational psychologist and the founder & CEO of Alignment Strategies Group.  We discuss “Handling Conflict as a Leader.” Jen explains how to deal with conflict and achieving conflict resolution. Here’s some of the information you’ll learn in this podcast.

What is Conflict?

Conflict is part of our human experience.  For some, it’s part of daily life. We may notice conflict emerging when we interact with someone, and it does not feel right. We may find ourselves intentionally avoiding someone, or we may not treat someone the way we should.

For a leader, an ineffective resolution of conflict can derail success at work and home. However, there are times when conflict can be a healthy element of life. In business, for example, it can lead to creativity and innovation— particularly when you have teams with diverse perspectives.

Situations When Conflict is Destructive for a Leader

As a leader, you must identify when a conflict is healthy and is helping you be more innovative and when it is not and therefore detrimental.

Destructive Conflict Situations

  • When you are going around and around in circles and not getting the required answers
  • When you are not coming up with the solutions that you thought you were going to.
  • When you feel like banging your head up against the wall while trying to get your team to do something different, but they are resisting and not doing it.
  • The ‘under the surface’ kind of conflict that bubbles up now and again and then dies down only to explode later, which you do not want to see or do anything about it.

People often get stuck on a conflict loop going around and around without any outcome due to certain conflict habits.

The Four Conflict Habits

  • We avoid conflicts because we don’t know what to do about them. So we either blame other people or blame and shame ourselves.
  • We shut down in the face of recurring conflict.
  • We relentlessly seek collaboration with other people and yet fail to get anywhere.
  • We waste time, energy, money, and resources- trying to achieve a ‘win-win’ solution with someone who does not cooperate with us.

Each of these four habits can be useful and can lead to healthy conflict outcomes unless a leader uses it habitually.

Handling Conflict

As a leader, dealing with destructive conflict situations or conflicting habits is about freeing yourself from them. If even one person makes a change, the entire relationship can get better in conflict situations.

Steps for Handling Conflicts as A Leader

Step 1        Stop, pause, and notice what is going on.

Step 2        Identify the conflict habit.

Step 3        Break the habitual response pattern.

  • If a person shuts down during conflict, you need to cool off over a weekend or let it go for a few days. It can jolt the other person out of their habitual way.
  • If a person has a conflict-avoiding habit, have a conversation with them. Share the truth with love, care, and respect.

Step 4        Be more direct in letting others know what you need.

Step 5        Empower yourself by learning negotiation skills to resolve conflicts with a win-win outcome.

 

Eddie Turner is the Keep Leading!® podcast host—a podcast dedicated to leadership development and insights.  Subscribe and Share wherever you get your podcasts.  Follow Eddie Turner on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook! Visit www.EddieTurnerLLC.com to learn more!

 

 

Categories
Growth Leadership Personal Development

The Power of Perception

Visit KeepLeadingPodcast.com to access the full content for this episode!

Hello, everyone! I am Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator®. In this episode, I discuss the power of perception. Dr. Diane Hamilton and Dr. Maja (Maya) Zelihic, two professors and authors, are my distinguished guests. Here is what you will learn in this podcast:

Understanding Perception

Perception is a combination of four elements:

  • IQ: Intelligence Quotient
  • EQ: Emotional Quotient
  • CQ: Curiosity Quotient
  • CQ: Cultural Quotient.

Perception is a process that includes everything we are thinking about, how we recognize it, how we come across to others, how others come across to us, and how we utilize all of it to communicate effectively.

The professors have developed an acronym for the process—EPIC. It stands for Evaluation, Prediction, Interpretation, and Correlation. Every one of us goes through each phase before coming up with a decision. Recognizing perception as part of how we communicate with others can help leaders succeed in a global and diverse business setting.

Why Perception Matters?

According to Psychology Today, humans make about 35,000 decisions a day. We take these decisions either consciously or subconsciously. Many of these decisions are small and insignificant such as:

  • What time do I wake up?
  • What to eat for lunch?
  • Do I take this medicine or not?

