Interview Conducted by Brenda Chaddock and Carollyne Conlinn
Brenda Chaddock: Welcome everyone to Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Leadership. My name is Brenda Chaddock. I, along with my business partner Carollyne Conlinn have a company called Limitless Leadership which is what we believe about leadership, that our possibilities are absolutely limitless in every possible way.
Carollyne and I are hosting conversations with people who are leading in amazing ways in the world. Some of these will be familiar to you and some may even surprise you. Today we have some very special guests, Dr. Lee Smith and Dr. Jeanine Sandstrom, who are the authors of a leadership model that we will speak to you about in a few minutes,
How do we proceed from here? Before introducing Carollyne and our guests I’d like to mention that we’ve chosen a leadership model called Legacy Leadership which Carollyne and I love and use essentially in all our work and essentially all the places of our lives I would feel comfortable saying. You’ll hear much more about the model through this show from Dr. Smith and Dr. Sandstrom in a few minutes as we introduce them.
Who can lead? We all can. A few days ago, my 27 year old son said to me, “Mom, leadership is a life choice.” The very statement blew me away as I don’t think I probably would have said that at his age or even a decade later. How can we put all our leadership brilliance into practice sooner rather than later? That’s my favorite question. I would now like to introduce and welcome my business partner and great friend Carollyne Conlinn to share a little of her vision for our time together. Carollyne?
Carollyne Conlinn: Thanks Brenda. Well I love how you’ve just covered the landscape for us and given us the general scope of the shows that we’ll be doing, the guests we’ll be having. Our vision for the show is really to showcase the depth and scope of the Legacy Leadership Model that we both hold in high regard. As well we want to introduce our listeners to the many exceptional ways that leadership is expressed in the world. You referred to some of the environments where leadership is certainly applicable.
We have gathered together so many people that we admire and respect that we are showcasing on these shows. We’re delighted to introduce our listeners to these guests. Thirdly, because this is how we like to engage with others we want to create meaningful conversations with these leaders in ways that will inspire you to grow yourself as a leader both in your life and in your world. I think those are for me the highlights, Brenda, of what our vision is for this show.
Brenda: Thanks Carollyne. Why don’t we just take a couple of minutes? Because this is the first show people are probably wondering, “Well who are these people and who chose them to host a leadership conversation with us?” We thought we might take just a couple of minutes to introduce ourselves as we have gathered our relationship together over the past several years. Let’s begin with Carollyne. Would you like to tell the little story of how we met and how it brought it to Legacy Leadership?
Carollyne: Sure Brenda. Love to. Brenda and I met basically on a cruise ship that never left the dock. We both thought we would love to be delivering leadership training at sea in the Seminars at Sea business. So, we arrived not knowing each other and ended up at a table together. I guess we could say the rest was history because when we began to share our ideas about leadership it was no time at all before I was sharing with Brenda the Legacy Leadership Model that I had just been introduced to by our guests today, Dr. Jeannine Sandstrom and Dr. Lee Smith.
When I was in the room with them on their first training which was right after 9/11 in the U.S. so that we knew everyone who was in that room was there because they were committed to growing their own leadership and learning more about this fabulous model that our authors had been working on for many years prior to that I just knew that I was needing something, a model, a framework, a way of thinking about leadership that would serve me and my clients forever. As I began to share this with Brenda we just looked at each other and said, “Why are we looking any further?” That’s when it happened. On the cruise ship. We’re still waiting for that cruise ship event. I’m sure it’ll happen one of these days Brenda.
Brenda: Haven’t gotten to the cruise yet. This is a wonderful time because maybe Lee and Jeannine have an idea of being on a cruise, too. We can all go together. Thank you Carollyne. I’d like to take this opportunity to really say how delighted we are to have the masters, the authors, the designers of this model, Dr. Lee Smith, Dr. Jeannine Sandstrom. Can you take a couple of minutes to introduce yourselves to us, Lee and Jeannine?
Jeannine Sandstrom: Thanks Brenda. We have some similar stories to the way that you and Carollyne shared meeting. We didn’t plan to meet. We weren’t intentionally looking for a business partner. We certainly weren’t looking to take on the challenge of building out a leadership model that has global implications now. We were just doing our thing. Both of us were in the North Dallas, Texas area and had very successful leadership development, executive coaching practices. We were having – in fact in the early ‘90s we shared the same coach and it was our coach that kept having a hunch that said, “You two need to meet. You two need to meet.” Well in North Dallas there is a mister Dr. Lee Smith. All of the time, I assumed this individual I was supposed to meet was a man.
