That’s a wrap! #LinkageGILD | Day 4

We’ve wrapped up the fourth and final day of Linkage’s Global Institute of Leadership Development^® in Palm Desert, California. It was 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 put it, “This is not your average leadership conference!”

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

Panel Discussion with Kwame Jackson and Dalia Mogahed: Leading Across Difference: Unique Leadership Journeys

Tom Kolditz joined us on stage to moderate a panel with Kwame Jackson, entrepreneur and political commentator, and Dalia Mogahed, ISPU Director of Research, who shared their first hand experiences and advice for leading across difference. Whether leading across gender, race, or generations, there is strength in our unique and sometimes unseen differences. As leaders, we need to embrace and celebrate differences to empower our teams and maximize the potential of every person.

What we learned:

• Leverage every individual, give clear expectations about your goals and purpose—and then get out of the way.
• We all have unconscious bias. Do the inner work to figure out where your blind spots are and work on them.
• Bring people into positions of leadership that mirror the communities that we serve. Leverage different perspectives to solve all types of problems.
• Invest the time to get to know people as individuals. Have one-on-one meetings with everyone on your team.
• Become a cultural athlete. Challenge yourself: How can I increase my cultural fluidity? Create your own stretch assignments.

To learn more about Kwame, visit his website and follow him on Twitter.

For the latest insights from Dalia, follow her on Twitter.

Marshall Goldsmith on FeedForward

Bestselling author Marshall Goldsmith joined us on stage to receive Linkage’s inaugural Legends in Leadership Award. Participants had the opportunity to practice his interactive FeedForward exercise, which is focused on giving someone else suggestions for the future and helping as much as we can. He also invited participants to form small teams and submit questions to him to ideate on in real-time.

What we learned:

• Treat every idea as a gift. Say thank you. If you want to use it, use it. If you don’t, put it in the closet. If you already have it, repackage it and give it to your mother-in-law!
• We are better off being a fellow human being—than trying to be better than someone else.
• Frequency is more important than duration. Practice FeedForward every two months to achieve greater performance.
• Sell what you can sell. Change what you can change. If you can’t sell it or change it—let it go.

For the latest from Marshall, visit his website and follow him on Twitter.

Warren Bennis Award Winner – Lina Hidalgo

Our 2019 Warren Bennis Award Winner is Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo. In an upset election, she became the first woman and the first Latina elected as the county judge for Harris County, the third-most populous county in the country, and the largest in Texas.

Lina accepted the award via video, and following Lina’s acceptance, Tom Kolditz walked through questions submitted from attendees–covering everything from engagement and purpose to leading through change. He then gave us more insight into Lina’s background, and shared ways we all might approach common leadership challenges.

What we learned:

• Ask yourself: How do you create engagement? What will it take to get your people to make your mission their own mission? We must personalize our relationships.
• A mission statement should fit on a t-shirt. If it’s longer than that, people won’t get it done. Ask yourself: Are you telling yourself something that is too complex? Simplify.
• Execution is everything. Everyone is a smart person with ideas—if you can turn the change into something that can be executed, you will stand out.

To learn more about Lina, visit her website and follow her on Twitter.

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.

What we learned:

• 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.

To learn more about Nando, visit his website and follow him on Twitter.