Leaders overcome moral challenges by exercising moral courage.

Moral courage is the mastery of the fear of social consequences such as being perceived as disloyal, alienation, ridicule, punishment, job loss, or loss of social status.

In some cases, the right choice is crystal clear.

In other cases, the correct course of action is not so clear.

In the end, leaders must always accept full responsibility for their actions.

Described as “a visionary thinker with a rare intellect,” Simon has devoted his professional life to help advance a vision of the world that does not yet exist; a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe at work and return home fulfilled at the end of the day.

Sandy is the founder of C2FO and serves as Chairman of the Board and CEO. In addition, he is Chairman of the Board of The Collectors Fund, a private equity fund focused on alternative asset classes. Prior to founding The Collectors Fund and C2FO, Sandy founded Perfect Commerce (fka eScout.com) and served as the company’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer from 2000-06. Prior to founding Perfect Commerce, he served as Chairman of the Board and CEO of UMB Bank and CEO of UMB Financial, a NASDAQ traded financial services company more than $20 billion in assets. Sandy began his career with UMB after graduating from Northwestern University in 1987. He majored in American History. Sandy is an active angel and venture investor and serves on the corporate boards of UMB Financial (NASDAQ: UMBF), UMB Bank, NIC (NASDAQ: EGOV), and AXA Art USA (NYSE: AXA). He previously served on the board of Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (Cboe) and BATS Exchange, two of the largest stock exchanges in the world. Sandy and his family are active in academic, civic and philanthropic endeavors. He serves on the board of the Agriculture Future of America (AFA), a non-profit scholarship and leadership development organization that he co-founded. Sandy and his family live on a farm in Kansas City, Mo., where they raise and care for their horses, sheep, and any and all wild animals (not including their four children).

Michael Hyatt is the founder and CEO of Michael Hyatt & Co., which helps leaders get the focus they need to win at work and succeed at life. Formerly chairman and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, Michael is also the creator of the Full Focus Planner and a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author of several books, including Free to Focus, Your Best Year Ever, Living Forward, and Platform. His work has been featured by the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, Businessweek, Entrepreneur, and other publications. Michael has been married to his wife, Gail, for more than 40 years. They have five daughters, three sons-in-law, and nine grandchildren. 

Scott Jeffrey Miller serves as FranklinCovey’s executive vice president of thought leadership. He is the host of On Leadership with Scott Miller, a weekly leadership webcast, podcast, and newsletter that features interviews with renowned business titans, authors, and experts. Scott also authors a weekly leadership column for Inc.com and is a regular contributor to Arianna Huffington’s

Thrive Global and the American City Business Journal. He is the bestselling author of FranklinCovey’s Management Mess to Leadership Success: 30 Challenges to Become the Leader You Would Follow.

In his previous roles as executive vice president of business development and chief marketing officer, Scott led the global transformation of FranklinCovey’s brand. Prior to that, he served as general manager of client facilitation services and general manager of FranklinCovey’s central region. Scott joined the Covey Leadership Center in 1996 as a client partner with the Education division.

Scott began his professional career in 1992 with the Disney Development Company as a founding member of the development team that designed the town of Celebration, Florida. Scott now lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with his wife and three young sons.

Jon Holzmeister has been in sales leadership for the majority of his career. At age 24, Jon was Unitog’s youngest sales manager managing the Southeast Region, which included Atlanta and Charlotte. After his success at Unitog Jon moved to AngioDynamics, a pre-IPO medical device company where he achieved a growth rate that exceeded 20% annually. In 1999, Jon returned to Kansas City where he became the Vice President of Sales for Marketshare Group where he remained for 17 years. Marketshare Group specialized in consumer direct mail, list brokerage, email and mobile marketing -- at their height, Marketshare Group mailed to over 16 million consumers. Jon then moved in the VP of Sales and Marketing role at NetStandard, an outsourced technology for the SMB space.  At NetStandard, he achieved year-over-year growth each year of his tenure, including 2019, which is the largest revenue in company history.  Which brings us to today, Jon is the President of the Kansas City Region for Accelerent, a Business Development platform with business leaders that are focused on helping each other build their businesses.  Accelerent currently has six market-locations including Kansas City, Washington DC, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Phoenix, and Denver. Each partner is exclusive to its business category and Accelrent brings them together in a variety of environments to build relationships and create new business. Accelerent uses a proprietary suite of tools, training, strategy, and support to generate measurable results for its partners. Before joining Accelerent, Jon was a partner for three years in which Accelerent was a core pillar in his business development platform. He understands first hand how Partners can use Accelernet to fuel their growth and benefit from building long-term relationships. 

In many of my keynotes, I informally poll the audience on if they view themselves as leaders or not.  

On average less than 1/3 of those polled actually raise their hand.

