Episode 167 - Maj Gen John Gronski
Leadership knows no bounds of age or rank; it's the unwavering commitment to paying the price that sets true leaders apart. Welcome to another captivating episode! In this eye-opening conversation, we delve deep into the world of leadership, inviting leaders from various backgrounds to share their invaluable insights. Today, we sit down with a true titan of leadership—Major General John Gronski, a retired military veteran and an extraordinary expert in the field. Major General Gronski pulls the curtain behind his illustrious career, sharing an intimate understanding of the sacrifices and dedication required to embody true leadership. He explores the multifaceted aspects of what it means to pay the price of leadership, regardless of age or career stage. Major General Gronski's journey, spanning from his beginnings in the military to his advancement up the ranks, is bound to enrapture and motivate audiences of every kind. Tune in now and learn what it truly means to pay the price of leadership.
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Maj Gen John Gronski
I am incredibly excited to bring to you a veteran, a retired general, and an amazing leadership expert, Major General John Gronski. John, welcome.
It's great to be here. Thank you for inviting me to be part of your show.
Let me tell you a little bit about Major General Gronski. He is retired from the US Army. Thank you for your service. He's the CEO of Leader Grove, LLC, which is a leadership consulting firm. He's also the author of two books, The Ride of Our Lives, which we are going to talk more about that, and Iron-Sharpened Leadership, as well as an international speaker. I connected with the tremendous John Gronski through the tremendous Bill Forrester. As my father said, it's all about the people you meet and the books you read. Why I love our tremendous tribe is that we are all together. Now you have met John, you can meet with him. A lot of you know Bill.
Without further ado, we are going to go ahead and get started on my father's speech that he gave many decades ago called The Price of Leadership. It was tough. It was jubilant, but it was also tough. In it, he talks about four key tenants that every leader is going to have to be committed to paying to truly be a leader.
The first price that he talks about is loneliness. We have all heard that. Lonely is the head that wears the crown. It's lonely at the top. I'm so excited to hear from a general about this topic. Can you explain what loneliness meant to you throughout your life, maybe a time when you were in a season of it? What words of wisdom would you give our audience if they are in a season of loneliness?
It's interesting, that the whole concept of loneliness when it comes to leadership. To a degree, it's correct. I recall back my time in periods of senior leadership commanding a brigade in combat in Ramadi, Iraq, commanding the 28th Infantry Division, which was 15,000 soldiers. I found that you still have to build a team of trusted advisors around you. It may not even be somebody from your organization, but you have got to reach out and find peer groups because it's important to be able to bounce ideas across people.
For example, when I was a division commander, there were other division commanders. There were eighteen army divisions between Active Component and National Guard. Reaching out to that group of peers and being able to have a professional dialogue with them. Let them know the challenges I was facing, listened a little bit about the challenges they were facing, and being able to help each other work through various issues. For leaders out there who are in a position where they figure, "There's not anybody in my organization I could talk to because it doesn't seem safe or doesn't seem appropriate." You have got to find people outside of your organization if you need to. That'd be my thought on it.
Those of us that have been in the military camaraderie still can call each other and think about the times we had together, share it with one another, and still go back to that. When did you retire? When did you depart from the military?
I retired from the Army in 2019. During the last three years of my career, I was one of the Deputy Commanding Generals at US Army Europe. It's funny because I was the oldest soldier in US Army Europe. I was 63 years old when I retired. I got my commission in ‘78, and stayed with it for over 40 years, retiring in 2019. That's the other thing I want to mention about loneliness. When I was a division commander, brigade commander before that, and then Deputy Commanding General over at US Army Europe, I always had a team around me. I always had people that we could talk about issues.
I then retire in 2019, no more team. I had to figure out what am I going to do here. I started to put together my team of trusted advisors from people that I network with within the Philadelphia area and other parts of Pennsylvania and beyond. It's important that if you step away from a formal leadership position, you have still got to find your quasi-board of directors so you could gain insight from them, and bounce ideas off them. That's so important.
I'm so glad you said that. That's why I asked that because we do have built-in structure, rank, and command. You worry about fraternization, but you keep the line of demarcation and keep it very professional. When I came out too, I separated several years ago, but then when I left corporate America years ago, again, when you become a solopreneur and entrepreneur, that's very lonely too.
