6 Leadership Truths from Learning Teams at Linkage’s Global Institute for Leadership Development (GILD) 2019

Linkage’s Global Institute for Leadership Development^® (GILD) wrapped up just a few weeks ago, and this unique learning experience once again proved to be a transformative and educational week for all attendees. 

We heard from inspirational speakers who gave us a new sense of our own purpose as leaders–and most importantly, participants were able to digest and comprehend each day’s Purposeful Leadership teachings with their Learning Teams. 

These small, facilitator-led groups are designed to promote the highest level of collaboration and interaction by pairing leaders with different backgrounds and skill sets. Through daily meetings, participants identified and discussed key insights from the week that they then applied to their own leadership.

We compiled some of our favorite takeaways from this year’s Learning Team participants:

• Seek out your opposite: Our natural tendency is to seek out and collaborate with individuals who remind us of ourselves, a practice that is detrimental to growth and innovation. We need to collaborate with individuals who challenge the way we think and bring something to the table that is different from what we add. Bottom line: Inclusion and diversity are vital to success.
• Be authentic: Don’t forget who you were/are.  At some point, we have all felt as though we don’t fit in and tried to adjust our selves to our fit our environment, but nothing is more important that bringing our full, authentic selves to the table. Ask questions if you have them, speak up if you think something should be done differently, and
  don’t be afraid to share your ideas because you feel unqualified.
• Never stop learning: It’s important to take the pressure off ourselves and realize that, just because we may be in one of the top positions of an organization, doesn’t mean we always have all the answers. As leaders, we need to constantly ask questions and have the desire to continually grow our own knowledge base.
• Look to your own “Success Circle”: While many may look to us for the answers, who can we look to? It helps to have a network of experts in various industries in our back pocket to rely on for advice and support –which is another important reason to seek out our opposites and those with a different way of thinking, so we can purposefully expose ourselves to points of view other than our own.
• Collaboration is key: Bringing different voices to the table is crucial for any organization. Often, the best ideas may come from the most unlikely places or from people you may not have initially brought into the discussion. We need to make sure everyone has their fingerprints on the blueprint and the opportunity to make their ideas heard.  Not only will this increase morale, it also gives your peers a stake in the future of your company. The end result? Your team members will feel more connected to your organization’s mission and your “why” as a team.
• Leadership requires intention: As leaders, we need to be intentional and purposeful in our actions. Each meeting we attend and each project we take on needs to be approached with intent and a goal in mind. By being intentional with our actions we will ultimately Become Purposeful Leaders.

Our Learning Teams certainly covered a lot of ground and walked away from GILD with some amazing insights. If you want to experience the excitement and learning power of Linkage’s Global Institute for Leadership Development^® (GILD), we have some exciting news: We have just announced the dates for next year’s Institute. 

We hope you’ll join us in Palm Desert, CA from October 5-7, 2020.