Some of the decisions have a significant impact on professional careers in a corporate setting. The current ever-evolving, highly diverse workplace compels leaders to understand the complexities revolving around perception.

Perception impacts everyone’s reality. Understanding the mechanism and the factors affecting it impacts the effectiveness of leadership. A leader can only be effective when they can tap into the potential of their perception and understand others.

Different Factors Influencing Our Perception

Trace any of your decisions back, whether it’s your career, lifestyle, or anything, and you can find your perception based on a particular factor/experience in your life. These factors influence your perception, like

  • Culture
  • Personal experiences, life experiences, and corporate experiences
  • Intelligence
  • Gender
  • Spirituality
  • Emotions to a certain extent
  • Personality types
  • And curiosity levels

Why do Business Leaders Need to Develop their Perceptive Powers?

As a business leader, developing perceptive powers helps to understand the influences of perception on specific competencies in business such as:

  • Innovation
  • Critical thinking
  • Engagement
  • Creativity
  • Collaboration
  • Positive thinking
  • Leadership

Having perceptive power improves emotional intelligence and enables leaders to empathetically see other people’s perspectives while understanding their vantage point. Studies indicate when a business leader understands their client, their sales go up.

How Can a Leader Improve their Perception Skills

#1        Be in tune with your self-perception.

#2        Evaluate your perception. It allows you to analyze yourself in terms of self-control,

composure, acceptance, body language, tone, etc.

#3        Be aware of how others perceive you as a leader.

#4        Listen to others and observe them.

#5        Develop the ability to predict other’s perceptions.

Being in tune with the perception of others helps you create a SMART corporate goal process. It also enables you to polish your perceptions and be an effective leader.

Eddie Turner is the Keep Leading!® podcast host—a podcast dedicated to leadership development and insights.  Subscribe and Share wherever you get your podcasts.  Follow Eddie Turner on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook! Visit www.EddieTurnerLLC.com to learn more!

Categories
Growth Leadership Personal Development

The Power of Playing Offense

 

Visit KeepLeadingPodcast.com to access the full content for this episode!

Hello, everyone! I am Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator®.  In this podcast,  I talk about the power of playing offense. It includes some amazing insights by Paul Epstein,  a professional sports executive for multiple NFL and NBA teams. Here are some interesting insights that you will find in the podcast.

Values & Purpose

If you want to give meaning to your decisions, behaviors, and actions as a leader, the best way is to focus on your values and find your purpose in life. Both of these are already inside of us. But, until you intentionally seek them and put them on paper, you can never act on them.  It fuels your leadership to take the step into each day with more courage, grit, and resilience.

People First Approach

Often with time, people get comfortable in their position as a leader. As a result, you become more risk-averse and even stop dreaming about the future potential of what you can still achieve. But, leadership is not about some title or position.

When you are at the top as a leader, do not just get carried away with organizational goals and promotions. It can limit your potential. Instead, focus on the people you work with – all three directions, above you, below you, and to your side. Connect with your team, care for them, and have a people-first approach.

Empathetic Listening

Take a moment and think about which leader in your professional or personal life influenced you the most and why?

Around the globe, 90% of people in public, private, profit, or non-profit organizations agree that the leaders that influenced them and made them feel positive were the ones with empathetic listening.

Leadership is not about all talk, talk, talk or do, do, do, but a lot about listening!

Listening to your teammates can give you valuable insights and help you make a better company.  It cements your relationship with them and enables you to grow as a leader. It allows you to build relationships and invest in yourself to help others better.

As a leader, playing offense means before you lead others, you must first lead yourself.

The Five Pillars of the Power of Playing Offense in Leadership

  • Purpose and Inspiration – It is about taking a purpose-driven mentality to your business and life each day.
  • Grit and Resilience – It is about facing the adversity head-on and turning it into achievement.
  • Inclusion – It is about helping others to unleash their superpowers through their strengths, gifts, talents, and passions. It is also about including them at the table, coming forward with their superpowers, and realizing their full potential.
  • Creating a Culture – Leadership is no more about commanding control. It is now about creating a culture of camaraderie and connection in the organization.
  • Leave it Better than You Found it – It is about building relationships and connecting with others. It is about finding success by focusing your life from self to a life of legacy.

