WHAT ARE WE READING?
"The Kind Leader" by Karyn Ross.
Karyn will be joining us for the discussion!
Kindness and leadership aren't often synonymous. Ask someone to describe "good leadership" to you and you will hear many adjectives used. And though there are many more that come to mind, kindness isn't one of them. And here's the problem with that.
What a leader models—how they think, speak, and act—influences the people they lead. Leaders who think, speak, and act unkindly give legitimacy and permission to those they lead to think, speak, and act in exactly the same unkind ways. In an increasingly fragmented, polarized, and divided world, we need leaders who will bring people together, not divide them. We need kindness to become synonymous with good leadership.
The purpose of this book is to teach leaders how to lead with kindness so they can influence the people they lead to create kinder workplaces, organizations, and the world.
This book gives you a deep theoretical understanding of the importance of leading with kindness and also provides practical exercises for you to use. By the time you finish the book, you will feel confident in your ability to lead with kindness and also to address organizational problems at work, at home, and in the community with kindness.
PRE-WORK
Please read the whole book before the discussion session.
AUTHOR
Karyn Ross
Lean Services Consultant and Coach
Karyn Ross Consulting
I'm on a mission to Activate People to Create a Kinder, Better World. That's why I wrote my latest book The Kind Leader: A Practical Guide to Eliminating Fear, Creating Trust and Leading with Kindness and started The New School for Kind Leaders.
A better, kinder world for all starts with YOU! All problems big and small, at work, in the community, and at home, are solvable. We just have to stop waiting for others to solve them, and start taking action!
That's what I'm here for! To help you solve the problems that are affecting you and your organization. I use a simple, straightforward, positive and kind action-oriented approach to teach people how to generate ideas and then how to turn those ideas into better, ways to work and kinder ways to live. My 15-minute coaching approach is accessible, practical and easily understood and used by anyone.
All of my coaching, consulting, classes and workshops are available remotely and in-person. And I ensure affordable and accessible help to all through my ‘Right-Size-Pricing’ model.
DISCUSSION LEADER
Melissa Sherman,
Sr Quality Improvement Consultant,
Consumers Energy
Melissa has worked in the utility industry for over 27 years, both for an Investor Owned and Cooperative, gaining experience in Electric and Gas Distribution Engineering, Business Support for Pumped Storage, River Hydro and Renewable Generation, Online Scheduling for Fossil Generation, and Enterprise Change.
Throughout her career, Melissa has instituted lean methodology while embedding change management methodology. From scheduling to warehouse redesigns, to value stream analysis. Melissa analyzes and measures the effectiveness of existing business processes and develops sustainable, repeatable, and quantifiable business process improvements. She analyzes data to drive problem solving, root cause analysis and functional area process improvement. Responsible for delivering significant results in Company Breakthrough Objectives.
She is passionate about leading others on their continuous improvement/lean and change management journey. She enjoys being able to share her love for teaching/coaching others and seeing the “ah ha” moments when someone truly understands the methodologies. It is through breaking down those methodologies in terms they understand that they can then tackle those big problems.
Melissa has also taught higher education since 2008 both in-seat and on-line in management, entrepreneurship and engineering disciplines, relating a lot of her teaching to the utility industry.
Melissa holds a Bachelors in Industrial Engineering Technology, a Master’s in Leadership Studies from Baker College, along with a Graduate Certificate in Leadership Strategies from Davenport University. She also holds an Associates Certificate in Project Management from George Washington University and is certified in Change Management through Acuity Institute.
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