And that’s a wrap! Closing out #LinkageGILD | Day 4

We’ve wrapped up the fourth and final day of Linkage’s Global Institute of Leadership Development^® in Palm Desert, California, and it was truly a transformational week.   

We immersed ourselves in new perspectives and great insights, challenged our own assumptions–and grew as individuals and leaders. As Linkage CEO Jennifer McCollum shared, the GILD journey “ultimately enables us collectively to create positive change in a world calling out for strong leaders”.  

Looking for more from #LinkageGILD? Check out our highlights from Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.  

Carla Harris on Purposeful Leadership

Purposeful, powerful leadership requires us to tap into our authentic selves with courage, commitment, and clarity. Leadership starts with what we think and feel—and the two are always intertwined, explained Carla Harris, Vice Chairman, Managing Director, Morgan Stanley.

What we learned:

• We must have the courage in our leadership to be our authentic selves and also speak truth to power, even when it’s risky and difficult.
• When we become dedicated to our people–honoring and building diversity, empowering others, and offering transparency–we become transformational leaders who can transform our organizations.
• Clarify what our impact should and could be in our world. Then, leadership becomes an act of serving something else–or someone else–before ourselves.

Sam Lam on Global Leadership

As part of his presentation of the Warren Bennis Leadership Award to Sir Andrew Witty, Sam Lam asked us to consider three things: Somethings don’t seem to change. Some things are always changing–and some things don’t seem to be reversible. It is the clarity that leaders bring to the table that allows them to thrive.

What we learned:

• Get ready: Real leadership development happens on Monday, when we’re back at work.
• As leaders, we must maintain a high degree of clarity in our heads. We must keep our hearts in the right place. And, we have to make sure our hands are steady–and in these difficult times–we must keep them clean.

When we come to the table, we have to have a conscious effort to control our bias.

Sir Andrew Witty – Warren Bennis Award Recipient

Sir Andrew Witty is the recipient of the 2018 Warren Bennis Award for Excellence in Leadership. Established by the Linkage team in 1999 to honor Professor Warren Bennis’s legacy, this award recognizes leaders who demonstrate courage, endurance, capability and success in their fields and are an inspiration for current and aspiring leaders.

“We are thrilled to recognize Sir Andrew Witty with this prestigious award,” said Sam Lam, CEO of Linkage Asia and Chair of the Warren Bennis Award Committee. “He is a remarkable leader characterized by his broad reaching impact in healthcare globally and by his success uniting populations around a common purpose for the greater good of mankind.” Read the full story.

Julia Gillard – Purposeful Leadership

“I felt the weight of being the first woman to do the job.” Julia Gillard, former Prime Minister of Australia shared her story of leading change and what she learned about herself—and the world around her by standing up for what she believes in the face of adversity. She encouraged us to think about our own bias—and the assumptions that we make based on someone’s gender and race. She shared leadership advice that has helped guide her:

• Be clear about your sense of purpose. Sit down and write down what’s important to you. On the worst of days, get that piece of paper out.
• Develop a strong sense of self. Don’t contract your sense of self out to other people. Don’t get on the rollercoaster. Think very deeply about how you will protect your sense of self.
• Balance the struggle between the urgent and the important. Carve out time away from your devices to work through the things that are truly important. Spend time focusing on the important, not the urgent.
• It pays to be scanning the far horizon. Navigate the future of your organization.

Richard Leider of Purposeful Leadership

Richard Leider helped set the stage for the final step in our leadership journey—sharing invaluable words of wisdom and practical tools to help us think about our own purpose as we depart GILD. Compassion is the soul of purpose. We have to be present and feel it before we can activate it at the deepest level. He reminded us that self-awareness and self-leadership are practices. The two most important days of our lives are: 1) The day that we are born and 2) The day that we determine *why* we were born.

Richard’s leadership advice:

• Purpose is a practice; it is our choice. Make conscious moment to moment choices to lead your life.
• We’re always practicing something—knowledge is only rumor until it’s in the muscle.
• Life lessons: Find your flow. Hold the center. Unlock your purpose.
• Purpose check-up: On a scale of 1 to 10, ask yourself these 3 questions: 1) Do you love your work? 2) Are you using your gifts on something that you feel interested in? 3) Is where you work a good fit for you?

Nando Parrado of Purposeful Leadership

We have one life to live. Nando Parrado suffered a death-defying feat: his rugby team’s plane crash in the Andes Mountains in 1972 and the ensuing two-and-a-half month period before being rescued. What did he learn? What decisions did he make in the moment? Nando’s deep and moving recount of the decisions made and the destiny that lay before him remind us to live in the present, to be decisive and not hesitate, and to complete the goals we set, however simple.

• Open your eyes and see what is before you, and not what you’d like to see.
• Realize what is most important.
• It’s not the number of breaths you take, but the moments that take your breath away.

Learn more about Nando’s personal account of the story.