Kevin Smith

Creating the Space to Lead

The greatest gift a leader can give another person is “space.” As managers, we want everyone to bring their best selves into any workspace and it is a leader’s job to harness these unique assets and skills which every person was hired to bring.Cultivating psychological capital and creating psychological safety are essential to this. Evidence shows these factors create employees who are more engaged, satisfied with their work, creative, have a lower risk of exiting, and, overall, treat one another better in the workplace. The challenge is, leaders and managers usually get in the way. In this keynote, Kevin Smith delivers an eye-opening and powerful message designed to shift leadership attitudes so that employees are able to find their own space to lead from any level, bring their best selves to work, and unlock their talents, skills and abilities without fear.

ORGANIZATIONAL IMPACT:

• Identify and explore reasons why leaders get in the way 
• Understand key elements to psychological capital and psychological safety in the workplace
• Develop an appreciation for developing the necessary habits to create psychological safety as a leader
• Foster and increase employee engagement 
• Goals and objectives, next steps to leading a healthier, more engaged workplace
• Practical, evidence-based applications any leadership team can

How Leaders Make Us Matter

It is now extraordinarily difficult to attract and retain top talent and effective leadership  matters more than ever. Employees become more engaged when they matter. But do your team members have the skills, knowledge and attitudes to go beyond their own needs and take this approach to focus on others? In  “How Leaders Make Us Matter,” Kevin Smith takes his audience through a storied journey of how four evidence-based and practical principles can inspire and equip people of all personalities and skill sets to leave everyone and everything in their organizations better than when they found them.  Moreover, Kevin provides the useful tools and knowledge for audience members to carry forward actionable steps and new habits into everyday practice.

ORGANIZATIONAL IMPACT:

• Transforming leadership from a top-down concept to a universally accessible habit
• Inspired leadership that can be useful to all members of an organization regardless of personality type and/or skill-set 
• Increased personal responsibility for organization members regardless of position 
• Understanding of employee engagement and how leadership creates mattering 
• Habit development and practice for key takeaways for all levels of leaders

Optimizing Talent Recruitment and Talent Success

Talented job-seekers have more power to be selective and are exercising that ability at levels never before experienced in industry. As a result, organizational leadership must react with a more thoughtful and strategic approach, complete with different tools in their toolkit. Moreover, it is no longer enough to simply fill a position, organizations must be prepared to support talent in their success. While this may be a huge investment in thought, time, and money, evidence demonstrates that this approach is paying off remarkably. Kevin Smith’s keynote provides organizations and audiences unique, evidence-based perspectives on the key success factors – and traps to avoid – for the new world of talent cultivation. From creating partnerships to produce talent pipelines, creating and optimizing for talent retention programs, understanding talent profiles to better fill strategic gaps within the organization, and more, Kevin Smith shares a strategic mindset for creating a more innovative solution to an organizational process in great need of updating during an unprecedented time.

ORGANIZATIONAL IMPACT:

• Crafting new networks, pipelines, and corporate conveyer-belts for sustainable talent pipelines 
• Innovative retention initiatives to reduce loss 
• Evidence-based success stories and best practices (as well as traps to avoid) 
• Understanding how organizational leadership can incorporate this as part of their human resource strategy and positively impact the bottom line 
• Support mid-level managers in making the case for change to senior leadership

Leading through the Great Resignation

“The Great Resignation” is less about people leaving work and more about a significant moment of reflection.The office dynamic has changed leaving leaders confused, feeling helpless, and searching for the right answer. So, what is it? With remote work, flexible spaces, hybrid environments, and finding new ways to acquire, engage, retain, and grow talent, how do leaders effectively lead in this new and challenging landscape? In reality, agile leaders are finding great success in adapting to the new world of work while holding true to their core values. In his keynote, Kevin Smith provides evidence-based examples of success, actionable take-a-ways, and an engaging and uplifting message about how it can be done! Kevin gets past the assumptions and focuses on actions and results for organizational transformation, leading through resistance, and aligning towards positive changes all during one of history’s most challenging times.

ORGANIZATIONAL IMPACT:

• Be able to identify and describe key factors driving change in the workforce
• Better understand motivational forces and influential dilemmas facing everyday employees
• Understand how multiple income streams and the gig economy are influencing the employee work-life mindset
• Learn examples of successful reactions and adaptations to the monumental workforce shift
• Learn the “do’s and don’t’s” of employee engagement
• Identify and articulate the critical opportunities where key leadership styles and traits will be most effective in leading through this critical time period
• Develop a personal high-level strategy for success moving forward