Somewhere in the – oh I think it was about ’94 both Lee and I were attending a post-masters convention in Dallas/Ft. Worth and ended up in a break out session together and some nice looking lady stood up in front of me, introduced herself as Dr. Lee Smith and said she was an executive coach and you could have heard my jaw hit the floor. I got to laughing right in the middle of the session and almost disrupted the session. Of course, it’s so annoying. “What’s this crazy red-head woman doing sitting here laughing?” At the end of the session I tapped Lee on the shoulder and said, “So who’s your coach?” When we recognized that it was the same coach as you guys said the rest was history.
Brenda: Lee. Thank you, Jeannine. Lee?
Lee Smith: Yes. Well as Jeannine and I started working together and formed Coach Works, we compared how we work and we compared the types of questions we ask and our approaches to things and we decided that forming Coach Works would be very good for both of us and that we could work together on things. As we went along, we decided that we needed a leadership model. Let me tell you why. We were often asked to come in and work with one – with a leader on one particular strength area or weakness area or one particular dimension and just working in one area didn’t fit with our model, one of the main things that we focus on which is a systems approach. So, we knew that that just wasn’t serving the client or us as well because we were uncomfortable leaving lots of things undone although one area might have been strengthened.
We started looking for a model. As Jeannine earlier said, we weren’t looking to develop one, but we couldn’t find one that really worked. We had bits and pieces. We had techniques. We looked and searched for a long time until we finally put our own together and to meet our needs and one was that systems focus. Another focus was really to match our own values and principles which is to focus on others rather than ourselves and being that servant leader.
Then we found that. We said: “Well what does this yield,” and we realized that what we were putting together was the legacy piece, that living a legacy versus leaving one, that having systems rather than just techniques, that focusing on others rather than self was leaving a legacy but it was also living it with every day. So we liked that we can have a three generational impact on individuals as leaders that we work with and over a period of time we tested and stepped back and researched and watched how leaders responded to this wonderful model that we ultimately came – came together for us.
Then we also addressed the “being” part of the leader. We’re really into as much being or who we be we’ve often said as much as what we do because we know that in the being part of us comes the attitude and that speaks for success and confidence more than anything else. We also came up with a mission in all of this which I hope will resonate with all leaders. Our mission is to have at least one legacy leader in every organization worldwide. We just need one in each organization who can pass it along to someone else who will pass it along and then along again in a three generational thumbprint.
Jeannine: Well Brenda, what this did for us and what Lee was describing here and for a second time in our Coach Works history we were in essence reluctant leaders which also fit who we both had been. Never have we stepped up saying, “Look here what I can do. Let us lead the band.” But we seem to find gaps in something needed by clients or colleagues, organizations, individuals and we step into that gap to serve and build out what was needed. That’s again, what took us down the pathway of building out the Legacy Leadership Model.
Brenda: Wonderful. My, thank you both for an incredible synthesis. Of course, if anybody could synthesize a phenomenal work it’s the person who wrote it. We’re coming to an opportunity now for you to hear some commercial space and a break from our voices. I want to say thank you to Lee and Jeannine for bringing us the introduction to how are we in a values focused system of leadership that focuses on others rather than ourselves in an intergenerational, multigenerational impact.
I’ve often heard Jeannine say that what attracted her most to Legacy Leadership and bringing it into the world is that she is an only child with no children and this is her legacy.
Carollyne: As I was listening to Lee and Jeannine introduce themselves, I was reminded of what attracted me to this model from the beginning. In actual fact, it was one page that they shared with us at the very first training and that page represented to me the kind of research they had done in order to develop this model. The page did two things. It compared the contents of this model with the key – some of the key popular leadership models out there in the world to show how comprehensive this model is on the one hand and on the other hand to demonstrate how inclusive it is because every single one of those leadership models that are out there in the world have a home within this broader and powerful framework.
