Thanksgiving to Three Courageous Leaders

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Speaking Up About Courageous Leadership: I learned about leadership on the job over thirty years as a CEO. We'll talk about leaders, leadership challenges and leadership ideas.

Speaking about Sister Courage

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Courageous Leadership contributor Anne Doyle is a Detroit-based leadership and communications consultant, former TV journalist and global auto executive. For more: her website -- and blog.

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Planned Parenthood’s 25-year Plan, Here's Fast Company Magazine's interview on how Gloria led a movement to create a bold new long term vision for the future.

How do you lead deep-seated change in a large organization where just about everyone expects to have a voice? Here are a few rules that Gloria Feldt used to pull it off at Planned Parenthood.

Create urgency. PPFA's affiliates had to understand that this was a crucial moment, "that we really could change the direction of the organization's future," says consultant Watts Wacker. The solution: an invitation-only summit with big-name speakers.

Include everyone. Feldt's committee pushed itself to get input from every corner of the organization. That meant hundreds of meetings with affiliates, whose input was distilled at regional sessions. Many affiliates also involved their clients and community groups.

Adapt the process to the culture. A by-the-book style never would have flown at PPFA. So the organization designed a standard innovation process, but it let local groups veer off course, as desired.

Make it transparent. At every turn, the PPFA committee published and shared the results of its work. The idea was that including people in the process would win support -- and would also sharpen the final product.

Lead, but don't control. Feldt, says Wacker, "saw that you can't 'increment' yourself into the future. She got her board to listen, then put people in place who responded." But she respected the culture of her organization; she recognized that change needed to be driven from deep in the ranks as well.

Read the rest:

Downloadable PDF

Fast Company Magazine Profile

ENCOURAGING WORDS:

"If you're going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill

"You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try."
- Beverly Sills

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. -- Stephen Covey

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." Thomas Edison

"Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass...it's about learning how to dance in the rain."--I don't know who said this but I sure do believe it!

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” Goethe

Wednesday, November 25, 2009 at 06:05PM

On Thanksgiving Eve, I'm grateful to three courageous leaders. First, Dana Kennedy, Executive Director of Emerge Arizona. Dana not only works every day to recruit, train, and support pro-choice Democratic women to run for office, she put her convictions into action by running for Phoenix City Council. Though she didn't prevail this time, I hope she will run again until she joins the ranks of leadership consultant and occasional guest poster here on Courageous Women, Anne Doyle and political blogger par excellence Jill Miller Zimon, both of whom mounted their first political races and won city counil seats in Auburn Hills MI and Pepper Pike OH respectively.

As then-AZ Governor Janet Napolitano, now Secretary of Homeland Security, once told me, "You can't win if you don't run." That's a great leadership lesson, whether we're talking politics or profession, civic engagement or choosing life goals.

Nervous about taking the plunge? Help is a Google away. In the political realm, check out this report featring Emerge Arizona:

http://www.GloriaFeldt.com/leadership

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tagged

Emerge Arizona,

Janet Napolitano,

courageous leadership,

political leadership,

women leaders in

Anne Doyle Strategies,

Dana Kennedy,

Jill Miller Zimon

References (1)

References allow you to track sources for this article, as well as articles that were written in response to this article.

Response: MetroDetroits' Official Website

at MetroDetroits' Official Website on February 26, 2010

Metrodetroit.com/Metrodetroits Official Website

Reader Comments (5)

I was lucky enough to have Dana Kennedy as my mentor while going through the Emerge Arizona 2006 program. This woman is amazing and has inspired me in so many aspects of my life, not just my political career. I am so thankful to have her as a friend and words can not express how very proud I am of her running for office.

November 25, 2009 |

Bree Boehlke

You are so right, Bree! Thanks for your comment, and when are you going to run?

November 26, 2009 |

Gloria Feldt

Gloria - thank you so much for this kind nod. You know part of where I've come from and how much credit I give you and so many other others, across generations. It all adds up. It all adds up. :)

November 27, 2009 |

Jill

This is how change is made, one person, one leadership action, one political race at a time.

November 27, 2009 |

Gloria Feldt

Bree, slightly dodged the question when she was going to run. In someways she already has! She is on the executive board of the state party and also executive board of the YDA's, she is positioning herself well for the future and I look forward to working on her campaign when she does decide to run for whatever she decides would be a good match for her. Thank you Gloria, for all of us that your bring along with you!

November 27, 2009 |

Dana Marie Kennedy

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