The second Leading with Love interactive webinar series, Stage 4 Solutions co-sponsored with Santa Clara University’s Silicon Valley Executive Center, featured thought leaders who provided valuable insights on key leadership traits and how they promote profitability and better thriving teams and organizations. We are pleased to be a part of inspiring conversations that focus on leading with compassion and driving better business results.

The series featured speakers including Marilyn Gist (Professor Emerita, Executive Programs and Center of Leadership Formation, Seattle University and author of The Extraordinary Power of Leader Humility), Jay Jakub (Chief Advocacy Officer – Economics of Mutuality (EoM) Movement, EoM Solutions; author of Completing Capitalism) and Chris Lowney (author of Heroic Leadership).

Marilyn Gist discussed what humility really means and its close relation to inclusion, providing snapshots from her book, The Extraordinary Power of Leader Humility. Leaders with humility have confidence and are not afraid to face and admit their weaknesses and strengths. They are humble, care for others’ dignity and have strong values. Marilyn emphasized how important it is for leaders to be very mindful of their tone and choice of words because they can touch people’s dignity with the wrong statements, willingly or unwillingly. “Humility” is such a significant personality trait and a much broader concept than one would think.

Innovation is key to business growth and it can only happen when there is an inclusive environment where new ideas are welcome and not judged. And inclusiveness can be achieved through leader humility. True inclusion involves everyday life and how we treat others. A simple but great example is involving the stakeholders in the decision-making process vs. implementing a new process or policy without getting their input. Marilyn also discussed how organizations do better financially and increase overall effectiveness when they are led by leaders with humility.

This topic means a lot to us. Genuine inclusion and respect are core values for us at Stage 4 Solutions. We are proud of the diversity of our team, our differences and the uniqueness we all bring to the table.

Learn more about Leader Humility at: https://www.marilyngist.com/

The 2^nd part of the series continued with Jay Jakub’s presentation on the Economics of Mutuality (EoM) business strategy. At the foundation of this business strategy is the belief that the purpose of companies is to NOT to drive profits, but instead to drive “Purpose.” Purpose includes impacts to People, to the Planet, the Economy and the Company. To really embrace EoM, companies must change their traditional business thinking that only focuses on profit generation but instead focuses on its purpose. Also, a close examination of key stakeholders is required to understand their pain points and capabilities. Finally, organizations must develop a new set of metrics that include a more full set of metrics such as measurements for Natural Capital, Human Capital, Social Capital, and Financial Capital. These new metrics enable companies to move from a financial P&L to a Mutual P&L.

Learn more about EoM strategies at: https://eom.org/

The series concluded with Chris Lowney, author of Heroic Leadership. In a collaborative session, Chris led a conversation focused on defining the love-driven leadership paradigm, which is summarized as “My job as a leader is to do something good for you – team members/employees.” This encompasses not a list of activities that the leader must do, but instead a fundamental set of values. These values include the following: servant mentality to leadership (what can I do to make my team successful?); the goal of a leader is to make people better; to have concern for a team, and respect them.  While this set of fundamental values are not measurable or quantifiable – they create business results through bringing out the best in each team member – for themselves and for the company.

Learn more about Heroic Leadership at: https://chrislowney.com/   

We strive to live up to our values and initiate and promote inspiring conversations around diversity, inclusion and leadership topics to help our team, clients and professional communities learn and grow.