You have to seek out and find those people that you can be a sounding board and share things with because typically, as a family-run business, you can't do it to family. That's so important that you realize that. To the readers out there, you have got to have those people that you can share with. I know we have our faith. Yes, prayer trumps all, but we still are meant to edify, exhort, and to iron-sharpen leadership and iron-sharpen each other too.
The other thing I found when I left the military and spent years in the military, I had a purpose. After retiring, I was floundering a little bit. It's important that no matter what phase you are in or what stage of your life you are in, you have got to determine what your purpose is. I do think purpose changes based on the stage and phase that you are in. That's exactly what I did in order to get back on a successful path or productive path. I had to figure out what my purpose was in life.
What I came up with is my purpose to help leaders who want to improve become better leaders. That's my stated purpose. That's what I believe in. That's what gets me out of bed in the morning. That's what keeps me working out at the gym. That's what keeps me doing some self-study and trying to continue to learn and grow. It's that purpose that helps me do all of those things. For your readers out there, they’ve got to come to grips with what your purpose is based on your stage of life.
I love the fact that you brought that up to our readers because that will ring true. I even had people that I knew in the military that did twenty, and that was it. You do what you want to do because they were "retired” in their early-40s. I'm thinking, "Okay. If that works for you." For readers of this show, we want to finish the race strong. I want to hear and vision how you dialed that in because you would have been perfectly justified.
I know a lot of people that have done their time, they have required their wealth, and now they are going to enjoy life. Nothing wrong with that, but most of our readers like you, without a purpose, you just feel adrift. I appreciate it out there. A lot of people are like, "I want to work myself out of a job," but then you got to find another one because otherwise, it's like, "What do you do with your time?" Thank you for that.
It may not even be a "job." It might be some type of volunteer effort that you put your time into, but you have got to do something to serve others. Whether it's paid or volunteer, you have got to look at serving others and just finding fulfillment in that.
The next topic my father talked about is weariness. If you are out there leading people and being there for people, you have got to be the strongest, the most refreshed, the most clear thinker, the best critical thinker, and the best decision-maker. Also, as a leader, you have to be there to meet each of your followers where they are, and that can wear you down and make you tired. How do you combat weariness?
I love this particular topic because I think back to the time back in 2005, when I was taking a brigade of 5,000 soldiers and Marines into Ramadi, Iraq, which was a very violent and dangerous place at that time, very chaotic. Some mentors told me before going over there that even when you are in combat, there are certain things you have got to do. You have got to take time to do some physical training. They recommended getting a fictional novel and reading a fictional novel to take your mind off the tactics, techniques, and procedures that you are generally faced with on a day-to-day basis in a situation like that. You have got to make sure that your diet is proper. You have got to maintain a proper diet.
I believed in all of those things that these mentors were telling me, and then I got there in Ramadi, and I didn't do any of that. It was a big mistake. I look back on that as a mistake I made. I ended up not taking any time off at all. I might have, on average, taken maybe four hours off a week somehow. I didn't read anything except the operational things that I needed to read in accordance with the mission that we had. I didn't read any fictional books. I'm a guy who likes to work out. I'm a guy who likes to engage in physical training. I cut that out of my regimen for the entire year. I was there.
I did a lot of battlefield circulation. It was on the go a lot. It came down to where I was eating one meal a day. All of this advice I got from mentors, I disregarded it. At the end of that year, and by the way, all of our soldiers had an opportunity to go back home at some point in time for two weeks. I decided I wasn't going to do that. It wore me down. As I look back on that, perhaps I didn't make the best decisions all the time that I maybe could have made if I followed the advice of these mentors.
What taught me at the end of the day and, by the way, most of the things I learn are from mistakes I made rather than successes I have had. I learned the importance of a leader needing to take care of themself. I talk a lot about leaders having to care more for their followers than they care for themself. I truly believe that. At the same time, a leader still needs to care for themselves because if you don't care for yourself as a leader, it's pretty hard to be able to provide the leadership, vision, and guidance that your followers need from you. I learned that lesson, and I like to pass that on to people whenever I have the opportunity.
Price of Leadership: If you don't care for yourself, it's pretty hard to be able to provide the leadership, vision, and guidance that your followers need from you.