 

 

 

Don’t forget to check out the full podcast at (Playing Offense as a Leader | Paul Epstein), and share it with your family and friends.

 

Eddie Turner is the Keep Leading!® podcast host—a podcast dedicated to leadership development and insights.  Subscribe and Share wherever you get your podcasts.  Follow Eddie Turner on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook! Visit www.EddieTurnerLLC.com to learn more!

Categories
Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development

What Is an Emerging Leader and How to Help?

When I decided to write my book for emerging leaders, I interviewed people to learn how
others understand the phrase, “emerging leader.” I asked a random sample of individuals the
simple question: “What is an emerging leader?” It was quite illuminating to hear the various
interpretations.

The most popular response was that an emerging leader is a high-performing employee in a
corporation who shows great promise as a leader. Perhaps the next most popular response was
that an emerging leader is a young person who shows leadership potential.

Those definitions are certainly accurate. However, there were other definitions I heard and
others I have experienced in my corporate career. Individuals who are fresh out of college, those
early in their career, and even students are emerging leaders. Also, there is increasingly a new
class of employee who transitions into a completely different career than the one they started in.
They may not fit the traditional definition, but they, too, are an emerging leader. Finally, we might
say that anyone embarking on a leadership opportunity is an emerging leader.

Because there are several interpretations of what defines an emerging leader, I believe it is
important to expand our traditional lens. Let’s examine each word independently.

Emerge

Merriam Webster provides a simple definition of emerge. It means to “become known” or to “come
into view.” That definition is quite fitting in our examination of what it means to be an emerging
leader. If we look at it as “becoming known” as a leader, that means it is far more applicable
than the traditional definition. With this expanded lens, the opportunity is open for many more
people to “come into view” as a leader in the eyes of others.

Leader

What does it mean to be a leader? Many definitions exist. Having followers makes a person a
leader. The act of leading. Having a title or position of superiority. These are basic concepts of
leadership. Leadership, however, is far more complex than these rudimentary definitions.

What good leadership is, what moral leadership is, what transformational leadership is, and
much more needs to be considered when defining leadership at its highest level.

In Adaptive Leadership, the work of Dr. Ronald Heifetz, he explores the roles the words authority and
influence play in relation to leadership. Truly emerging leaders recognize the power of influence
without authority, position, or title in their quest to become known and seen as a leader to others.

How to Help Emerging Leaders

Coaching is a powerful way to support emerging leaders. Coaching helps emerging leaders develop
their leadership potential more fully and faster.

As an executive coach, I have worked with emerging leaders identified as high potentials in their
organization to help them accelerate their performance. I enjoy working with these individuals who
already have leadership titles but are emerging in a new way.

Over the past year, I have had the tremendous privilege of working as an independent professional
leadership coach with a different type of emerging leader: students at Rice University’s Doerr Institute
for New Leaders. Rice has embarked upon what Founding Managing Director General Tom Kolditz
calls, “the most comprehensive leader development initiative at any top-twenty university.” Working
with these young people—starting as early as eighteen, in some cases, and spanning into the late
twenties when working with doctoral graduate students—has affirmed my belief in what an emerging
leader is and why the lens must be broader than traditionally held.

Working with the Rice students and seeing the measurement and results show the value of what can
happen when you use the power of coaching to bend the arch early in developing emerging leaders.
The leadership skills they have acquired are transforming their lives and the lives of those who will
be led by them.

In addition to coaching, I believe using a proper assessment tool to help emerging leaders understand
themselves is important. In working with leaders, I help them understand the difference between
their IQ (intelligence quotient) and their EQ (emotional intelligence). Historically, people were taught
it was important to have a high IQ to be a good leader and achieve success. A growing body of research
suggests that having a high EQ is a better indicator of good leadership and future success.

