Get the Lead Out: 7 Leaders, 7 Questions, 7 Days - Day Four, Maureen Metcalf

Welcome to day four of a solid week of inspiration, insight, and instruction.

Maureen Metcalf, MBA is a highly respected executive advisor, visionary founder, and chief executive officer of the Innovative Leadership Institute. Committed to creating a better world by elevating leadership and evolving organizations globally, Maureen and her consulting team guide clients through structured envisioning, leadership elevation, and organization evolution processes to amplify their impact and build thriving organizations.

?Recognized as a Fellow of the esteemed International Leadership Association, Maureen is also an accomplished author. Her international award-winning eleven-book series on innovative leadership, including the most recent book, Innovative Leadership & Followership in the Age of AI.

Maureen provides her insights on our seven questions.

How do you define your role as a leader?

As the founder and CEO of the Innovative Leadership Institute, my role as a leader is defined by my relentless pursuit of impact on my clients in transforming organizations and nurturing future-ready leaders. I believe in leading by example and anticipating and leveraging future business trends to drive organizational transformation. My work revolves around aligning company-wide strategy, systems, and culture using Innovative Leadership techniques, enhancing profitability, resilience, and sustainability.

?I believe in leading by example and anticipating and leveraging future business trends to drive organizational transformation. -Maureen Metcalf

Through my institute, I help leaders stay current on critical topics that impact organizations, leveraging the latest thinking and practices from the field of leadership. This reflects my commitment to applying my leadership methods within my organization and sharing these insights to foster broader leadership development across industries.

What do you consider your greatest strength and how do you play to it?

My greatest strength is anticipating and leveraging future business trends and developing novel solutions to transform organizations. I capitalize on this strength by integrating it into my leadership practices and the services provided by the Innovative Leadership Institute. I combine future trends and systems thinking to develop strategies that align with current organizational needs and prepare businesses for future challenges and opportunities.

?I encapsulate my vision and strategic approach in leadership books and public speaking engagements, sharing insights with a broader audience to foster a deeper understanding of innovative leadership. Additionally, by hosting the radio show "Innovating Leadership, Co-creating Our Future," I continuously engage with new ideas and practices, further strengthening my capacity to guide leaders and organizations through transformation in a rapidly changing business environment.

?This proactive approach to using future trends to guide leadership practices highlights my strengths. It demonstrates how I effectively apply it to significantly impact leadership development and organizational success across a broad audience globally.

What do you see as your biggest weakness and how do you strengthen it or minimize any negative impact it may have on your effectiveness as a leader?

One weakness can be overemphasizing future trends, which, while being a significant strength, might lead to underappreciating immediate or short-term challenges. Overfocusing on being future-ready might cause me to overlook or undervalue the pressing concerns that require immediate responses.

I try to balance my visionary leadership focus with attention to operational excellence and current organizational needs. Ensuring I have a solid team to manage day-to-day operations effectively while I focus on long-term strategic planning could mitigate any potential oversight of immediate issues.

How do you measure your success as a leader?

I use a multi-faceted approach that aligns with the goals and strategies of the Innovative Leadership Institute. Here are several factors I consider when evaluating how I am leading the institute and my clients:

?Organizational Impact: One key measure is my leadership's direct impact on the organization’s performance. This includes growth metrics such as revenue increase, market share expansion, and profitability. Organizational resilience and navigating complex changes are essential measures for our organization.

Leadership Development: Since the institute focuses on developing innovative leaders, our program's success is measured by the advancement and achievements of the leaders we train. As an example, for our IT Leaders program, we measure participants' completion of program requirements, promotions, impact on culture, and promotion readiness.

Client Satisfaction and Impact: Feedback from our clients directly measures my effectiveness and the Institute's impact. This information is primarily provided through steering committee feedback and client surveys. Our clients also participate in our podcasts and share their success stories.

Thought Leadership Influence: As a thought leader, my influence in the leadership field can be measured by the reception of publications, speaking engagements, and podcasts. Metrics include book sales, citations of my work, invitations to speak at industry events, podcast listens, and following on professional social media platforms.

Innovation and Thought Leadership: I evaluate the innovation I bring into leadership practices, evidenced by new methodologies developed, papers published, and recognition by peers in the industry, such as awards and honors.

Cultural Leadership: Assessing the organization's culture can also provide insight into my leadership success. We use an EQ assessment suite to evaluate my and the team’s performance.

Personal Development Goals: Finally, I set personal development goals and work with a coach to help me build and track them. These goals range from building sales skills to building our internal team while concurrently enhancing our client experience.

Which leader(s) most impacted you and how?

I love Albert Einstein. I talk about leaders in uncertain times needing to adopt the “mind of the scientist.” In an era of novel challenges, we need to have an attitude of experimentation rather than certainty. There is undoubtedly still a balance between knowing when to experiment and when to leverage best practices.

In an era of novel challenges, we need to have an attitude of experimentation rather than certainty. -Maureen Metcalf

What has changed most about leadership or what challenges do leaders face today that they not have faced in the past?

a.???? More uncertainty,

b.??? Shift from command and control to sense and guide

c.???? Prior solutions are often less effective due to the rate of change

d.??? Additional generations in the workplace cause a need to update how we navigate culture and people systems.

Someone has just stepped into a new leadership role. If you can only impress upon them one thing, what is it and why is it important?

As a new leader, you will see more change in the next several years than many leaders faced in their entire careers. Embrace the speed to change, be curious and open, focus on your resilience, and build resilient organizations.

Author's Conclusion

Maureen's focus is the future, which is where we are all headed on this bullet train called the marketplace. Change is exponential. Anticipate it, predict it where you can, embrace it, adapt to it, and lead us through it. These are my takeaways. What are yours?

Additional generations in the workplace cause a need to update how we navigate culture and people systems. -Maureen Metcalf

Up next: Jared Dearth