Congratulations, you’re a leader. You landed that job. You convened the coalition. You got your boss’s boss to approve that crazy project request… and now you have to run it.
But nobody ever taught you how to be a leader.
Oh, you may have read some books on the subject. But if you’re anything like me, you’ve always felt like those books were written for some other kind of person, someone who speaks loudly and uses a lot of sports metaphors.
Heck, maybe you’ve tried that kind of leadership and it didn’t work. Or you’re in a situation that requires something really different. You aren’t a novice, yet the situation you’re in is making you feel like one.
You want a way of looking at this whole problem of leadership with fresh eyes.
That’s where I come in.
You don’t have to lead like everybody else.
You only have to lead like you.
I’m Andrew Benedict-Nelson, creator of Designing Leadership. After more than a decade consulting in the health care and nonprofit sectors, I’ve had the opportunity to learn alongside inspiring leaders truly making a difference in the world. Yet I’ve also seen too many failures of leadership in response to our most pressing challenges. For years I wondered what to do about it.
Then I had a realization: we can design our way out of this mess.
Working in the trenches of systemic challenges has taught me that design provides a starting point for any complex challenge. To address those challenges, I created design thinking courses for doctoral students and professionals from an array of different industries.
Yet only recently did I see how I could use design thinking to help leaders modify their approaches to motivating their teams and other key groups. Now I’m on a mission to share this method with as many people as possible, creating a new generation of authentic leaders.
Do you want to be a part of that? Read on.
Here’s how Designing Leadership works. I draw my inspiration from Human-Centered Design, one of the most popular approaches to innovation. But instead of imagining a new product, we use design thinking to imagine your new leadership style. It happens in five steps:
Empathy - Who are the people you must motivate as a leader?
Definition - What kind of leader do these people need?
Ideation - What programs and policies will help you manifest that kind of leadership?
Prototyping - How do you keep growing as a leader in spite of challenges?
Testing - How do you know if your new style is working for the people you serve?
While these core questions are simple, every leadership situation requires tackling them in a new way. Even if you have successfully led large organizations in the past, the next step of your journey likely requires something new.
I’ll be your guide on the journey, helping you make progress using my personal archive of creativity exercises, thoughtful questions, and provocative anecdotes. I’ve worked alongside leaders in organizations from NASA and the State Department to local high schools and clinics, and it’s taught me that every kind of leader is just a person trying to figure out other people.
We can do it together — by design.
Ready to get started? I’m currently offering 1:1 coaching.
The Designing Leadership coaching process centers on four work sessions delivered over one to three months. Guided by my video lectures and activities, you’ll complete a personalized workbook where you’ll explore your new leadership style. Then in regular Zoom sessions with me, you can ask sensitive questions, work through thorny issues, and further refine your approach to leadership.
By the end of the process, you will achieve:
Clarity in how to handle difficult groups and situations
Perspective on how current problems relate to long-term goals
Concrete plans to address issues that may have frustrated your team for years
Confidence that you can handle new situations authentically and ethically