Episode 328 – Guest: Stephen M. R. Covey
Guest: Stephen M. R. Covey

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Kelly connects with leadership expert Stephen M.R. Covey to talk about his new book “Trust & Inspire: How Truly Great Leaders Unleash Greatness in Others.”

‍Why do you choose trust and inspire as your credo for a good leadership model today?

“You can’t command and control your way to collaboration and innovation, so we need a new way to lead in a new world and I’m calling it – in juxtaposition to command and control – trust and inspire. Inspiration is very aspirational, it’s what we all want to be: trusted to be inspired. And the value is that we’re trusting, not just trustworthy but trusting. In our approach to leadership, that brings out the best in people.” 

And what COVID brought us, unexpectedly, was a whole new reality about the nature of work.
“You know, work from home, work from anywhere, hybrid remote combinations and the nature of the workforce is changing, with so much diversity, more than ever before. And the nature of choice has changed. We’ve gone from multiple choice to infinite choice and all these forces of change have kind of put a demand to say, ‘Look. The way that we’ve led that might have worked in the past, just will not work today.'”

Interestingly, you also note that leadership isn’t about charisma.

“People think you must be charismatic to be inspiring and I’m saying no. Separate charisma and inspiration. Inspiring others is a learned skill, everyone can inspire because you inspire when you connect with people through caring and belonging. And when you connect people to purpose and meaning, that’s the new world of work. We need a new way to lead.”

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