I am a certified emotional intelligence practitioner. When working with emerging leaders, I use the
EQ-i 2.0® and EQ 360® as my assessment tool of choice to help identify and develop emotional
intelligence.

Conclusion

Everyone, not just a select few, has the potential to become known as a leader. Emerging leaders
recognize the power of influence without authority, position or title in their quest to become known
as a leader to others.

To help emerging leaders continue their emergence, we must help them continue to develop. One of
the best ways to do that is to provide coaching with the use of a proper leadership assessment tool.
The world needs great leaders. Let’s do our part to continue to identify, help, and develop new
emerging leaders!

 

This post is an excerpt from Eddie Turner’s forthcoming book entitled: 140 Simple Messages to Guide Emerging Leaders. Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator™ is a C-Suite Network Advisor ™ and a change agent who has worked for several of the world’s “most admired companies.” Eddie “works with leaders to accelerate performance and drive impact!”™ Contact Eddie at (312) 287-9800 or eddie@eddieturnerllc.com

Categories
Growth Management Personal Development

C-Suite Network Advisor Summit and Conference—A Unique Experience!

C-Suite Network Chairman and Co-Founder, Jeffrey Hayzlett, kicked off the program.

I had the tremendous honor to attend the C-Suite Network Advisor Summit and Conference in Dallas, Texas on May 22 and 23. I accepted the invitation to become a C-Suite Network Advisor after the December 2016 meeting held in New York, New York where the program was unveiled. So, this was my first opportunity to attend an official C-Suite Network event. I have talked about this unique experience incessantly since leaving. It is unbelievable how timely the content was and how beneficial it is to share some of the gems I took away with clients and friends.

C-Suite Network Chairman and Co-Founder, Jeffery Hayzlett kicked off the C-Suite Network Advisor Summit on May 22 with a rousing introduction. To put things in perspective, he reminded us of the fact there are over 28 million businesses in North America and that our target is businesses with revenues of $5 Million or more. Within this target, we are interested in small business owners, senior level executives (typically with the title of VP and above) and any of the 30 CxO roles (CEO, CFO, COO, etc.).

The C-Suite Network was started because there was nothing that provided what Jeffrey and his co-founders wanted for themselves. Therefore, inside the C-Suite Network there are 4 C’s they deliver which we should remember when explaining the unique value proposition of this network:
Community: vetted network of peers.
Content: curated content uniquely tailored for this elite group of leaders.
Conferences: opportunities for private networking with executives from different communities to share perspectives and gain new insights.
Concierge: services to support this elite group of leaders.

Jeffrey Hayzlett reminded us that the same services designed to support the C-Level executive’s members are available to the network of Advisors. I found this review and reminder extremely helpful.

C-Suite Network Advisor, Lou Diamond explained his C-Suite TV experience during the Summit and later signed copies of his book at the Author signing session.

I was encouraged to hear about the power C-Suite TV and the C-Suite Book club are having for those with content on those channels. The story Lou Diamond and Diane DiResta told about people recognizing them from across the country and the reaction to being in the elevator with someone while your content is being displayed is priceless. The distribution reaches over one million high end hotels and the top 50 airports across the U.S. and growing! More that 80 million people are viewing the C-Suite TV content every month! This is more motivation for me to do what it takes to get my content on both of these channels.

C-Suite Network Advisor, Diane DiResta explained her C-Suite TV experience during the Summit and later signed copies of her book at the Author signing session.

We had a couple of table exercises to share best processes we follow in our daily work and exchange tools we find most helpful. This was a very useful part of the Summit and we all walked away with something new to try, validation for something we were already using or a new way to leverage an existing tool in ways we were not doing before.