I appreciate that you hit on the physical aspect because when we get busy, I will do the same thing. I'm eating well. I'm focused. My days are disciplined. I’ve got dogs now, so I'm walking 3 miles a day. I'm running 2 miles a day. If I don't make that time moving around, I'm cranky. I'm not sleeping well. I'm like, "It’s because you are not working out." Go and work out.
Even though I don't have to do it to maintain anything external, I have to do it for the internal stuff. I appreciate you saying that because that's the first thing. I'm like, "I'm busy because this book comes out in October. This book comes out in January." That's the first thing that gets pushed off. I appreciate that for weariness. You think, "I can't work out. I'm tired." You might be tired because you are not working out.
I'm talking about physical fitness, and I know you feel the same way. There are other elements of fitness. There's spiritual fitness, mental fitness, and emotional fitness. You have got to take care of yourself in all those different ways. That's why my mentors recommended, "Get a fictional book and read a fictional book." Speaking of building resiliency in yourself, one of the best ways to build up resiliency is by reading fiction. It allows your mind to be creative and imaginative. To imagine things through reading rather than through watching. All of those elements of fitness are very important.
It's interesting you said that too because when I was deployed for the first Gulf War back in 1991, I read more fiction books during that nine-month deployment than I have in my entire life. I'm glad you said that because I don't touch fiction unless it's allegorical fiction like C.S. Lewis or The Pilgrim's Progress, which is also beautiful, but I need to grab some fiction. To let my mind off of the "What am I learning? What am I applying?" I can remember during the Gulf War, we would get novels and I read everything Leon Uris wrote. It was these great novels. I'm glad that you brought that up, the purpose of fiction.
The next topic my father talked about was abandonment. As a little girl, I watched him and thought he was the most successful person. Still do. I have ever met. I remember one day he told me, " I do more in a day to contribute to my failure than my success." I was like, "I don't even understand how that computes." He said, "I need to focus on abandonment. I need to stop doing what I want and like to do in favor of what I ought and need to do." It was almost this hyper-pruning and singular focus. I know in the military, we get our orders but still, there are other things as a leader that come and occupy your space and time. How do you deal with abandonment, and how do you maintain your focus and discipline?
Self-discipline is extremely important. When you engage in self-discipline by doing the things you know you need to do in order to serve others and be fulfilled in your life. It doesn't take your freedom away. It provides you with more freedom. The more self-disciplined you are at doing the things you need to do, it provides you options in life. Looking back on it, if you have the self-discipline as a younger person to study what you need to study, to work out when you need to work out, to have the self-discipline to engage in volunteer efforts to help others. When you do all of those things, you build networks, relationships, a stronger mind, and a stronger body. That provides you with more options.
Price of Leadership: When you engage in self-discipline by doing the things you know you need to do in order to serve others, it actually doesn't take your freedom away. In fact, it provides you with more freedom.
Self-discipline sets you free rather than causing you to be shackled or captured. Some people think that. Some people think that if they engage in things that they have to do because people say that's the right thing to do, it takes their freedom away. It's the opposite. It provides you with more freedom because you get more options put in your path.
It's your habits, and your habits will determine everything. If you have good habits, you have good results. I can remember growing up in the '70s and '80s where it was like, "Do whatever makes you feel good." I'm thinking, "Yeah, but I need to stay out of jail. I need to earn a living. I need not to get court marshaled." It's strange. You then look at it and go, "That's not what life is about." Life is not all about me and fulfilling my fleshly desires. As you said, you want to reward yourself, but we are more than animals going off of impulses and urges.
Thoughts are so important. We are hardwired to get negative thoughts into our heads. That's a natural thing because it's some type of protective impulse that we have through evolution. It's important when we have a negative thought coming into our head to do what we could do to replace it with a positive thought. We are going to talk about vision, but it comes into the visualization of what you see your future looking like and what steps you need to take in order to reach that ultimate goal or ultimate vision that you have. There are so many elements of abandonment in what we talked about.
That's truly self-discipline. My dad would always say there's miserable miserable and happy miserable. Everybody still has to fight the same battles. "I don't like cold calls. I want to sleep in. I have these negative thoughts." The new common denominator of success is that the only difference between failure and success is that success is a habit of doing things that failures don't want to do. There's this weird thing that you are born like this super disciplined person. No, it's part of our human nature. There are certain things we like and don't like to do, but the beauty of discipline is the longer you do it, the easier and the more it becomes a part of you. Negative thoughts. No. Capturing that one. I'm getting that out.
