The Intersection of Leadership and Risk

In this episode, I’ll be exploring risk with Ren Morton.  We cover a lot of ground in this episode, starting with how growth requires discomfort. Starting with that as a key assumption, we make the case that a key leadership skill should be getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. Through her sharing and stories, we pull apart skills required to take risks, like self-awareness, emotional intelligence, ability to read patterns and dynamics, being aware of one's own triggers, and slowing things down to take time to plan.  We also highlight the beauty in risk-taking, which is that it also gives us the opportunity to learn more about ourselves and stretch our skills in the process.  In that murky journey, "you discover the edges of you".  

Ren is a life-long learner and a bit of a renaissance woman.  She started paid-employment at the age of fourteen for local government, moved into the non-profit sector after undergraduate, and then into state government after completing her Masters of Public Administration with honors. Over these last 17 years, Ren has held a variety of positions - often times holding multiple positions simultaneously. It is fair to say that Ren's favorite hobby is skill acquisition, and her roles have allowed her to acquire proficiency in facilitation, website design, database development, leadership, quality improvement, graphic design, human resources, and budget management just to name a few. At heart, Ren is a theorist and researcher who thinks deeply about the cultures she has found herself in and persistently ponders how people work together to accomplish their goals. Currently appointed to formal leadership roles at the state level, Ren nevertheless believes in leading in place- wherever that place may be.

If you want to know more about Ren and her work, you can find her on LinkedIn @ChelseaRenMorton, or on Instagram and Twitter @PoetsScroll.

Damaris Kunkler provides the music for this podcast. You can find her music across all digital platforms @damariskunkler, or @comesitbymyfire.

In this episode, my guest is Kathryn Evans, President of Rooted Strategy, a nonprofit consulting firm based in Kansas City, Missouri.  Kathryn and I cover a lot of ground our conversation about risk.  We talk about it from an individual perspective and what it is like to experience a situation in which taking a risk might be necessary.  We also move into exploring how risk and risk assessment plays out in organizations.  From both perspectives, we discover that getting clear about values is a necessary precursor that allows us to assess risk better.