How do you define what it means to be a leader? According to Best-Selling Author, Speaker, and Leadership Expert Ken Blanchard, a leader is one who influences the behavior or mindset of another person. Join us this week for our 200th episode as we dive deep with Ken on how every person can embody qualities of a leader. He shares the importance of humility and the source of his inspiration, and you will take away ideas of how to maintain a vibrant life.
Bio: With a passion to turn every leader into a servant leader, Ken Blanchard shares his insightful and powerful message with audiences around the world through speeches, consulting services, and bestselling books. Universally characterized by his friends, colleagues, and clients as one of the most influential and compassionate leadership experts in the world, Ken is respected for his lifetime of groundbreaking research and thought leadership. In fact, few people have influenced the day-to-day management of people and companies more than Ken Blanchard.
When Ken speaks, he speaks from the heart with warmth and humor. No matter how large the audience, he is able to communicate with each person as if the two of them were alone and talking one on one. Ken is a sophisticated storyteller with a knack for making the seemingly complex easy to understand.
Dr. Ken Blanchard is the cofounder and Chief Spiritual Officer of The Ken Blanchard Companies®, an international management training and consulting firm that he and his wife, Margie Blanchard, began in 1979 in San Diego, California. In addition to being a renowned speaker and consultant, Ken is a trustee emeritus of the Board of Trustees at his alma mater, Cornell University, cofounder of Lead Like Jesus, a world-wide Servant Leadership ministry, and he also teaches students in the Master of Science in Executive Leadership Program at the University of San Diego.
Ken’s impact as an author is far reaching. His iconic 1982 classic, The One Minute Manager®, coauthored with Spencer Johnson, has sold more than 13 million copies and remains on bestseller lists today. In the past three decades he has authored or coauthored 60 books whose combined sales total more than 21 million copies. His groundbreaking works—including Raving Fans, The Secret, and Leading at a Higher Level, to name just a few—have been translated into more than 42 languages. In 2005 Ken was inducted into Amazon’s Hall of Fame as one of the top 25 bestselling authors of all time.
Ken has received many awards and honors for his contributions in the fields of management, leadership, and speaking. The National Speakers Association awarded him its highest honor, the Council of Peers Award of Excellence. He was inducted into the HRD Hall of Fame by Training magazine and Lakewood Conferences, and he received the Golden Gavel award from Toastmasters International. Ken also received the Thought Leadership Award for continued support of work-related learning and performance by ISA, The Association of Learning Providers.
Born in New Jersey and raised in New York, Ken received his master’s degree from Colgate University and his bachelor’s and doctorate degrees from Cornell University.
Ken’s Something Extra: Get out of your own way and to realize that you are not the center of the universe. It’s about we, not me.