You talk about building things with discipline. Networks, wealth, and health. I learned to be a gym rat trying out to get into a military academy. Those are habits that I have done my whole life. I have a sister who's 70 and completely reclaimed her health at 70. You can do it, but a lot of these things you start doing now and the dividends paid in the decades to come.
I just came across a pretty good quote. I forget who said it, but the quote went something like this, "If you want to do something, you will find a way. If you don't want to do it, you are going to find an excuse." There are plenty of excuses that could go through our minds. We have got to fend off those excuses and find a way to say yes to doing the right thing rather than let an excuse control our mind, which controls our body.
If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. And if you don't want to do it, you're going to find an excuse.
You hit on the thought thing, which is where it all starts. Otherwise, we are operating from our emotions, which puts us on the level of animals who have a central nervous system and they have impulses. What differentiates us is the frontal lobe cortex, the mind. We have a consciousness, and we have the ability to will, set goals, and relate. I found that people are like, "Live and let live." In a certain sense, I do agree with that. If you are not bringing your best every day, it takes work and discipline to find out and unpack who you are.
I'm still unpacking that. Every day I find another test, and I'm like, "That's why I do the things I do. It’s what I want, not what my dad wanted or not what the military wanted." We had our identity in the military, and now we are civilians. Who are we? What is our self-worth? It isn't based on what we do. Once we know that, then we can figure out how to get it. I find that it's such a long introspective but wonderful process.
As you said, it's a hard process, but the more you put in the work upfront, that's where you get the motivation and the self-discipline. Until you answer those questions, you don't know what to be disciplined towards because you are drifting, you are pretending, or you haven't done the work to figure out, "I write my orders now. What orders am I going to write for John or Tracey?"
You brought up a good point. It doesn't matter what age you are. Whether you are 18 or 88 years old, you can get started at any time to get those correct thoughts into your head so you could move forward no matter where you are in life.
We did loneliness, weariness, and abandonment. Now, we are going to talk about vision. Sometimes, when I was in the military, I'm like, "Vision? Just tell me what to do. Give my orders." It's more strategic. I never drew that, but my father was like, "Vision is seeing what needs to be done and doing it." I'm like, "Very practical." What does vision mean to you? You talked a little bit about how you needed to find your purpose, but how do you hone in on that vision that keeps you moving forward?
When I think back on my positions of leadership in the military, I have found that followers expect a leader to communicate that vision. We talk about a shared vision. When you are talking about an organizational vision, a lot of times, we talk about it as a shared vision. What that means to me is a leader in an organization needs to go around and talk to the people within that organization and ask people, "Where do you want to see this organization 5 or 10 years from now? What would make you proud about how this organization moves forward?"
Followers expect a leader to communicate their vision.
I did that when I was brigade commander of a brigade that I commanded to the one I took combat. I was shocked. I talked to privates that had six months in the Army. I talked to majors who had 13 and 14 years in the Army, and everybody in between. I found that a lot of what they were saying about a vision was very similar to one another. I was taken by that because I didn't think there would be such a commonality between visions of people of different experience levels.
Creating a shared vision as a leader is important. My position in life now, working as a leadership consultant, a trainer, a speaker, and an author, I don't have that team around me as we talked about before. That's where that purpose helped me create a vision. What vision comes down to, and I think your dad was exactly right. What picture do you see in your future that you want to attain? Once you establish that vision for yourself, now you have got to put an action plan together in order to attain that vision.
I do think that positive energy has a lot to do with that. When I talk about positive energy, I talk about leaders being optimistic. When I talk about leaders being optimistic, I don't mean looking at life through rose-colored glasses, but believing that tomorrow is going to be better than today. Having an action plan to go along with that belief that tomorrow is going to be better than today. Whether that's self-belief or if you are leading an organization, you have got to get your followers to believe in the plan that you are outlined for them. That's my thoughts on vision.
Leaders being optimistic doesn’t mean looking at life through rose-colored glasses. It’s believing that tomorrow is going to be better than today. And then having an action plan to go along with that belief.
