What Do I Need to Do to Restore Trust and Credibility Toward Leaders in My Organization?, with Darlene Drew, Leadership Conditioning, Personal & Professional Development, LLC
John Ray: [00:00:00] And hello again, everyone. This is John Ray with Business RadioX, and I’m here with Darlene Drew. Darlene is the CEO of Leadership Conditioning, Personal and Professional. And she is a leadership trainer, speaker, and executive coach. Darlene, my question for you is, what do I need to do to restore trust and credibility toward leaders in my organization?
Darlene Drew: [00:00:27] Well, John, here’s what I would say, first, I want to say that I have a belief about leadership. And that belief is, to have the opportunity to lead people is a privilege. And I put emphasis on opportunity and I put emphasis on privilege. And I say it because leader’s impact upon people was tremendous. So, with that being said, what I also want to add to it is this, the best leaders to restore trust and credibility are those who haven’t lost it. And they would be the prime leaders to work with other leaders, emphasizing the importance of their actions, those being serving, helping people, and simply making things better, that’s ultimately what people who are showing up and working in their organizations want more than anything.
Darlene Drew: [00:01:26] And the other important point that I recommend are all values driven. I call them the list of aims. And here’s what it includes, simply, valuing people, listening to what people are saying including their complaints, learning from staff at all levels, making themselves available, being available to people, being transparent, owning our mistakes, telling the truth, and being invested in the growth and the development of those that leaders have the opportunity to serve. And when those things are demonstrated, that is the segue that opens the door for people to restore trust and credibility because they’re paying attention to what leaders are doing. So, the short answer is, to restore trust and credibility, simply be a demonstration of what trust and credibility looks like in a leader.
Darlene Drew
Darlene Drew is a public servant. She’s a Leadership Trainer and the CEO/Owner of Leadership Conditioning, Personal & Professional Development, LLC. She’s a Certified Leadership Trainer, Professional Speaker and Executive Coach with the John Maxwell Team. Darlene helps businesses, companies and organizations by helping leaders develop leaders. She has made a tremendous impact on the lives of many people. “How great it is to greet each day doing what you love to do equipping people with training that helps them grow,” she says. Over the course of my journey in leadership, it’s allowed me to train thousands of people. Training is my purpose, passion and a priority in my life. My early learnings about leadership was taught in my home from my dad and my large, loving, imperfect family of eleven children. Such family dynamics brought leadership lessons that would equip me for a lifetime.”
Darlene has been a public servant through employment in law enforcement which began as a Correctional Officer where she was initially told, “You’ll never make it!” Having decided to “make it,” she continued this career path with a focus on making the field better for staff and inmates. Throughout it, she was asked interesting questions, some of which were: “Why are you here? What should we call you? Why do you do it?” These were all learning and teachable moments from Darlene’s perspective to do what she loves: learn, teach and train. She placed her focus on effecting change, mentoring and developing staff and inmates.
In August 2019, Darlene was one of ten winners of 2019 Stage Time at the International Maxwell Certification Conference. In the public sector, she earned the distinction of Senior Executive Service. Darlene served as Warden of three Federal prisons. She’s the first and only female to serve as Warden at the United States Penitentiary, Atlanta. Darlene served as Adjunct Professor at Lewis University, in Romeoville, Illinois. She is a member of the Rotary Club of Peachtree City and serves on the Board of Georgia Laws of Life.
Darlene earned her Bachelors Degree from Illinois State University and Masters Degree from Governor State University. She was awarded a Certificate of Completion for the Women and Power Program, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Executive Education. She is a Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education alumni (HKS EE alumni). Darlene is the recipient of the prestigious Attorney General Award and Susan M. Hunter Award from the Association of Women Executives in Corrections.
Darlene’s passion is “building up people,” through teaching, training and speaking. Her guiding life and leadership principle is, “Don’t teach what you don’t know, Don’t lead where you won’t go and Don’t ask for what you won’t give.” Lead Well!
Point of Contact for Darlene Drew
Listen to Darlene’s full North Fulton Business Radio Interview here.
The “One Minute Interview” series is produced by John Ray and in the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link.
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