What do you want to do as a leader to move your community forward?
Episode 9 of Better World Leaders, with Rachel Abel.
It is one of those rare and joyful moments when you meet someone for the first time, and immediately fall into an active, intuitive and invigorating dialogue. One that’s driven by shared values, heartful openness to create impactful change and a mutual purpose propelling both of you towards the same end point.
That was my first interaction with Rachel Abel, which I share with you here. If you live your values, if you know your purpose and if you want to engage community and improve your leadership to help make the world better, this conversation most certainly is for you. And if not, stay tuned and you might just learn a thing or two along the way!
Rachel is committed to responsible, ethical leadership and social change. She focuses on delivering measurable benefits by working collaboratively within strong networks. She believes that developing future leaders who understand social impact and take responsibility for their place in the world will find the answers to contemporary complex challenges.
With a background in both public sector leadership and academic research and teaching, Rachel is currently focused on developing programs that bring community building to business and professional networks. Her career has taken her from front line service delivery, thorough to the board room and executive team, to coaching leaders and teaching leadership on the no 1 ranked Australian MBA program. She understands how the right decisions taken at the top can have positive and real impact in the community. The questions Rachel kept coming back to were how can we help people create genuine personal connections? How can we support businesses in building meaningful community connections with customers and staff, and create shared value for everyone? What tools can we give people to create supportive, proactive professional networks that elevate their career impact?
This led Rachel to launch her new ‘Belonging is Better’ program, an innovative research-based approach to changing the conversation about workplace culture. And the new way to build a raving fan customer base who can’t wait to book you or buy your next product. Belonging is Better supports high performing, connected business and workplace communities to thrive and build lasting relationships. This is where science meets practice and we find what works, bringing together research from Sociology, Psychology and Behavioural Economics to the organisational perspective. Learn more at www.rachelabel.com
The key messages within this conversation are;
- To develop a regular reflective practice – as one of the best ways to continually learn and develop as a leader.
- To consider who has most impacted on your leadership journey, and to learn from those interactions.
- That as a culture or community that develops leaders, it’s crucial that we invest in providing leadership opportunities early in life.
- Furthermore, that opportunities are provided for emerging leaders to spend time ‘at the table’ with those they view as being much more senior than them.
- To learn to listen; Whether that is by seeking feedback from colleagues, team members, clients or customers, or finding ways like co-creation sessions to listen actively.
- To align your leadership to your values – be clear not only within yourself, but communicate those values to the people around you
- To consider your impact – What do you want to be known for? How can you best serve others? What lasting impact can you make in your career?
You can get in touch with Rachel here –
Connect on linked in – https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-abel/
Follow on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/headofmakingfriends/
And on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/RachelAbelTMP
Listen to her podcast – The Missing Piece on Spotify or iTunes
Additional resources as mentioned by Rachel;
