Turbulence, uncertainty, and lightning quick shifts sure are rocking our world these days! Leading in these turbulent times — and dealing with fear and stress — is on my mind lately as we prepare for my only public workshop this year, Leading @ the Speed of Change: Navigating Turbulent Times.

Leading @ the Speed of Change - Jim ClemmerThe CLEMMER Group is in the business of providing customized keynotes, workshops, retreats, and leadership/culture development programs and systems tailored for internal use to each Client’s needs, objectives, and situation. But it’s becoming an annual June tradition now for me to put together this two-day public workshop here in my hometown of Kitchener, Ontario, Canada (45 minutes west of the Toronto airport.) Participants are a broad mix of public and private sector from medium and large organizations.

In preparing for this workshop, I’ve really come to enjoy this annual stepping back and looking at the new approaches, materials, exercises, videos, applications, and the like that we’ve found especially effective in our Client work over the past year. This is a rare and enjoyable opportunity to condense what we’ve been evolving and learning into two intensive days.

In following the news these days it’s clear that we’re in a time of both great peril and enormous potential. And the faster things change, the more we need leadership. But we’re constantly seeing that personal, team, and organizational leadership is easy to talk about and very tough to do. And today it’s as critical as ever. How we lead ourselves and others through change determines our career — and life — effectiveness.

I was talking with a conference and seminar organizer the other day. She said they’re finding leadership has become THE hot topic of new books, conferences, and training programs. After that conversation I went to Amazon and searched “leadership” books. There are 57,605 available! A Google search on “leadership” nets 199,000,000 hits!

Leadership is clearly THE key to success. That’s why it’s such a popular topic. But despite all the talk about leadership and change, many “change fatigued” people are still struggling with how to strengthen their leadership and how to help their teams/organizations successfully navigate change. That means we need to get personal. Our leadership of others reflects our self-leadership. Leadership is an inside job.

Once again I am working to pack each day of this year’s Leading @ the Speed of Change workshop with practical guidelines, powerful systems, and personal growth strategies for leaders ‘on the grow.’ My goal is to have participants leave with an extensive set of practical tips, tools, and techniques  to align people, processes, and personal effectiveness for continuous success.

If you’re thinking of attending and perhaps bringing your team, visit Leading @ the Speed of Change: Navigating Turbulent Times to check it out. There are team discounts and “early bird savings.” You likely don’t want worms, but you can save by registering now!

What have you found are the most critical leadership skills we need to (re)learn in today’s topsy-turvy world?