One of my biggest takeaways from this conference is the definition of “expert” and how to position my expertise. I had my own definition and understanding of what an expert is. The panel discussion on this topic stressed that we all are in the room as C-Suite Network Advisors because we are Experts! Steve Gallegos, whose career includes experience as a Board-Certified Trial Lawyer in California, amplified the reason each Advisor is an expert. He explained: “the courts were very clear that there is no “set standard” for someone to serve as an expert. A person can be deemed an expert if they can establish sufficient training, research or study in the particular field of expertise. How much training, the quality and/or the quantity goes to how much credibility the expert is to be given, but that is a subjective standard.” That was a very nice point of reference to use and further reason for confidence in each of our ability to be viewed as experts.

The day ended with marketing strategy, Advisor updates and action items incumbent upon all of us to take. It was an extraordinary day of community and content at an amazing summit of elite advisors!

C-Suite Network Advisors (L-R) Sheila Moore Anderson and Eddie Turner along with C-Suite Network General Manager, Lindsey Hayzlett and C-Suite Radio Headliner Connie Pheiff, pose for a photo during the C-Suite Network Advisor Summit.

May 23, 2017 was the actual C-Suite Network Conference where the 4C’s of the network were personified. I truly got to see first-hand just how special this group really is and I value my membership all the more.

The content of the conference centered around market needs for the C-Level leader.

Highlights:
• To Franchise or Not to Franchise? Advantages and disadvantages were discussed by C-Suite leaders for C-Suite leaders.
• Direct selling was the original gig economy! A panel discussed why direct selling is still relevant and the most effective ways of utilizing this model in the 21st century economy.
• The Power of Social! Facebook Messenger, What’s App and We Chat are messenger services. These 3 are out-performing the top 4 social media platforms COMBINED! Messaging applications is where it is at now. 80 billion messages per day are sent inside these cl
osed systems.
• The Digital Revolution: Many companies realize “software has eaten the world” and therefore they MUST be software companies. Domino’s Pizza does not call itself a pizza company any more—they say they are a software company that sells pizzas’. More business need to understand and act on this premise.

We discussed the power of media and its changing landscape and new ways to reach audiences like the new C-Suite Network partnership with ReachMe TV. Along with table exercises where we brainstormed best practices and exchanged ideas we also learned about effective methods for networking and interacting with C-Suite Leaders.

I left my first C-Suite Network conference with a deep sense of appreciation, a stronger allegiance to the mission and vision of being a member of “the worlds most trusted network for C-Suite Leaders and a renewed sense of zeal for the unique value I bring. This is a unique group that delivered a unique experience and I can’t wait for the next one!

C-Suite Network CEO and Co-Founder, Thomas White led a panel discussion on networking.

Eddie Turner is a C-Suite Network Advisor ™ and a change agent who has worked for several of the world’s “most admired companies.” Eddie is a professional speaker who has appeared on CNN LIVE and spoken internationally. He is certified as an executive coach, trainer and facilitator. He is a member of the Forbes® Coaches Council, a global workshop and program facilitator for the Association for Talent Development and for Harvard Business School Publishing. He has studied at Harvard and Northwestern Universities. Eddie “works with leaders to accelerate performance and drive impact!”™
Contact Eddie at (312) 287-9800 or eddie@eddieturnerllc.com

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What is Coaching and Why It Matters to the C-Suite

I recently had lunch with a colleague I worked with 10 years ago at a major Fortune 100 corporation. After exchanging pleasantries, my colleague quickly got to the point of the lunch meeting. I thought we were having a lunch to catch up after many years. We did catch up. However, my colleague revealed that with the new job that brought he and his wife to Houston came new challenges that revealed gaps in his ability to be an effective leader. He said his wife suggested he get the help of an executive coach so he reached out to me.

With that explanation, I posed the question to my colleague I pose to anyone seeking my help: “What is coaching?” I ask that question to understand what my potential client’s experience with coaching is and what their frame of reference will be as we enter a coaching relationship. My colleague reluctantly admitted he really did not know what coaching is in practice. In this article, I will explain the answer I gave my colleague about what coaching is and why it matters to the C-Suite executive.

