World Leaders Conference

I just attended the World Leaders Conference in Palm Beach this week and I can fully recommend the conference to any aspiring leader.

The main focus of the conference is Servant Leadership, which is an approach to leadership that I fully practise, support and endorse.

What I loved most about the conference was the accessibility to some of the leading experts in leadership. I managed to have a good conversation with Ken Blanchard, who for me is the number one leadership expert, so to be able to spend time with him and have a conversation was outstanding.

Ken was also one of a keynote speaker, and his words of wisdom were very powerful. There was a very strong line up of speakers, each of whom gave a different take and great insights into servant leadership.

The conference takes place every March and next year it will be 2-3 March and if you can attend I would strongly recommended it.

We also had a very special guest appearance from the legendary Jack Welch, the most successful CEO of the last century.

My favourite speaker was actually Drew Brees the Quarterback of the New Orleans Saints, who had 4 principles of leadership, which he practises, and which I thought were very simple and very powerful and which I wanted to share with you.

These are Integrity, Caring, Accountability, What’s the next goal.

Integrity is about making commitments and meeting commitments, walking your talk. When you have integrity people know that they can trust you to do what you say you will do.

Caring when we show people we care about them, both personally and professionally it increases the bond and connection. He wants his team mates to know that he cares about them, and that he has their back in times of trouble, that they can count on him.

Accountability as a leader if we want the credit for success, then we should always be willing to take the blame for failure too, We should be the first to put our hands up and say my bad, my fault. Protecting our teams and taking the hit when things don’t go as planned.

Whats the next goal as leaders whilst we should have the big picture in mind, we also need to keep our teams focused on the next goal, and making sure we hit that. Taking a one game at a time approach, making sure we win each game, we make each step, because big successes are just a culmination of little successes.

I liked the simplicity of Drew’s message and it’s definitely one that I support and I wanted to share that with you.

As I say, the next conference is in March next year and I encourage you to attend it. For my part I will be attending too, but hopefully this will be as a speaker rather than just as a guest.