Backbone, Heart, and the Power of Humble Leadership | Urs Koenig

When veteran executive coach, professor, and ultra-endurance champion Urs Koenig signed up to be a NATO peacekeeping commander and United Nations peacekeeper in his fifties, he thought he knew a thing or two about leadership.

In his new book Radical Humility he openly shares that what he discovered as he embarked on this journey was a new leadership paradigm. 

One that replaces the top-down, “heroic” leadership of the past,

With a more human-centered approach that views humility as a strength and key to achieving goals in today’s complex world.

Today we will take a deep dive into the topic of humility as we explore:

• Urs stories of facing various challenges, including struggling with academics and getting kicked out of school, and how these moments helped shape his professional trajectory.
• Why humility is a strength, but not a replacement for competence
• An athletic dream of completinga race across America. How it unraveled, and what Urs learned from failure that helped him find the resilience to come back stronger.
• How to stay open and receptive to learning when it’s hard. Including when we:
  •  Receive tough feedback, 
  • When we fail, 
  • And when we experience difficult emotions. 
• Reflections on the intersection of backbone and heart in leadership and how leaders can get better at being tough on results but tender on people. 
• The importance of building thriving relationships and practices that support doing so at work and in our lives.

If you find this conversation intriguing I  would encourage you to check out Radical Humility: Be a Badass Leader and a Good Human, which you can find wherever books are sold. 

More about Urs:

Urs Koenig is a former United Nations military peacekeeper and NATO military peacekeeping commander, a highly accomplished ultraendurance champion, a widely published professor, bestselling author of Radical Humility, and a seasoned executive coach and keynote speaker with more than three decades of experience helping hundreds of leaders and dozens of executive teams unlock new levels of achievement across four continents. 

He is the founder of the Radical Humility Leadership Institute and speaks frequently on the topic of leadership to corporations and associations across the globe. His message of Radical Humility in leadership has inspired teams from across the spectrum, including Amazon, Starbucks, the Society of Human Resource Management, Vistage, the University of Melbourne, and Microsoft. 

He holds a PhD in geography and a Master of Science from the University of Zürich, Switzerland, and an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management.  For more, please visit urskoenig.com

Did you find this episode inspiring? Here are other conversations we think you’ll love

• Meeting Failure with Curiosity and Compassion | Amy Edmondson
• The Transformative Power of Humility | Dr. Daryl Van Tongeren
• Meeting Challenges with Backbone and Heart | Roshi Joan Halifax and Rhonda Magee

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