Leadership

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Hi, I’m Matina Jewell and on behalf of my whole team, I’d like to say a huge welcome and a big congratulations on taking the time to invest in yourself and your future.

This is a program that is designed for leaders at all stages of their leadership journey as well as future leaders – those aspiring to step up and take on a bigger role within their organisation. So regardless if you’re a seasoned leader or an aspiring leader, I am so excited that you’ve joined us here for this leadership program, because over the next few weeks I will be sharing experiences and the latest up to date knowledge allowing you to transform into the leader you want to be. I know you’ll be amazed at the changes you will be able to make for yourself and in turn those changes are going to benefit your team.

Now, this is also not your typical leadership program. The lessons and tips I want to share with you have been learned on perhaps the toughest leadership fields on earth; military and war zones. I like to say they have been truly tested under tough circumstances. In times and places where people are stretched, stressed and where making an error can be the difference between life or death.

There are six modules and in each of them I will share a story from the frontline. There will be dangerous villains, life threatening situations, drama, war and even a couple of explosions! I hope you enjoy every minute of it and even more importantly that you will see the parallels to your role as a leader. I encourage you as you listen to the videos to think about where the same key lessons and challenges are present in your role, team or organisation.

I have been sharing these leadership lessons with thousands of leaders across the world and I’m excited to share them with you. In my experience leading, speaking and working with leaders from all walks of life and across multiple industries, I’ve noticed that the people who go on to have amazing careers and exciting futures are those that continually invest in themselves and their growth. These individuals are always on the hunt for new and innovative methods, and they’re prepared to step up and do the work, just like you’ve done by committing to this program.

Over the coming weeks you’ll be given the experiences, practical insights, latest tools and tactics that I along with my team of experts have brought together. We’ll help sharpen your leadership mindset and equip you with frameworks, templates and checklists used by the world’s best. You’ll have plenty of time to embed the learning through our various activities and exercises we’ve designed to help you hone the new methods and add them to your leadership arsenal.

But I want to emphasise that these activities are the key ingredients for the success of this program, so please don’t see them as optional extras that you can get around to at some later stage. Our experiences show that those who gain the most benefit from this program are those who apply the practical application of the lessons in their own work places daily. Its by the repetition of application that this new knowledge becomes a habit and then a honed skill.

So, enjoy the program and come on let’s get started, have I got a story for you… it involves a famous warlord named Jimmy Rasta…

Throughout the course I will be covering six modules:

Sudden Leadership: Dinner with a Warlord.
Delegation: Off to War… with no Manual.
Communication: 1000 Troops, Pitch Black, No Radios.
Connection: 2 Years at Sea.
Decision: Fighter Jet Attack Inbound.
Dutiful Leadership: The Honour and Privilege.

In this course you have the option to record your answers either entirely online or, you can download the course workbook for each module.

To access the course workbook, navigate to the downloads tab and save the PDF to your desktop.

Each workbook has editable fields that you can save and edit in the future.

These 6 themes were the foundation for genuine, sustainable leadership for me and the areas of opportunity that I see for organisations, time and again.

They have been designed to help inspire you to take your leadership to the next level by sharing some of the ways I developed my leadership skills and abilities, from experiences in my early military career right through to more recent senior leadership roles.

I have also commissioned world-leading researchers to scour the globe for some of the latest theory and thinking around leadership.

Having served for 15 years on operations and in hot-spots around the world in a military capacity, and having been asked to advise Prime Ministers and even the Secretary-General of the United Nations, while also having worked with hundreds of leading organisations (many of them ASX 200 and some Fortune 500 companies) for over a decade, I continue to see common themes.

They are almost timeless.

I recently heard someone say, ‘Change has never been faster than what we are experiencing now. And it will never be this slow again’.

And this is something I fervently believe.

To equip us all with the resilience we will need to thrive through change now and into the future, we need leaders at all levels.

I hope you enjoy the challenge of thinking – and feeling – deeply about the ideas in this online leadership course and I thank you for investing in yourself.

Each module will contain a video, from me, along with a series of self-reflection questions, activities, challenges and frameworks. We’ve structured things so that each module will have some same-day tasks that will allow you to quickly embed knowledge, as well as a number of longer-term tasks and opportunities that will extend over a week or more.

I have also included some bonus sections, for you overachievers [smile] wanting to dig a little deeper into topics.

I encourage you to have a crack at everything that is in front of you.

I’ve found most people like to set themselves the challenge of tackling one module a week.

Having said that, this is your show. I have a belief that you care about your development as much as anyone, so you call the shots. Please, do whatever works best for you.

So, if you want to binge watch all the videos first Netflix-style? Totally fine.

Like the idea of a challenge, but don’t have time right now – just drop a reminder in your calendar and move on.

Don’t agree with a point you find? That’s great! This isn’t a one-size fits all kind of deal, and sometimes disagreement is just an opportunity for you to challenge a belief or put something about your leadership into action that you have been meaning to do for a while. Be sure to mention it in the Facebook Community too (complimentary with your access), to get thoughts from others.

This is your journey. And journey is a nice way to think about what we’re embarking on here. It’s not a skill acquisition course. I’m sorry to say that there’s no simple switch to flick that’s suddenly going to turn you into a great and all-inspiring leader. I continue to work on it constantly. We all do.

And it’s not my style to give you orders to follow to the letter. I’m simply sharing some of my experiences and encouraging you with a range of challenges and exercises designed to allow you to grow and develop as a leader and to put some of the theory into action.

Hopefully, some of the exercises are fun for you, some may seem tough and some may even seem a bit silly! What they all have in common though is that they use sound adult learning principles and have been carefully designed to help you go further by exploring new ways of thinking and seeing things.

Before I get started it is important to call out a few things.

Most of us have good intentions.
Change is hard.
And as much as I don’t like the ‘busy’ excuse, most of us are already near capacity (or beyond!).

That’s why when it comes to self-directed courses like this, it can be difficult for us to build and keep momentum.

I want you to get the most out of this course. It is a course designed so that you can engage in it when and how you want: commuting to work, at lunch… or as a team that meets to feedback and discuss.

You will find that there is a strong emphasis on self-reflection. I love this, because this is where limiting beliefs are challenged and changed and where the creative ideas that will change the world are born!

I recommend you will need to set aside at least 15 minutes for each module’s same-day tasks. This may seem obvious, but during this time be somewhere that you can concentrate and where you won’t be easily distracted.

I personally find that by scheduling and using calendar reminders I am far more effective at following through on tasks and actions. For that reason, I will be prompting you at several points throughout the modules to book time in for reflection.

Doing this with a buddy or as a team to keep accountable may also be the impetus you need to make this investment in yourself a priority.

It made me smile broadly when I received feedback that a person who recently completed the course took his key learnings from each module to share at his team’s weekly meetings.

Ok, a final note, it is natural that your outlook will evolve over time in relation to circumstances and your experiences. On one day a concept may not connect with you, but a few weeks later it may be just the thing you need to make sense of a situation you’re experiencing. Or you may find that one of the activities that made sense before is no longer having the results you want or would expect. That’s why I want you to continue to engage with and revisit concepts that I discuss, to re-take challenges and activities and look back over your notes and to re-watch the videos. Please, challenge yourself to constantly learn and grow.

And most importantly, have fun with it.

This is a learning journey that you will ultimately have to make yourself. Put everything you think you will need in place, and I will be here with you clearing the path, nudging you in the right direction and giving you the tools and confidence you need to succeed; to choose your perspective.