What Coaching Is Not

Before I explain what coaching is, I would like to explain what coaching is not. The word coach, for many people, conjures up images of sports. From their youth, many people have played sports or attended sporting events at school. Many remember all too well the image of a shouting coach trying to motivate players or persuade an official to make calls favorable for their team.

For others, the word coach has a different connotation. Some think of a minister, a therapist, or a senior business leader. There are others who may think of a consultant as they conflate coaching with consulting. For many years, for example, I ran an independent computer consulting practice where I was paid for my expertise in providing the right answers and solutions for my clients. Coaching, however, is very different. As a certified coach, I am not paid to provide answers or solutions for my clients. This is different from sports coaching or consulting where the coach or consultant has more experience and expertise and they are paid to transfer this to the client. In fact, when taking the practical portion of the coaching certification exam, a coach who gives answers to a client fails the exam. As a certified coach, as the old saying goes, my job is to “teach clients how to fish rather than give them a fish.” During the certification process, the trainer would often tell us “the coach owns the process, the client owns the content.” Put another way, “coaching is a PROCESS expertise, not a CONTENT expertise” said Master Certified Coach and best selling author, Laura Berman Fortgang in a workshop I attended.

What Is Coaching

So, what is coaching? In his New York Times best-selling book: “You Already Know How to Be Great,” Alan Fine defines coaching very simply as “helping others improve their performance.” The International Coach Federation, the most recognized certification body in the coaching industry, defines coaching as “partnering with clients in a thoughtprovoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.”

Early in my corporate career, during my time providing IT support for the financial services arm of General Electric, years before I envisioned myself as a professional coach, I remember the first time I heard the term coaching used in a professional setting. In those days, a coach was only hired as a last resort for someone who was not performing well. It was a secret whispered in the halls of the office. Hence, receiving coaching was considered an act of shame.

Years ago, when I first began working as an IT professional. We used to joke that anyone could call himself or herself an IT professional. All you had to do is show up and say: “I know how to fix computers!” and you were hired. Then the industry realized experience was not enough. There was a need for formal measurement of qualifications through certification. Now most IT professionals hold some sort of certification to validate their competency.

The same was true for many years in the coaching profession. Anyone who worked in human resources or as a business leader could call themselves a coach. As I experienced in the IT world, that led to various degrees of quality.

Today, things are very different. Organizations such as the International Coach Federation, the International Coaching Community and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council have raised the bar of the coaching profession by creating global ethics, standards and certification assessments. As a result, the global awareness of the power of coaching has increased. Effective coaching is recognized as an art and a science. Coaching is now considered a badge of honor! People are proud to say they have a coach! That means their company values them and wants to invest in their development because they view them as part of the company’s strategic plans and ultimate success.

Why Coaching Matters to the C-Suite

Top professional athletes such as Roger Federer, Serena Williams and Rory McIlroy recognize the need for a coach to stay on top of their game and maintain their edge throughout various stages of their career. “Corporate athletes” also need coaches. Consequently, many senior business leaders including those in the C-Suite now use a professional coach to help maintain their competitive edge.

For the C-Suite executive, engaging a professional coach facilitates continued investment in themselves by having the learning or the university brought to them in the comfort of their location or through technology. Having a coach also provides the C-Suite executive a sounding board, a confidant and an advisor to deal with the demands of their role.

Certified professional coaches specialize in life, career, business and executive coaching. Professional coaching is different than giving instruction, advice or sharing expert insights. Professional coaching is a very rewarding process that transforms individuals and organizations by helping them unlock their own rich potential, create new options and value leading to improved performance and satisfaction.

Eddie Turner is a C-Suite Advisor ™ and a change agent who has worked for several of the world’s “most admired companies.” He is an international speaker who is certified as an executive coach and facilitator. Eddie is a global workshop and program facilitator for the Association for Talent Development and for Harvard Business School Publishing. He has studied at Harvard and Northwestern Universities. Eddie “works with leaders to accelerate performance and drive business impact!”™ Contact Eddie at (312) 287-9800 or eddie@eddieturnerllc.com