I love that you hit on two things. One, you have to communicate the vision. The vision starts with you, but then as you said, because I studied followership, you have to ask the followers like Jesus asked his disciples. "What's the word on the street? Who do you say I am?" No matter how much we think we have communicated it, if they are not coming with us or they haven't processed it the same way, and they are like, "We think you are Elijah or John the Baptist." It's like, “Where did that come from?” It wasn't until they dialed in.
Jesus didn't change his vision, but he took the time to ask his followers because it is a dance. The leader can't just be all vision because you can't drag the followers. Even if the followers are robust and strong, they still have to know where they are going. I love that you hit on both sides of that because that's what vision is. It's a shared enterprise. Somebody has to set it, and then you got to make sure everybody is all in with the mission.
You hit on a key point. Talk about communication. Communication, when it comes to leadership is not just about speaking. It's about listening. The listening has to come first. It's so important for leaders to take the time to listen to their followers as they are trying to create this shared vision that they then communicate to others. I think President Reagan was fantastic with this. When a leader communicates vision, they have to be very consistent in that vision. It can't be the vision of the week or the vision of the quarter. It's got to be the long-term vision for this organization. It's got to be consistently communicated.
If you don't communicate it consistently and if your vision doesn't stay consistent, people are going to become confused. They are going to start asking themselves, "What's the real priority here? What direction are we going in? Last week, the leader said we had to go left. This week, the leader is saying we have to go right. Now I'm confused." It's important that that vision is a consistent vision. I do think Reagan was a master at that. While he was president, his vision was the Soviet Union was not going to be here forever. The Soviet Union is going to collapse. That was a consistent message that he put out there. That's a great example for leaders to follow.
Price of Leadership: If you don't communicate it consistently, and if your vision doesn't stay consistent, people are going to become confused. And they're going to start asking themselves, what's the real priority here?
That's why we did one of our little life-changing classics on him because he's Ronald Wilson Reagan is brilliant. I appreciate that. I needed to hear that. If there's one thing I struggle with, it's that I could have a vision for a minute. It's like, "Stop," because it's exhausting, it confuses people, and it's the one thing I struggle with. I appreciate your words.
To our other readers out there, take it from me. What do they say? When you work your fingers to the bone, all you get is boney fingers. We want to stay very focused and not the fear of missing out or the bright shiny thing like sometimes we entrepreneurs do. I appreciate that. We talked about loneliness, weariness, abandonment, and vision. You have written a book called The Iron-Sharpened Leadership. I'd like to talk about that. Anything else on leadership that you would like to share with us?
I would like to say that Iron-Sharpened Leadership is based on Proverbs 27:17, "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." That's the whole thought. At least what I get from that proverb is we as people have to look for mentors in our life. People that we could look up to and learn from. The learning never stops. At the same time, we have got to reach our hand down to other people who maybe aren't as strong as we are, as talented as we are, and be mentors to them and help them along the way as well. That's what iron sharpens iron means to me.
My book, Iron-Sharpened Leadership, is based on my leadership philosophy of character, competence, and resilience. I will briefly explain each one of those elements. When I talk about character, I'm talking about values, understanding what your core values are, and living by those values. I'm talking about cultivating trust. I'm talking about caring for your followers and caring for those you lead.
When I talk about competence, I'm not talking about technical or tactical competence. I'm talking about leader competence. I break that down to the ability to communicate well, the ability to provide a vision and a purpose to an organization, and the ability to make decisions with less-than-perfect information. Those are three important leader competencies.
In terms of resilience, I'm talking about having positive energy. Believing that tomorrow is going to be better than today and having an action plan going along with that. I'm talking about having the ability to move out of your comfort zone, taking chances, taking some risks, and surrounding yourself with people who aren't necessarily completely aligned with your way of thinking and doing that. Those are some of the things I talk about when I talk about character, competence, and resilience. Those are important aspects of being what I call an iron-sharpened leader.
Proverbs, in my humble opinion, is the greatest leadership book of all time. There are 31 chapters because you can read a chapter a day. It will tell you everything you need to know. That is how it's done. That is how we become the next-level version of our leadership selves. Also, I want you to talk to our readers about The Ride of Our Lives, the first book you wrote.