I am delighted that right now we’re going to take time to dig a little more deeply into each of the five best practices. We’ll begin with the first one and the name of that best practice is Holder of Vision and Values. It’s about direction and commitment. We would love to hear now from Dr. Lee Smith a little more about that. What does that best practice really mean?Lee: Great. Thank you Carollyne. The first word of the titles in all of the best practices are about “being.” For best practice one you’ll see Holder and that is the “being: part that I was mentioning earlier. Most people understand immediately what the vision and values means, but it takes the being part, the holder, to make vision and values come alive. Otherwise the vision that the leader has spent days creating may be sitting on the shelf in a binder and never see the light of day again. I know that some of you have had some of those.
The Holder of both Vision and Values means that you live the vision and values every day and measure everything with that in mind, measure everything that you do against them. I remember one company I was doing a first offsite with and I asked them if they had fully developed their vision and their guiding principles that we also call values set. I went around the room. They had many yeses. Said, “Yes. Oh yes. We’ve done that.”
So I asked, “Well what is your vision and what are your values,” thinking someone could easily recite them if they had them and knew them and there was suddenly a blank look around the room. I, being a coach as I am, I had to ask another question. So, I asked, “So did anyone bring a copy of them today,” thinking that maybe they did have a binder on a shelf somewhere [laughs].
One of the leaders piped up to say, “Yes. I think we made little cards to carry with us that fits in our wallet.” He pulled his back pocket to get his wallet out and pulled out the card. I said, “So it sounds like you’ve been sort of sitting on your vision and values in your pocket rather than holding them out for everyone to see and to follow.”
[Laughter] We all had a really good laugh together about that, but it made the point and they never forgot that. Best practice one is about holding out for all to see and to know and to keep alive the vision and values. That means living them every day and measuring everything that you do against. Do you have any other thoughts about –
Brenda: Wonderful. Thank you, Lee. What a beautiful story to illustrate that, holding rather than sitting on the best practice.
Lee: Yes.
Brenda: It really sets the foundation for all of the other best practices. The second one we want to hear about is that the way it’s named is Creator of Collaboration and Innovation. Jeannine, I’d love to hear more about what that means for you.
Jeannine: Well even when I hear your saying it Carollyne the first thing that just comes to mind is global competition now for any organization, any leader requires constant innovation. Having the vision that Lee just spoke about is for me kind of sets the launching pad. Not all the time does it provide the urgency for consistently reaching towards the stars. For me, this particular practice helps do that. It provides for that sense of excitement and urgency. The reason, sometimes if folks come up and come to work is to want this kind of environment in which to contribute.
It reminds me of several years ago we were working with a high-tech service company that demonstrated this particular best practice very, very well. Their president as was culturally expected led by command and control. He would scream. He would call names. He would point fingers, do everything that’s typical of ultimate command and control leadership.
All of the visions were expected to take their goals, their sales goals and their service goals higher and higher every single quarter. They had to reach higher hills and this was just the way that he would try to motivate them to climb the hill and take the hill. However, it wasn’t working consistently. Yes, he would get the results he wanted in the short term but for the long, sustainable group it just – the group president, the division leaders actually were being changed out almost consistently as if folks gave their heart and soul and burned out.
When this president was introduced to Legacy Leadership, he required that all of his executives, all 21 of his direct reports actually learn the model and the methodology. One of the things he focused on here was this best practice two. He actually required then that as his direct for themselves begin learning a different set of leadership competencies and way of being in the world, that they actually create in their division a cross-functional collaboration with other areas. What began to happen is that they had two things significantly different. The siloed functions began to realize that they really didn’t have a common vision. They didn’t have that common direction and no one including the president had been holding that.
In stepping back here he became a creator of not only the expectation but the day to day cultural expectation that collaboration across function is going to add to more innovation. He was showing up differently in the meetings requiring or requesting them to. It felt very strange at first for these execs. Obviously, when you’re comfortable in a command and control military type environment what the president was asking was something completely out of ordinary for them.
But within a couple of fiscal quarters what their sales, their customers and their internal clients began to tell them, leaders, those execs that were comfortable in staying really made a major and we’re hoping lasting impact on the culture of that organization. It took one person, that president to say, “What I’ve been doing I’m willing to say isn’t working and I’m going to commit myself then to creating an environment where not only is collaboration ideal it’s required and let’s see how that impacts our innovation on sales and service.” Really quite phenomenal to see.
Brenda: I was just visualizing that organization because so many organizations operate in the command and control environment and in our coaching practice as well when we see the shift that occurs I mean night and day hardly describes it. Thank you for that Jeannine.
