S4-Ep12: Geneva Experts Share Why Leadership Is a Group Effort

Innovating Leadership: Co-Creating Our Future

Guests: Peter Cunningham, Co-founder, & Patrick Sweet, Co-Director, of the Geneva Leadership Alliance

Being a great leader means you can’t lead alone anymore. The leadership paradigm is changing.

In this episode, Maureen speaks with Patrick Sweet and Peter Cunningham from the Geneva Center for Security Policy about the evolving nature of leadership. They explore how leadership is no longer just an individual endeavor, but a collective practice, emphasizing adaptability, cultural sensitivity, and resilience. From navigating post-conflict trauma to balancing polarities like continuity and change, this conversation offers powerful insights for growing your leadership – especially if your firm works across borders.

Here's what Peter, Patrick and Maureen cover:

1. Why effective leadership is now collective, shared within your team;
2. How our multigenerational and multicultural workforces require greater adaptability in your leadership skills; and
3. With today’s social and political divides, the need to navigate opposing “truths,” the find and leverage what your team members (and customers and stakeholders) have in common.

Produced in partnership with the International Leadership Association: https://ilaglobalnetwork.org/.

Other episodes you'll enjoy:

• Economic & Geoplitical Shifts: The Trends Leaders Need to Know for 2025 with Christopher Washington
• Empathy, Dialogue, & a Good Mood: An Ambassador Reveals What Leaders Need in Crisis with Thomas Greminger & Peter Cunningham
• Courageous Leadership Is Required to Address Global Issues with Mike Gerbis

For daily wisdom from our guests, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn. We’re onTikTok, Threads, and Twitter, too!

RESOURCES:

The Geneva Center for Security Policy’s website is https://www.gcsp.ch/.

Our host Maureen Metcalf posts a newsletter every week on LinkedIn. You can subscribe here.

Maureen’s latest book is Innovative Leadership & Followership in the Age of AI. You’ll find details about it at https://bit.ly/LeaderInAI, or check out the Kindle version at https://amzn.to/44buVz8 . The audiobook version is now available at https://amzn.to/4dTCleZ.

Her other 10 books are available on Amazon here.

Books we’re reading for fun or personal development right now include:

• Covert Cows and Chick-fil-A by Steve Robinson; it’s available in hardback at https://amzn.to/460LnmQ, on Kindle at https://amzn.to/3RVXhZs, and as an audiobook at https://amzn.to/3xPjBgn.
• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Paperback = https://amzn.to/3VEl7cU, Kindle = https://amzn.to/45JGm1L, and audiobook = https://amzn.to/3RPhC2y
• Everyday Ubuntu: Living Better Together, the African Way by Mungi Ngomane. Hardback (https://amzn.to/48Doh6j) and audiobook (https://amzn.to/48YCRF4)
• Nerve: Lessons on Leadership from Two Women Who Went First by Martha Piper & Indira Samarasekera. Paperback (https://amzn.to/3tOtzg4) and audiobook (https://amzn.to/41OYdT5)

NOTE: As an Amazon partner, we may make a small commission from books you buy through these links.

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OUR PODCAST TEAM:

Host & Executive Producer: Maureen Metcalf

Editor & Executive Producer: Dan Mushalko

Video & Graphics Editor: Devon Mushalko

Booking Producer: Jenna Reik

CONNECT WITH US:

YouTube: @InnovatingLeadership

Threads: @innovativeleaders

X/Twitter/Whatever New Name It Has This Week: @IL_Institute

LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/ILI-LinkedIn2

TikTok: @innovativeleadership

Website: InnovativeLeadershipInstitute.com

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About Our Guests:

Peter Cunningham is Head of Leadership at GCSP and Co-Founder of the Geneva Leadership Alliance, a network of associates and partner organisations working together to advance the understanding and practice of leadership for the benefit of peace and security worldwide. Peter has over 20 years of experience in leadership development, adult education, and executive coaching across private, public, and non-profit sectors. He is constantly seeking new, diverse, and innovative ways to bridge the study of leadership with the practice of leading, especially at international level and across cultural, geographical, political and organisational divides. Leveraging his diverse experience and background, he creates safe spaces for learning and encourages brave spaces for application, enabling people to learn leadership mindsets and practices in transformative ways and adapt them to their own work and life.

Patrick Sweet is Co-Director of the Geneva Leadership Alliance. Previously, he was regional director for Northern Europe at the Center for Creative Leadership, responsible for advanced leadership development programs in the region in close collaboration with EMEA CCL teams. He brings 25+ years of business, organisational and leadership development to the Alliance.

Dr. Sweet has been co-lead in several EU-funded programs focused on innovation and leadership, was European Developmental Lead for Korn-Ferry International’s European implementation of leadership assessment tools developed by Dr Sweet’s company, and has coached, consulted, and trained in Talent Management and Leadership Development with international, regional, governmental and non-governmental organisations in Europe for 25+ years; and in the U.S. prior to this. His Ph.D. is in Business Economics from Lund University, Sweden, with doctoral and graduate studies at the University of Southern California and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.