Life As Leadership

The Paramount Schools are a three-school network with over 900 students in Indianapolis. These schools exist to inspire learning through an unparalleled academic approach and to transform communities by changing lives. Today we’re talking about the different that leadership can make in an educational context.

Josh, Cody, and Molly talk about Monday's interview with the leadership team from the Paramount Schools. Their discussion includes their own interview experiences (whether they focused on character like Paramount does or competence like others popularly do), traits to look for when developing your own team, what it takes to be coachable, and how to develop people without overwhelming them. They also discuss the relationship between charisma and substance. Substance is something the Paramount leadership team preferred significantly over charisma.

The Paramount Schools are a three-school network with over 900 students in Indianapolis. These schools exist to inspire learning through an unparalleled academic approach and to transform communities by changing lives. Today we’re talking about the different that leadership can make in an educational context.

Josh, Jonathan, and Maria talk about Monday’s interview with Larry Brown, who is a recently retired partner from PricewaterhouseCoopers. Their conversation includes how to handle yourself when you are used to being one of the best at what you do but find yourself around a bunch of other people who are just as excellent. They also discuss how to direct and advise people to areas that fit them better, how to develop yourself as a leader, and what they might add to Larry Brown’s list of four “first order principles” of leadership.

Larry Brown is a recently retired PricewaterhouseCoopers partner. During his 38 year career at PwC, Larry provided financial planning and tax compliance services to high net worth individuals.  He led the Personal Financial Services practice in the Pittsburgh and Chicago offices.  His final nine years were internal to the firm serving the partners and staff as the National Benefits leader. In addition to his professional career, Larry has been active as a leader of nonprofit boards in Pittsburgh, Chicago and his alma mater. Larry is a CPA with a BA from Asbury University and an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh.

Josh, Elijah, and Thomas talk about Monday’s interview with Peter Kerr. Their discussion includes the importance of delegation and what good delegation takes, Kerr’s definition of humility, and the difficulties of humility and open communication between a leader and followers. They also discuss how leaders can create a culture of celebration and the tension between being an effective communicator and being authentic.

Download a year’s worth of https://www.leadershipactionlist.com/ (weekly action steps to improve your leadership) for FREE! Peter Kerr started his own leadership consulting company that provides world-class training for media engagement, public relations, crisis planning, public speaking and leadership improvement. He has worked with nearly every large national and international media outlet and was responsible for media relations in Washington D.C. during the 2004 Ronald Reagan state funeral and served as the Chief Media Liaison Officer for all Outdoor Games in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. He led the media training team at the Pentagon for two years and has media trained hundreds of leaders including White House officials, politicians, military generals, CEOs, communications directors, and non-profit leaders. He has traveled to more than 50 countries on six continents and speaks multiple languages.

Josh, Elijah, and Thomas talk about Monday’s interview with Dr. Peter Kerr. Their discussion includes how leaders should balance a public presence while still being able to focus on their leadership where it matters most, the value of thinking of organizations as a collections of silos that leaders must exist beyond, and the importance of equipping yourself with new “tools” for leadership. They also discuss their strengths when it comes to “the ABCs of Communication” and some of the keys for networking effectively.

Peter Kerr started his own leadership consulting company that provides world-class training for media engagement, public relations, crisis planning, public speaking and leadership improvement. He has worked with nearly every large national and international media outlet and was responsible for media relations in Washington D.C. during the 2004 Ronald Reagan state funeral and served as the Chief Media Liaison Officer for all Outdoor Games in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. He led the media training team at the Pentagon for two years and has media trained hundreds of leaders including White House officials, politicians, military generals, CEOs, communications directors, and non-profit leaders. He has traveled to more than 50 countries on six continents and speaks multiple languages.

Josh, Mark, and Molly discuss Monday's interview with Abe Parker. Their discussion includes why they love the things that they lead, how to handle those time when what we love becomes difficult or uninteresting, how to use collaboration effectively and keeping it from hurting us. They also discuss those moments in life that are obviously life-changing in the moment (as opposed to retrospectively) and what to do when you get the chance to spend time with people at the "next level" of life.

Abe Parker is an Atlanta-based musician who is already headlining and selling out his own stages but has also shared the stage with the likes of Andy Grammer, JohnnySwim, Ben Rector, and David Crowder. Recently he has also collaborated with Lecrae and Trip Lee. He shares today about the power of music and the value of leading from the stage.