Jeannine: This works so effectively.
Brenda: I also heard you say – what I didn’t hear you say was that the leader himself wasn’t necessarily the innovator. What he did was create the environment where others could, first of all, collaborate in order to then innovate and create results that were spectacular for that company.
Jeannine: That’s actually really so. He frankly got out of their way. He quit browbeating them and created an environment where their natural gifts and strengths were able to come forth. It didn’t change the matrix or the quotas at all.
Brenda: Exactly.
Jeannine: It was a completely different way of moving toward them.
Brenda: I’m thinking we could just listen to this story for the rest of the show but I’d love to move on and make sure that our listeners hear about every one of our best practices in this show. So, if we may let’s move on to best practice three. Again, the way this best practice is named is Influencer of Inspiration and Leadership. It’s about connecting with individuals and the heart of relationships. Lee we’d love to hear from you what this means to you.
Lee: Yes. Thanks. Well as I think about this best practice, I am reminded of a childhood game called follow the leader. Did any of you ever play that game where you’d line up behind the child in front and then you have to mimic every single behavior that that person does and how fun it is. If they fall down you’ve got to fall down. If they get up – if they do somersaults you’ve got to do everything.
That’s what I think of many times when I’m explaining this practice because one thing that we know for sure is that you can’t not influence. I want you to remember that so I’m going to say it again. You can’t not influence. I know that’s bad language and vocabulary but makes the point. You might as well – if you’re going to influence anyway you might as well do it very well and for the betterment of people in organizations.
We call this practice the heart of the model because it’s how you connect and model for others so that they – because they will follow. Although no on practice is more important than the other this one focuses you on the real intent which is to model a type of leadership that gets passed onto others. We pass it onto others beyond them forming that legacy that we’ve talked about, a living legacy. It came alive, too in a small, non-profit recently I was working with on an offsite. A group of managers who were really realizing that they were shifting from management to leadership– all of a sudden, they were having a lot of growth in the county and with their organization by leaps and bounds.
As we discuss this particular practice, I explain that when you’re a leader everyone watches every move you make, every word you say and never misses seeing a single mood change or body language. So as this idea began to sink in these six leaders began to realize that their attitudes could make the difference in the whole organization. So how they present themselves every day influences the environment. I kept reminding them that the people, the followers are watching.
It’s so interesting. By the end of the day we not only had buy in of the model by every member of the team but they began using the language of Legacy Leadership which then brought them to a unified voice and out of their silos. It was absolutely amazing to watch.
Jeannine: Lee and I were travelling on a train in England when we started scoping out some of the challenges here that our clients had been talking about and we did. We did start on the back of a napkin on a train looking at the countryside saying, “If we were to build a model that really encompassed all of the challenges what would that look like?” This best practice four, this Advocator of Differences in Community is probably the one best practice that we intentionally designed in some tension. There’s a strategic type of tension that’s built into this.
If you have in many organizations now teams that are required to be diverse – diversity is mandated. Clients kept telling us that even though they had these teams built out that way that everything that was supposed to be was on this team or in the organization some of the individuals in the team performances still didn’t always deliver the results leaders knew they could and that they were really aware of. The dynamic tension that we built into this model is how do you find folks that are extremely unique in every way and at the same time cast a vision that is so compelling that they work in community, that they’re advocating for the whole of their differences.
There’s a large known corporation. It’s actually space exploration organization that had a specific challenge in this group. The director inherited a fantastic group of human beings but as she looked around the room they really didn’t have the breadth and depth of the experience that was needed to take care of all of the safety issues that were required in their organization because they were accountable for the safety of the people, the processes and the product. But what had happened in meeting the mandated requirement is they had – she had folks who weren’t passionate about the work.
So over a period of two years she truly invited into the organization, reformatted the team people who were diverse in their backgrounds, in their styles, in their way of thinking, in their life experiences, in their ages. She went for as much uniqueness in pulling the new team together as possible of course still keeping the highly technical skill sets that everyone had to have. So over a two to a three year period this particular team went from being like the outback, ignored organization where you don’t want to go for tour of duty to the frontline leader that’s now a model for all the other sites in saying, “How do you really advocate for uniqueness and similarity or common mission?” It is phenomenal the kind of safety record now that their clients are giving them credit for helping them craft.
