Eric McNulty

Guiding a team or organization through a crisis begins with becoming comfortable with ambiguity that you, you, your team, or your board off kilter. But effective crisis leaders know how to build islands of certainty that restore calm and foster resilience in the unknown. Eric will give you a glimpse into how they navigate even the most turbulent situations so you, too, can confidently take the reins of any challenge.

What listeners will take away from this presentation: 

•  The three dimensions of a powerful leadership toolset known as meta-leadership and how these skills can empower you to make confident decisions.
•  How to establish a culture of trust and accountability that both small teams and large organizations know they can depend on, no matter what.
•  Sometimes crises emerge from our organization’s own actions, and sometimes they’re an unexpected shock. Learn how to prepare for multiple futures, both foreseeable and difficult to discern—so you’re ready to nimbly address whatever reality unfolds.
• Learn how to act swiftly and with courage. In this hyper-connected world, our actions are felt around the world in an instant. We just don’t have as much time to think about how to respond in a crisis.

It’s impossible to prepare yourself for every possible outcome. But there are essential skills and techniques you can learn to face high-stakes moments with confidence.

Eric uses accessible insights from neuroscience and psychology to help leaders understand how to optimize their performance and that of their teams. Participants leave with a better understanding of themselves and how to work with the amazing capabilities of their brains while avoiding common pitfalls.

What listeners will take away from this presentation: 

• How to recognize the instinctual panic response to threat—and how to overcome it and pivot to productive action.
• How to make quality decisions in high stakes, high pressure environments.
• Expand your thinking to appreciate divergent perspectives that may reveal opportunities and potential threats.
• Discover ways to rejuvenate thinking capacity amidst ambiguity and information overload.

Eric makes this complex science accessible through straightforward methods and techniques to put the knowledge to work. He shares compelling stories that illustrate how even experienced leaders can succumb to thinking traps—and how the audience can avoid those missteps.

How is leading changing? The relative stability of decades past is giving way to increased—and sustained—turbulence. Sense making, meaning-making, space-making, place-making, and future-making are the critical mindset and skills today and in the years ahead. These help you orient diverse teams in uncertain times, cultivate trust and autonomy, and create the conditions for sustained excellence.

Consider the leaders you most admire. They develop an insightful understanding of every facet of a problem. They exude an unshakeable passion that motivates and engages others. They are inclusive and open to “hard truths.” They master the paradox of being both heroic and humble. This extraordinary power bestows true meaning to work, inspiring high performance, and high accountability. In this talk, you will discover how to become this leader.

What listeners will take away from this presentation: 

•  How to steward teams large and small toward meaningful success (and create an environment people will love to work in).
• How to negotiate and resolve conflict with stakeholders with divergent perspectives to generate unity of mission and effort.
• Understand how to harness humans’ social instincts to stimulate cooperative, collaborative behaviors, even in highly competitive environments.
• You’ll also learn to harness your individual strengths, vulnerabilities, perspectives, and personal stories to establish a personal, purposeful leadership style.

Leading is not a rank or role—it’s an attitude, purpose, and skillset that transcends any job title. Eric will help empower your audience with actionable, researched-backed, and engaging insights that help build confidence in their personal leadership skills.

As work becomes ever-more knowledge intensive, subject matter experts—engineers, physicians, scientists, public safety professionals, and more—are called into leadership roles. Spoiler alert: no amount of technical expertise guarantees success in engaging people and creating the conditions for sustained high performance. Eric has spent more than a decade helping subject matter experts step up to these new responsibilities with confidence, teaching at Harvard and elsewhere.

What listeners will take away from this presentation: 

• How to develop the mindset and essential skills to become a confident, effective leader
• The three key drivers of psychological satisfaction—and how to create a work environment that fosters them
•  The essential practices that keep you growing as a leader—making you more compelling to follow.
• How to delve into your individual strengths, vulnerabilities, perspectives, and personal stories to establish authentic presence as a leader.

Leaders are made (often self-made), not born. Everyone has some capacity to lead. Eric will provoke the audience to explore what can make them their “best leader selves.”