Thought Leadership for development and training | Melissa Davies | 317

Leveraging Thought Leadership

Today’s guest is Melissa Davies, Founder, and CEO of Wieseways Consulting, author of How Not to Act Like a BLEEP at Work, and founding member of the Global Institute for Thought Leadership. Melissa is a Dynamic Facilitator, Educator & Executive Coach with a global perspective.

Melissa walks us through the path she took to become a thought leader having first had a career as an educator in Canada and The Middle East before landing in the States to use her global insights to understand people, gain their trust, and provide a unique perspective to complex problems.

When seeking to improve leadership or teams we often seek to introduce change. Melissa talks about being intentional with those changes, using performance management, and being mindful of the culture you are intending to introduce and the possible negative implications of those changes.

Our conversation concludes with a look at how COVID-19 has affected training. We will no doubt return to in-person training on some level, the virtual method is here to stay. Melissa shares how the structure of presentations should change to keep the attention of an at-home audience.

Three Key Takeaways:

• When seeking to introduce thought leadership, find what your audience has in common at their core and understand why they do things the way they do.
• When using thought leadership to build new processes analyze the positives but also what negative impacts these changes might have.
• When delivering thought leadership online keep your presentations to 20 – 25 minutes before moving to discussion and activities.