Brenda: Thank you Jeannine. I must confess we all have our little biases and our favorites and in the Legacy Leadership Model my favorite is – my favorites are best practices two and four. They are the ones that attracted me. I love to innovate collaboratively, and I love the idea that we all have a voice that maybe hasn’t been heard much.
Jeannine: Yes.
Brenda: When I hear you speak Jeannine about allowing people’s passion and unique features to come forward, I once heard it expressed that the single trait that we all share in the world, every person on the planet is the desire to be heard. Not necessarily agreed with, to be heard and seen. This best practice is the embodiment of, “Aren’t you terrific? Look at this strength and skill that you may have that no one else in this organization may ever have known.” Then I just want to say a word before we go to best practice five about the whole idea of advocacy which can be advocating absolutely for the uniquenesses so that we’re not all being the same or trying to be –
Jeannine: Exactly.
Brenda: – and also sometimes the opportunity for us as leaders to advocate for people who may feel at the time and the moment that they don’t have a voice. Such an opportunity for us. Anything more you’d like to say about that before we move into best practice five?
Jeannine: Well I’ll admit too that it’s one of my favorites, one of my two because as a child I certainly was one who was told to keep quiet.
Brenda: You didn’t do that well.
Jeannine: I’m not surprised we’re both saying that. [Laughter] I want to make sure there is room for others to have their voices heard, not only invited but required for their fullness.
Brenda: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. For us to show up just as we are not as our parents said, “Speak when you’re spoken to,” and all that stuff that really doesn’t work in the world. Thank you. Lee, please wrap us up with best practice five around the picture of this model and then we’ll pull it all together.
Lee: Yes. Well this one we didn’t save the best for last but without this one, just like the others it’s all very, very important. So best practice five is an equal anchor to best practice one, the Holder of Vision and Values. I often think about this one in terms of you may have heard that old saying, “A watched pot never boils.” Well there’s a flip side of that which is that if – that a pot could boil over if not watched and then you’d really have trouble.”
There’s a flip side of that. I mention that because that’s where a calibrator really comes into play. As you know execution and results must happen for the vision to be reached and values lived by. If there’s no one minding the pot or in this case calibrating production and results, then desired outcomes may not be reached. This is one of the practices that gets missed in the grander scheme of things. We want you to know that it has equal weight.
One of the companies that we used this model with early on in our work was a startup company with four founding members. Our assessments showed that three of them were all about visioning and innovation. Another was strong at influencing internally and in the community, in the market but none of them were strong in accountability and getting the product out the door. They could get sales, but they couldn’t get delivery to the customer. They were in a quandary and the reason that we were brought in.
So during our work together they added the right people and skills and realized that this accountability factor had been missed ever since they had started and that that was a big missing in the total of their leadership. As they worked along and they began to experience results, getting the product out the door. The accountabilities are so important that we stress them over and over again. Watching the pot means calibrating responsibility and accountabilities and constantly doing this in order to reach desired results.
When you put all five of these together you have a very comprehensive and complete model. Once learned, it’s easy to practice and becomes simple to orchestrate in our lives. I know Jeannine and I use it for everything that we do. We believe that in using it we’ve found that it’s simple. Most people can remember five major things. One that is elegant and sophisticated in reality.
Brenda: Simple, elegant and sophisticated. Thank you, Lee. As I heard you speak at the beginning of the introduction of this best practice, Lee, about it perhaps not being the best till last or whatever I do recall that this best practice was one of the things that attracted you and Jeannine to building this model because it was the piece that seemed to be missing in many leadership practice approaches.
Lee: Absolutely.
Jeannine: Yes. That’s right. We find it more and more every day. It is the most missed area I believe in leadership.
Lee: Brenda, there’s a lot of matrices and a lot of measurements, but that’s not pulled together with someone truly accountable for calibrating all of that and keeping it as a whole focus. It’s still bits and pieces that it often is missed as a real skill set in an organization.
Brenda: Exactly. Thank you. What it also reminds me of is Lee and Jeannine often refer to best practice one which is setting the direction for the organization, the community, the project, whatever you’re doing and best practice five which is calibrating who’s doing what and how do we know. They call them the bookends. We have come to call them the bookends. What it reminds me of is how important it is to be what we think of the thermostat first – so we’re setting the temperature – and then being a thermometer that checks in every once in awhile to ensure that we’re going in the direction we want to.
