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An award-winning Senior Business Leader, Chair, and Board Member, Maureen Metcalf established Innovative Leadership Institute, a specialized management consulting business. ILI helps leaders envision the future they want to create, elevating leadership quality and innovating how and what they deliver! As a preeminent change agent, she has set strategic direction and helped transform her client’s organizations to deliver significant business results such as increased profitability, cycle time reduction, improved quality, and increased employee effectiveness.
Maureen is a pioneer in the sphere of Leadership and Executive Coaching. She started her career in corporate finance, moving to proposal pricing and contract management in her early career. After a few years, she learned about consulting and never looked back. She worked for two large firms, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting). Maureen built excellent skills over the decade in this environment. She started ILI and, around the same time, started teaching in an MBA program. She taught in one of the early online MBA
programs as well as in person. These activities complemented one another. She was on a learning journey that co-authored ten award-winning books and numerous articles and built a significant global podcast audience.
In 2019, the International Leadership Institute recognized her for her contributions to the field of leadership. Additionally, she received awards for the combination of leadership, innovation, and technology by being named Business First BizTech Executive of the Year 2019, Ten Influential Business Leaders to Watch 2020, Global Excellence 2020 Award: Most Outstanding Leadership Development Consultancy 2020, and ComSpark Central Ohio’s Outstanding Woman in Technology 2020. She is also very proud to have her podcast aired across all major platforms, including recently on the NPRone app.
Maureen has been successful because of her commitment to excellence in her work and her tenacity in overcoming challenges. She also credits her many clients, team members, mentors, friends, teachers, colleagues, strategic partners, and advisors over the past two decades. It has taken a village to build the company.”
Diversifying the Organization’s Offerings
The Innovative leadership Institute (ILI) provides sophisticated, customizable leadership development, coaching, and assessment solutions that facilitate mindset and behavioral change and accelerate culture transformation aligned with organizational strategy and business goals. Everything focuses on integrating leadership innovation into organizational DNA and creating a culture of innovation. In addition to elevating leaders, ILI supports client organizations in confirming or revising their visions and transforming their systems, processes, and products.
These offerings appeal to leaders and organizations across industries. The leadership development programs offer a comprehensive pathway from emerging leaders through senior leaders. Additionally, organizational consulting focuses on a range of issues impacting today’s organizations.
The “Secret Sauce”
Here, the focus is on leadership mindsets, and Maureen has 7 of them. This mindset drives her behavior.
1. Professionally Humble
2. Unwavering commitment to right action
3. 360-degree thinker
4. Intellectually versatile
5. Highly authentic and reflective
6. Inspire followership
7. Innately Collaborative
Definition of Success
Impact. Maureen wants to make the most significant positive impact on as many people as possible, knowing that each of those people improves the lives of others like the ripple of a stone through water. She would love to see the leaders she works with solve some of the world’s most challenging problems.
From the CEO’s Desk
I think my biggest failure is underestimating my abilities and overvaluing the input from others. I followed advice from others when it differed from my own because I thought others knew more than I did. Of course, there is value in humility, but self-doubt caused me to defer when I should have taken charge. This struggle is one of the many factors impacting our leadership development offerings. Strong self-awareness is a crucial foundation stone for all highly effective leaders.
In the future, I expect to continue working with higher impact leaders dedicated to providing high-impact products and services and focusing on solving our Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) challenges. I will continue to make this impact through my paid client work and the writing and podcasting platforms. I want to democratize access to strong leadership thinking. Forbes articles, LinkedIn newsletter, and podcasts are free. You don’t need a high income to get access to leading thinking. I am proud to make this available to everyone who has internet access.
“Vision” & Leadership Style
Maureen Metcalf believes leadership creates a strategic advantage for organizations and communities and is crucial for making the world we want to inhabit! Therefore, she helps leaders Innovate how they lead and co-create a future world that offers a better life for all people.
“I believe leaders have a precious role. Their work impacts not only the working conditions of their teams and organizations. Ultimately, they also affect the economics of families and communities. People generally say I invest in people, help them develop and create opportunities to reach their highest potential”, shared Maureen when asked about her leadership style. “Each of these people contributes to making the world better in their way.”
Primary Characteristic of a Business Leader
Refer back to the secret sauce above. Business leaders need the leadership mindset that drives nuanced thinking and effective behaviors. This mindset informs sound judgment, which can look like compassion and wisdom, and ethical behavior. On the other hand, it can look like systemic
thinking. Good leaders need to demonstrate sound judgment continually!
The Best Advice Recently Received
First, stand up and own your success. Know when to share credit and know when to claim responsibility for what you have accomplished. This is particularly true for women – it is essential to understand how to be taken seriously and still be authentic.
Road Ahead
ILI is committed to elevating leadership and transforming organizations globally. They continue to work with an expanding list of clients. Additionally, the ILI team enriches people’s lives through podcasts, blogs, articles, and online education platforms and helps everyone grow irrespective of their starting point and income. ILI would like to grow significantly to help prepare more leaders to navigate disruption and succeed with their online platforms. With the amount of change the world has seen, leaders continue to make an increasing impact. More effective leadership creates a better future for everyone.
"I want to see better leaders across the globe, solving our biggest problems and also leveraging the opportunities we have to make the world better."- Maureen Metcalf
“We are living at a point in history where we can solve problems that seem unsolvable. Strong, effective leadership will accelerate our ability to move forward in co-creating a better future for everyone”, Maureen further added.