Josh, Jake, and Michelle talk about Monday’s interview with Nancy Sleeth of Blessed Earth. Their discussion includes how to lead when you have not yet gotten to where you are trying to lead your followers to, how to find ways to evaluate yourself as a leader, and how to lead people in contexts where they might not yet be prepared to go. They also talk about the values in life that make up a valuable life.

Nancy Sleeth is the managing director at Blessed Earth, a nonprofit focused on inspiring stewardship of all creation. After a spiritual and environmental conversion experience, Nancy and her family radically altered their footprint, reducing their electricity use to one-tenth and their fossil fuel use to one-third the national averages. Along with her husband, Matthew, Nancy now travels throughout the U.S. speaking and writing about faith and the environment. She is the author of "Go Green, Save Green: A Simple Guide to Saving Time, Money, and God's Green Earth" and "Almost Amish: One Woman's Quest for a Slower, Simpler, More Sustainable Life."

Josh, Ali, and Cody talk about Monday's interview with Emily Flippen from the Motley Fool. The discussion includes the importance of showing up, the value and cost of taking risks, how to be open to when things go wrong, and goal-setting. They also discuss the balance between procrastination, lack of knowledge, and fear of failure and more.

Emily Flippen is a young professional who works for an investing advisory company called the Motley Fool. She went to school in Shanghai, China, where she was part of the inaugural class at NYU Shanghai. While in school, she quickly learned that ethics and finance don’t always go hand in hand. In search of a career that would let her analyze equities without compromising her desire for transparency, she found an internship at the Motley Fool and never looked back. These days, Emily lends a hand on the Stock Advisor and Rule Breaker teams, using her international experiences to push investors to consider and invest in high-growth international powerhouse companies.

Josh, Caleb, and Maria talk about Monday's interview with Cherie Lowe, "The Queen of Free." Their discussion includes how certain moments in life act as catalysts for long-lasting and life-defining change, what goes into making those catalytic changes, and how to face the difficulties in life that you may not want to face. They also discuss how to model actions as leaders (particularly celebrations) and, in a roundabout way, how leaders can help round each other out with their unique strengths, and more. Key Takeaways: - Make hard but necessary decisions sooner rather than later. - Embrace the reality of criticism. Let it make you better. Take what's valuable, leave what's not. But don't let it kill your identity. - Find your pace and rhythm in life. - Take people's critique with a grain of salt. Value feedback from people who value you more than those who don't know you. - Have two types of people in your life: someone you look up to and someone you can encourage on their journey. - Change that thing in your

Cherie Lowe is the Queen of Free. While Cherie and her husband Brian were paying off over $127k of debt over a four-year period, she began to blog about her experiences. Today, she continues her blog, Queen of Free, where she shares about how to get things for free, how to develop strategies for every day saving, and inspiration for those pursuing a debt-free life. She has written two book: First, Slaying the Debt Dragon, which focuses on their journey out of debt. Her second book, written with her husband, is called, “Your Money Your Marriage: The Secrets to Smart Finance, Spicy Romance, and their Intimate Connection.” Cherie has appeared on the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo Finance, NBC News, MarketWatch, and more.

Josh, Hannah, and Parker discuss Monday’s episode with Eric Maddox and his method of empathy-based listening that led to the capture of Saddam Hussein. Their conversation includes how to follow the direction that the person you’re talking is leading without letting them take the conversation in strange or unhelpful directions. They also discuss how to listen with empathy when you don’t have time and how to balance transactional vs. empathetic listening.

Eric Maddox is the Army interrogator who, while attached to a Delta Force team in Iraq, collected the intelligence which led to the capture of Saddam Hussein. He subsequently became the first civilian interrogator for the Defense Intelligence Agency and went on to conduct over 2700 interrogations. Eric has repeatedly been able to influence those who have zero trust in him, to make the decision to give him information, even more than he asked, without using torture. Eric honed his systematic methods of creating influence in hostile environments but has found they are equally as useful in building or retaining relationships of all sorts. If you would like to hear more from Eric, check out his own podcast called Creating Influence.

Josh, Bevelynne, and Elijah discuss Monday's interview with Pat Flynn. Their discussion includes how to incorporate your own personality and quirkiness in your leadership, how to build "superfans" (or their nearest equivalent) as leaders, how to balance your "public" and "private" life, and how to create memorable moments for your followers.