Another favorite piece for me in Legacy Leadership is the idea that I never have to throw anything out. I’m the biggest pack rat personally, professionally and in every way in my mind and my house. I love the idea that I can be a fan of Stephen Covey and Ken Blanchard and Robert Greenleaf of Servant Leadership, some names that you may be familiar with and know that every one of those approaches fits beautifully inside this framework. It’s an extra gift that we have in the structure of Legacy Leadership that it encompasses everything that we’ve already learned and allows us to be an ongoing student of leadership in our lifetime.
Jeannine: Brenda we did that absolutely on purpose. We really did so that you could start anywhere. You could use the assets you already had, build on strength all before going to your growing edge of your next leadership competency.
Brenda: Growing edges. Opportunities for us to speak about such things as growing edges [laughs] as we move along –
Jeannine: Just a reminder that as we’ve talked in a linear fashion about the five models or the five best practice in the model that the key power where Lee started in our conversation, the key power of the model really comes from who you are versus what you do, that setting those values of who you are you’re attitudes to life, your beatitudes become the core behavior that you’re modeling demonstrating. Living your legacy in real time.
Carollyne: One of the things I’ve been reflecting on as I’ve heard the whole discussion about the best practices during this hour so far is this – the other word in the model which is the legacy word. We’ve spoken about how the model really wants to highlight how we live our legacy rather than simply leave it.
Brenda and I are tangible examples of this legacy in action because, of course, Lee and Jeannine were the ones who designed and codified all of the information in this rich model and then they shared it with others. I happened to be in that first room when they were training and introducing this model to the world. I then met Brenda, shared it with her and together she – Brenda and I have had the privilege of taking Legacy Leadership and of sharing it with others who want to take it into their organizations and on and on it goes. We have so many stories that it could fill up many more than the 13 hours of this show. What we want to share with you are some of the places and the ways that Legacy Leadership has been introduced to the world. So, Brenda, if you can just speak briefly about Legacy Leadership in business and organizations –
Brenda: Thanks Carollyne. Yes, we like to think about this as coming from a foundation of strength. What and where can Legacy Leadership also be and show up? This has been a very organic process over the time that Carollyne and I have been involved with this model. In addition to doing some public certifications which you’ve heard about we do the primary part of our Legacy Leadership in the business sector, in organizations where we custom design programs and we’ve been – had the great privilege of seeing Legacy Leadership integrated from the top to the bottom, from side to side so that people are actually living in their organizations in a much more connected and effective way. So after the great experience – for us now it’s about six years of working with Legacy Leadership in organizations – it’s begun to pop up in other environments and between Lee, Jeannine and Carollyne they’re going to introduce you to some of those opportunities.
Carollyne: Thanks Brenda. Well speaking of Legacy one of the first things that I thought about when I heard about this model is, “How can I share it with my kids?” Both Brenda and I have had our children in our rooms when we’re offering facilitation of this process and this model. That’s been inspiring as well. I live in a community with many children and so we decided to offer a summer camp one year. My daughter, who had studied Legacy Leadership, Brenda’s son who had been in the room as well who was a filmmaker came together to offer summer camp for kid around Legacy Leadership. What we learned from those kids and their understanding of this best practice now teaches adults in every room where we work with Legacy Leadership. So, kids are part of our inspiration for continuing to do this work.
Brenda: Humbling wouldn’t you say Carollyne?
Carollyne: More than a little. [Laughter] So the natural next place –
Brenda : Humbling and inspiring.
Carollyne: Legacy Leadership to be powerful is with educators in the educational system. So, Jeannine if you would talk a little bit about that –
Jeannine: I think your example from the kids Carollyne is one of the things that got Lee and I so excited about the broader potential of Legacy Leadership in education. About the same time we had another colleague from Kansas State University – Hays University in Kansas that was following the same pathway and she took on Legacy Leadership and built out a complete construct for educators starting with administrators, school superintendents working a way through the entire leadership of the school system for the state of Kansas. Her intent as she goes forward then is to take this on in a formal manner into the high schools on down to the grade schools.
She tells us that the administrators changed their approach to not only their day to day administration of a school system, but also their viewpoint regarding how to live their life as a leader. It also changed their viewpoint regarding how every single child in the classroom has a different gift to give from the standpoint of leadership. They are whole leaders right now rather than being students who will be leaders at some other time. The possibility has just been phenomenal. Kathy Dale has considered carrying this not only across the U.S. and Canada but perhaps internationally.
