Let's Talk Core Leadership Skills

A Lessons in Leadership webinar series examining different leadership skills and their application in today’s workplace.

The workplace is not only changing, but changing at unprecedented speed.

Employees from a range of backgrounds across multiple generations are working flexible schedules from remote locations across the globe. New technologies are emerging everyday, uprooting workplace operations and processes.

How are you managing these changes?

Succeeding in this environment can be challenging, even for the most seasoned leaders.

Join us for Lessons in Leadership, a monthly webinar series, led by Professor Ed Barrows, that encourages you to stop and reflect upon your current leadership skills as well as the skills you’ll need to be successful in the future. From strategic thinking and communication to problem solving and executive presence, you will explore a set of valuable skills and tools that managers can use to effectively lead through this dynamic environment and achieve the goals set forth.

Webinar Topics

Are you able to clearly articulate where your organization is going in the next three to five years? What are the priorities? How are you going to get there? We all know thinking about the future is important. But all too often, we get caught up in our day-to-day work and we don’t allocate the time needed to think about what lies ahead.

During this 1-hour webinar, we’ll help you uncover practical approaches to strategic thinking. This isn’t just about thinking—it’s about strategically changing what you do in your job to have a better sense of your organizations—and your own—point of view on the future.

You’ll learn how to:

  • Explain what your company does and where it’s going in concise, layperson’s language
  • Ask incisive questions about potential threats and opportunities and discuss them
  • Make specific recommendations about how to do something differently 
  • Prioritize your activities to maximize your impact on reaching current goals

Watch Recording

Between work and homelife, we make thousands of decisions every day. With that volume, we can’t possibly give equal attention to every decision, so we prioritize. 

But are we prioritizing the right things?

Many times, we don't take the time to stop and ask ourselves if something is really a problem that needs to be solved at this time. 

During this 1-hour webinar, we’ll introduce you to an effective process for problem solving. 

You’ll learn:

  • New and novel ways to solve problems teams face
  • Ways to apply critical thinking to poorly defined issues
  • A structured approach to increase the odds of reaching a favorable solution
  • Tools to strengthen how colleagues address and solve their challenges

Watch Recording

As a leader, how are you showing up to work? Does the way you present yourself impact the way your team and colleagues perceive you? Particularly over the last decade, executive leaders have evolved and diversified, and hence executive presence has also been transformed. Today’s leaders look and act differently than how they did even a few years ago.

During this 1-hour webinar, we’ll explore executive presence and the factors that shape how you are perceived in the office. 

You’ll learn how to:

  • Shape a personal appearance and style to both fit in and stand out at work
  • Gain awareness of the behaviors that diminish your personal image
  • Start projecting greater confidence when interacting with your colleagues 
  • Make a plan that continues to enhance your personal brand

Watch Recording

Communication is an essential skill–one that many leaders don’t do well.  That’s in part because we need to keep a lot in mind whenever we’re communicating, challenging us to keep our messaging clear while we keep our audience’s needs in mind. During this 1-hour webinar, we’ll explore clear messaging, improving how you structure and send written and verbal communication for maximum impact.

By the end of the session you’ll:

  • Gain an awareness of how effective your current communication is
  • Learn how to evaluate and incorporate the needs and difference of your audiences
  • Understand how to simplify and structure your communication for maximum impact
  • Craft robust messages that reach and resonate with your intended audience

Watch recording

Leadership Insights

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The ABC’s of executive presence

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Four steps to improved problem solving

Professor of the Practice in Leadership Ed Barrows discusses a four-step plan designed for leaders to address and solve complex organizational problems.
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Frank Doyle: Leadership lessons from the pitch

As an engineer, professor, researcher, and provost, Frank Doyle had many opportunities throughout his career to hone his leadership skills. But it wasn’t in the classroom or the lab where Doyle gleaned some of his most critical lessons in leadership — it was on the soccer field as a referee over the last 20 years.
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Four steps to thinking more strategically

Brown University Professor of the Practice in Leadership walks us through four key steps to elevate your skills as a leader through the use of strategic thinking.
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