Here are some of the typical responses from those who didn't raise their hand:

• "I don't have the title or position."
• "I'm not the main leader."
• 'I'm waiting until I get to the top, then I'll lead."
• "I'm in the middle (or bottom)  of the company"
• "What I do makes no difference to the bottom line."

This is probably the biggest misconception about leadership; this belief that leadership comes from having a position or title. That you can’t lead if you’re not at the top.

In reality, leadership isn't something you wait around for.  It's all about influence.  And to become influential you must intentionally add value to everyone, in every situation.

When you grasp this concept you will start to see how leadership is all about choice, and that you can begin to lead from where you're at right now.  No position or title is needed.

In this episode, we deep dive into how we can shift our mindset and start adding value no-matter where we are in our lives.

Great leadership is learned, and great leaders are made, from the middle and below in organizations.  It's down in the trenches where real leadership challenges are met and solved.

It's about having the consistency & courage to meet these challenges head-on, at the lower levels, and being prepared when the higher leadership calling presents itself.

We all have way more influence than we realize.  Once we become aware of this potential, we then realize that even though good leadership starts at the top, it's the middle & below that will take it across the finish line.

Whitney Kroenke is the Co-Founder and Board President of the Playing for Change Foundation (PFCF), a non-profit organization dedicated to connecting the world through music by providing resources to musicians and their communities around the world.

The Playing for Change Foundation is dedicated to the fundamental idea that peace and change are possible through the universal language of music. PFCF currently has 15 programs operating across 11 countries, which collectively serve over 2000 children weekly. Working closely with each local community, PFCF has created safe learning environments for children that offer access to technology, musical instruments and supplies that have been previously unavailable.

In addition to PFCF, Whitney works as part of the Playing for Change Films artistic team which seeks to discover music on the streets and in the hearts of musicians worldwide. To this date, Playing for Change has completed two feature length documentary films, twelve albums, and 202 videos. The first album, Playing for Change: Songs Around the World, debuted at number ten on the Billboard Charts in April of 2009. Playing for Change videos have been viewed over 900 million times on YouTube.

Ms. Kroenke is a graduate of the Northwestern School of Communication with a B.S. in Theatre. She currently lives in Miami Beach, FL, and Austin, TX, where in addition to continuing her work with all things Playing for Change, she is a partner in Barry’s Bootcamp Fitness Studios. She is also the Co-Founder of the Austin based 9 Banded Whiskey.

In the midst of this economic uncertainty due to this COVID-19 crisis, I thought it would be good to bring on two seasoned marketing professionals to discuss what we should be focusing on now.

This episode is full of actionable tactics, strategies, and pivoting mindsets that will allow you to better deal with our new reality.

Mike Snyder is a managing partner of RSM Marketing, a firm of 35 professionals working across six brands. RSM has offices in Wichita and Kansas City and has clients nationally through its novel Outsourced Marketing Department through a flat-fee subscription service.

John Hanley is Senior Vice President and Director of Marketing for Equity Bank, a $4-billion regional community bank. John leads all marketing, communications, messaging, media, public relations and brand strategy throughout Equity's network in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.

Nice guys finish first. Nez Balelo is a Major League Baseball super-agent, representing such players as Japanese phenom Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels, Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers, Arizona D-Back' Adam Jones and many more. Balelo also stands out as an anomaly. Raised in San Diego Ca, first-generation Portuguese descent where his family migrated from the Madeira Islands in Portugal and was raised in the Commercial fishing industry, Balelo would become a promising MLB infielder before a devastating accident cut short his playing days.

Adversity and opportunity became the catalysts for Balelo positioning himself as one of the most humble, venerable, and successful professionals in all of sports. After a horrific accident took him permanently out of the lineup, Nez focused on his entrepreneurial skills and opened up a development baseball school outside of Los Angeles called West Coast Baseball School.

At the same time accepted a job with the Atlanta Braves in a Hybrid development, Scouting and consulting role. After a 10-year run working for the Braves and learning the Organization business along with building and purchasing numerous baseball facilities, Balelo took his drive to another level and walked away from the Braves and Sold all of his schools and branding license and started a Sports Agency. Balelo brought with him several players who he developed during these years to start the Agency who all made it to the Major Leagues. After 3 years Balelo already established himself as a name in the Sports agency world having numerous first-round picks and players already entering into the Major Leagues, was asked to join IMG Sports group in a Senior Executive position which eventually moved over to CAA Entertainment to start the Sports group in 2006.

As a major player with Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Nez Balelo helps keep CAA Sports atop the standings in MLB player signings. When it comes to the dotted line, Nez is the penultimate example of how MLB players are represented and supported. Instilled with dedication and tenacity from working alongside his father, Balelo knows how ethics, mindset, commitment, and staying active play such a vital role in the prosperity of your organization that led him to the rightful place on Forbes “Most Powerful Sports Agents in the World” list.