Brenda: Lee, where else has Legacy Leadership just been welcomed.
Lee: Whole communities have utilized the model as they are putting together various projects. Think about PTA organizations, even drama groups that really want to formulate a successful venue or event can use this. Just think about the five practices as you begin to start up something and you have it ongoing and then the accountabilities. Also, I’d like to mention that we have a faith-based version that we have used within churches and with pastors and their senior teams that follows the line of faith. It’s quite amazing.
Every time I hear this and we talk about it I just kind of get chills because where else do you find a model like this that just happens to apply to everything else in your life? I wish I’d had this as a young parent. I would have raised my children with this but they’re getting it now with the book. They’ll all read I’m sure and they will get what they need from it [laughs].
Carollyne: I think we have a minute for just final comments from our guests and from Brenda.
Lee: Oh, Carollyne that’s hard to do, final comments from any of the four of us but let’s give it a try. I think the two things that still keep resonating with me you can’t not influence. Every place I am whether I’m conscious or not, I’m being a model of something. Living within the Legacy Leadership belief system that it’s really my accountability to be intentional about how I live, how I show up, how I’m being and what I’m doing. That really is undergirded by the second one that so resonates with me. As a behavioralist I absolutely know our belief systems are demonstrated by our behavior. So, our beatitudes equal legacy behaviors.
Jeannine: I would add that I continue to be amazed at the beauty and elegance and simplicity of this model that works for all kinds of populations knowing that it’s a very powerful model, one that can transform individuals as well as organizations. Thank you so much for having us.
Thank you so much for allowing us to share with you Carollyne in this time.
Carollyne: It is indeed our pleasure.
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Dr. Sandstrom is a highly experienced executive coach who facilitates sustainable results in the areas of critical and current concern for her top level clients. After years of industry experience, CoachWorks® International has a proven record in leadership development and helping clients realize solutions to the top issues concerning executives today.
As an Executive Leader Coach Sandstrom partners with executives to optimize leadership performance. Jeannine’s passion and success are focused in working with leaders who want to accelerate their effectiveness and sustain organizational vitality. This work is delivered via individual leader coaching at the Board, officer and leadership team level; facilitating leader team learning and planning sessions; and delivering Legacy Leadership® Institutes designed by CoachWorks® for emerging and seasoned leaders.
Dr. Sandstrom is the founder and CEO of CoachWorks® International, Inc. a leader in the arena of executive development and leadership coaching. She is also a founding board member of Corporate Coach U, an international corporate and executive coach training firm with graduates worldwide, delivering valued executive and corporate coaching based on curriculum, models and codified experience. Jeannine co-authored these extensive training courses for CCU.
She has participated in Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) presentations, and has had featured articles in the Professional Mentor and Coach Journal, as well as The Wall Street Journal and Fortune Magazine. Jeannine holds certifications as Master Certified Coach (with the International Coach Federation – ICF), Corporate Business Coach, and Professional in Human Resources. Her doctorate is in Human Resource Development, with masters degrees in Business Administration and Adult Learning. She co-convened an Executive Coach Summit for the International Coach Federation to distinguish the profession of Executive Coaching, and has served on the (Dallas, TX) Mayor’s Task Force for International Development
Dr. Lee Smith is a pioneer in the executive coaching profession and is passionate about optimizing executive education, leadership development and performance in the individual leader as well as his or her team. Lee uses the innovative Break Through Consulting Coaching process developed specifically to assist professionals, business leaders, CEOs, Boards of Directors and their organizations to achieve breakthrough results.
With Lee as an agent of change, hundreds of leaders have broken through personal and professional roadblocks to grow to the next level of performance and have discovered new energy and enthusiasm to more creatively address the issues they face in our rapidly changing world.
Prior to joining Break Through Consulting, Lee served many years with Sun Oil Company as Director of Professional Development. During her tenure she developed and led some of the first processes for successor/mentor relationships for professional and leadership development. With a PhD in Organizational Behavior from the University of Texas at Denton, and a BS in Business, Dr. Smith holds one of the first international certifications as Master Certified Coach with the International Coach Federation and has served on various Boards of universities and coach training organizations.