The Ride of Our Lives: Lessons on Life, Leadership, and Love
Back in 1983, I left active duty for a short period of time. I left active duty at Fort Lewis, Washington, in Washington State, Tacoma, Seattle Area. After working up there for a while, and my wife was a nurse, she was working too. We had a son. We have decided to move back to Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Since we had to move from the West Coast back to the East Coast, I suggested to my wife that we bicycle across the United States. That had been a dream of mine for years. I wanted to bicycle across the United States because of the challenge and adventure of it. In '83, my wife and I bicycle across the country with our son Steve. I pulled him across the United States in an orange bicycle trailer.
Three months on the road, on bicycles, all self-supported, which meant we had our gear. We had a 2-man backpacking tent, 2 sleeping bags, and a little 1 burner camping stove. The route we took was 4,500 miles. It was quite an adventure. It helped shape some of my leadership philosophy at that point making a trip like that.
I kept the journal through the course of that bicycle trip, and that journal sat in a shoebox for over many years. When I retired from the Army in 2019, I had a little bit of time on my hands, and I started to take the journal that was sitting in that shoebox and put words on paper because I wanted my children and my grandchildren to have a record of that trip. As I began to write, I thought to myself, "This is pretty interesting. It'd probably be a book that other people would like to read."
I published a book called The Ride of Our Lives. That book is about the 3 months and 4,500-mile adventure on our bicycles with our 15-month-old son across the United States. I have been getting a lot of great reviews and comments from people who have read the book. It's a feel-good story and a lot of leadership lessons in the story. The subtitle of The Ride of Our Lives is Lessons on Life, Leadership, and Love. That's what it took to be successful in that adventure of ours.
I can't wait. Thank you for the copy of it. I look forward to reading it. You guys are still married, right?
Yeah. We are going to be married for 43 years in September 2023. People say a trip like that is either going to destroy a marriage or strengthen the marriage. In our case, it's strengthened the marriage.
I can't wait to read it. I had to put that in there because of all you have done with your 40 years in the military and your wisdom when you were that young to take the time to do that. I can remember growing up '70s, it seemed like to a lot of people, that was a goal, to bicycle. My brother wanted to do it too. He never did, but I can remember it was one of those things, "Let's bike across America." You did it.
We didn't let our son stop us. Our son wasn't an obstacle. Our son was part of the adventure.
I can't wait to read it, and I can't wait to learn more, hear more, and have our readers connect with you. You are a speaker. Do you consult? What should our readers reach out to you?
I do a lot of speaking and leadership training for law enforcement. I also do a lot of speaking at industry shows. I do a lot of speaking for large companies that are having conferences. I do a lot of leadership training for companies as well. From law enforcement to civilian companies, I crossed that whole gamut. I also still do a little bit of work with the military.
I'm an Association of the United States Army Leadership Fellows, so I do go out to military units and provide leadership presentations to military units. I do that pro bono for military units. I'm also an executive coach. I do have several clients that I coach in terms of helping them continue on their leadership journey. That's what I do. I love doing it. I'm so passionate about it. I feel very fulfilled when I have those opportunities to speak to the groups that I mentioned.
Thank you for fulfilling us and sharing your wisdom. To our readers out there, make sure you connect with John. John, thank you so much for taking the time to share your decades of experience. What's next for you, and how are you continuing to take all of that and pour it into others? It's so tremendous.
I appreciate you taking the time to interview me. I very much enjoy the leadership messages that you put out. Thank you for doing that. I'm inspired by your messages. I want to thank you for allowing me to be a guest on your show. Thank you.
You couldn't be any more welcome. To our readers out there, thank you. The channel is growing and flowing. We love having you here. If you like what you read, please be sure and hit the subscribe button. If you would do us the honor of a review, that would be so tremendous. Also, please share this with other people. You know where John speaks and talks, share this with people that you think might be interested and need to hear this. People that are out there paying the price of leadership. Always remember, as my father said, “You are going to be the same person five years from now that you are today, except for two things, the people you meet and the books you read, so make them both tremendous.” Thanks so much, everybody. Have a tremendous rest of your day.
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About John Gronski
Major General John Gronski (US Army, Retired) is CEO of Leader Grove, LLC, a leadership consulting firm. He is the author of two books, "The Ride of Our Lives" and "Iron-Sharpened Leadership" and an international speaker.