“LONELINESS IS THE PENALTY OF LEADERSHIP”
- ERNEST SHACKLETON
That’s why I’ve created Leader Salons. I want to offer a space, a place (post-COVID) and a respite for the leaders of small to mid-sized organizations to come together on a regular basis, to share their truths, to be heard without judgment, to contemplate what it means to lead, and to explore how to do “it” more effectively in a world that is changing by the nano-second. By joining a Leader Salon you are joining a community focused on asking and answering the questions of leadership, people of diverse backgrounds, industries and companies who share an interest in simply getting better at the craft of leading others.
Participation in a Leader Salon gets you regular access to my counsel and encouragement, my proven frameworks and tools, and the counsel and encouragement of others. My value lies in my experience and my study of the task of leadership over the last three decades. I have run ten companies and helped run scores of others and along the way I have come to understand the foundation truths of how to guide, motivate and develop high performing organizations. I will share those truths with you and the other chapter members through real-life stories backed up by data and behavioral science. Like leadership itself, my counsel is both a mix of art and science, and a healthy dose of humor along the way. Some of the questions and answers we will explore together include:
Why alignment is critical and how to realize it across your organization
The importance of planning and how to make it a bottom up and outside in proposition
The Five Performance Principles of any high performing organization
Balancing vulnerability with confidence, and how to build trust
The new workforce and how to keep them both engaged and committed
And many more…
Each Leader Salon chapter is local, as in its members all live in the same general vicinity, allowing in-person connections to occur with masks, and no masks post-COVID. We will start the Salon virtually and cut over to a mix of virtual and physical as soon as the pandemic is determined by the CDC and WHO to be over.
Like so many things, what you get out of a Leader Salon correlates with what you put into it. Assuming your active participation you will likely gain new insights on how to lead, manage and motivate others to rise to their full potential. You will gain new perspectives on who you are, and how who you are impacts everything you do, both the good and maybe the not so good. And you will make new friends, people who are in synch with your aspirations to become a better leader and are willing to support you every step of the way.
WHO SHOULD JOIN (AND WHO SHOULD NOT)
Leader Salons are for CEOs and Presidents of small to mid-sized organizations who have made becoming a better leader a priority in their work and life. Small means having no less than 20 employees and mid-sized means having no more than 500. Industry does not matter nor does your organization’s IRS status. There are no age, gender and ethnicity biases in place. In fact, the opposite. The more varied it is, the more effective each Salon will be. Come one, come all, just make sure you genuinely care about being a better leader and are willing to care for others in their quest to do the same.
The type of person who will thrive in a Leader Salon is likely to carry many if not all of the following Leadership Traits:
#1: Courageously Candid. You are willing and capable to share the truth about your leadership challenges, failures and weaknesses, and your specific desires to become a more effective leader. You are not afraid to be vulnerable.
#2: Open Minded. You are open to new ways of thinking, to new sources of connection and you are unafraid of letting go of the status quo. You see others and their ideas not as conflict but as collaboration and the ability to make your thinking stronger. You have a strong desire to learn, to create and to adopt new behaviors that will make you a stronger person. You are a voracious reader.
#3: Careful Listener. You understand that to listen well is often more important than to speak at all. That the clear and unbiased understanding of others is essential to our ability to guide them, develop them, and respond to them in ways that are mutually beneficial.
#4: Non-Judgmental and Accountable. You work hard to let go of your biases and preconceived notions while embracing people from all backgrounds equally. You apply objectivity and openness to all conversations, seeking to find the right path as defined not by you but by the collective. You do what you say you are going to do and hold others to the same standard.
#5: Passionate and Compassionate. You care mightily about becoming a high performing leader and a high performing organization while you show unwavering compassion and consideration for the people who work for you and the customers you work for.
If this list of traits resonates with you, because it is you or because it’s the kind of leader you want to become, a Leader Salon would do you good and you would do it good too.
How It Works
Leader Salons have two ways of working, the mechanistic and the humanistic. The mechanistic is as follows:
Each local Leader Salon chapter is limited to 16 people who live within a 30 mile radius of a city. Boston is our pilot because I live there. New York will likely be our second.
Membership is application based, even for referrals and friends.
Each chapter meets weekly for an hour and on the fourth week two hours, a total mechanistic meeting commitment of roughly five hours per month. The weekly meetings will be via ZOOM and post-COVID the end of month meeting will be in person at a location that is central to all members/public transit convenient. For now it will be ZOOM too.
Each meeting is led by me, with one topic/theme to explore together. I will share my thoughts for the first 15 to 20 minutes and then we will open it up for discussion. Members are encouraged to bring questions, issues, challenges to share with each other. There may be reading in between sessions but nothing too daunting.
Each member will also get an individual hour session with me each month to help address any specific questions or challenges you are facing.
The humanistic way that Leader Salon works is that in addition to the above, the chapter becomes self-sustaining, self-guiding and self-motivating as members reach out to one another directly and come to realize that you can really help each other in your respective journeys. Over time the importance of the mechanism is replaced by the importance of our humanism and the realization that we really are all in this together.
MEMBERSHIP IS CONTINGENT ON PARTICIPATION: to remain a member in good standing you must attend no less than two meetings per month and have at least one individual session with me every three months.
Your Investment
Membership in a Leader Salon requires a real commitment of time and money, and that’s by design. As noted, the chapters will only be helpful to you and others if you and others are committed to the chapter. And the best way to convey that commitment is in time and money. You should assume that the total time commitment each month will range from a minimum of six hours (the meetings plus our 1:1 session) to a maximum of who knows, depending on how proactively you engage with your fellow chapter members. As noted above, to remain a member in good standing you must attend no less than two meetings per month and have at least one individual session with me every three months.
The monthly cost to belong to a Leader Salon is $250, paid on or before the first of the membership month. All payments will be via ACH. Should at some point you need to cancel your membership you simply need to notify us before the first of the next month. If at any point you are not happy with the value you are getting from the Salon experience we will refund your last month’s payment.
Apply
Membership in a Leader Salon is application based to ensure that people are genuinely committed to their leadership journey and wanting to help others in theirs. Please review the above Leadership Traits to assess your own qualifications and readiness for this experience. All applications will be reviewed and responded to within five days. Initially qualified candidates will be required to have a Zoom interview with me prior to their acceptance into a chapter. Should your local chapter be full there may be either a waiting list or a time lag as a new chapter is being formed. Thank you for your interest in being a better leader.
THE LEADER SALON APPLICATION
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