Leadership Symposium speaker encourages participants to inspire others
Duke Energy CEO Lynn Good received the Chrysalis Award during the Women’s Leadership Symposium Sept. 8.
By Melissa Rollins, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
An all-day Women’s Leadership Symposium, hosted by the Greater Hartsville Chamber of Commerce on Sept. 8 featured a variety of speakers and included several break-out sessions for participants to network and get more hands-on. Chamber President Quinetta Buterbaugh said that the conference has been in the works since February and she was thrilled with the results.
The keynote speaker for the day was Lynn Good, CEO of Duke Energy. Good spoke about the importance of leadership for companies of any size and in any market, relating her points to many experiences she has had a Duke.
Good broke down what a great leader looks like using attributes that Duke identified.
“This was born out of my desire to be very clear about what leadership should look like at Duke,” Good said. “We’ve identified five leadership attributes. I’m hope that you hear something as I talk that will resonate with you and be something you can build upon for your own career or for the people that you work with.”
The first point was, Live Your Purpose.
“At Duke Energy we have a very noble purpose, we power the lives of our customers and the communities that we serve. If you think about what we do, we have a very big impact on the quality of your life because when we are not there, and you don’t have power, you truly appreciate the power of what we bring,” Good said. “I want nothing more than for our employees to feel deeply and passionately about how important our purpose is for our customers that we have the honor to serve…If we have leaders at Duke Energy who define their purpose very big and they inspire their employees to define their purpose in a very big way, you can see the magic that can come from that.”
The second point was, Work As One.
“In a company the size of Duke Energy, it is easy to work in that silo,” Good said. “Leaders who are going to excel have to be able to work across those organizational boundaries. They absolutely must own the issue that we are trying to solve and bring all of Duke Energy to that solution.”
Thirdly, leaders must Deliver Results The Right Way.
“I want you to deliver results with the values that are deep within Duke Energy. So it is safety, it is integrity, it is service to customers, it is living the values that we hold deeply,” Good said. “There are so many opportunities as a leader to push an organization to deliver results but the great leaders are going to care about the way the results are delivered because that is what is sustainable in an organization.”
Fourthly, leaders must Transform For The Future.
“We have to challenge long-held beliefs and that is really hard to do,” Good said. “We have to adapt. We have to change. We have to embrace. We have to figure out with all of our creativity how we are going to reinvent ourselves to use this new technology in a way that our customers value and our communities value. I need leaders who are bold enough and brave enough to transform and change.”
Lastly, but still important, leaders must Inspire Employees.
“I think any of you who lead can appreciate what you cannot do in yourself,” Good said. “That power of the people thing; wow. If you can get people aligned to a common vision to move forward and you can inspire them to do their very best, we can do great things.”