Steve Farber is the president of Extreme Leadership, Incorporated, and the founder of The Extreme Leadership Institute, organizations devoted to the cultivation and development of Extreme Leaders in the business community, non-profits and education. His third book, Greater Than Yourself: The Ultimate Lesson In Leadership, was a Wall Street Journal® and USA Today® bestseller. His second book, The Radical Edge: Stoke Your Business, Amp Your Life, and Change the World, was hailed as “a playbook for harnessing the power of the human spirit.” And his first book, The Radical Leap: A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership, is already considered a classic in the leadership field. It received Fast Company magazine’s Readers’ Choice Award and was recently named one of the 100 Best Business Books of All Time. His newest edition, The Radical Leap Re-Energized: Doing What You Love in the Service of People Who Love What You Do, is in bookstores now.
“Approach the act of leadership as you’d approach an extreme sport: learn to love the fear and exhilaration that naturally comes with the territory.”
A Universal Message. A subject-matter expert in business leadership and a frequent guest on news-talk shows around the country, Farber is a senior-level leadership coach and consultant who has worked with and spoken to a wide variety of public and private organizations in virtually every arena, from the tech sector to financial services, manufacturing, health care, hospitality, entertainment, retail, and even the US government.
Leading from experience. In 1989, after having run his own financial services company, Farber devoted his professional life to the field of leadership development and has been at it ever since. He was director of service programs at TMI, an international training consultancy, and then worked for 6 years as Vice President and Official Mouthpiece (that’s what it said on his business card) of The Tom Peters Company where he met several of his mentors including author/gurus Tom Peters, Jim Kouzes, and Terry Pearce. In 2000, Farber established his own company, Extreme Leadership, Inc, where he is president and CEO. He is also the co-founder of The Center for Social Profit Leadership, a non-profit organization formed to serve the leadership development needs of social entrepreneurs, and served as Vice Chairman on the Board of Directors of the world-renown, Up With People, a global leadership program for students from 18 to 29 years old.
Coaching and inspiring Extreme Leadership at all organizational levels is Steve’s passion, and he does so with a style that is part strategist, part social commentator and all energy.
Extreme Leadership at Work and Beyond
Based on the book named as one of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time
(Ideal audience: current, next generation, and high potential managers and leaders at all organizational levels)
In this chaotic and extreme age, business leaders must demonstrate an unprecedented level of passion, determination, foresight, dedication, and fearlessness. In this wildly popular speech, leadership speaker, Steve Farber, shows you how to use the LEAP framework – Love, Energy, Audacity and Proof to radically improve your organization and your life.
In this energetic and insightful program, you will discover how to…
- Harness fear and use it to your advantage
- Use the power of the heart to achieve the extraordinary at work
- Inspire yourself and others to change the world you live in
- Earn your customers’ and employees’ love and loyalty
- Keep yourself and others passionately engaged in the work at hand—even in troubled or difficult times
Greater Than Yourself
3 Steps to Attaining the New Gold Standard of Leadership
(Ideal audience: current, next generation, and high potential managers and leaders at all organizational levels)
The truly great leaders in life and work become so by causing others to be greater than themselves. In this program—based on his new book, Greater Than Yourself—leadership speaker, Steve Farber, shows that dedicating yourself to bringing others along so that they can achieve more than you is the ultimate way to boost talent, ramp productivity and create truly significant current and future leaders. You will be challenged to aspire to the new gold standard in leadership with a powerful, three-step method:
- Expand Yourself – you’ll discover tools to deepen and expand your personal capabilities—the raw material for true leadership.
- Give Yourself – you’ll learn the art of ‘philanthropizing’ your leadership approach—the raw material for developing capacity in others.
- Replicate Yourself – you’ll experience the power of expanding beyond your personal, one-to-one influence—the raw material for changing your organization for the better.
“At first this [approach] may seem counterintuitive, but I encourage you to set aside your pre-conceived notions of success and accomplishment and throw yourself whole-heartedly into the Greater Than Yourself endeavor.”
– Patrick Lencioni, bestselling author, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Radical Accountability
Making the Leap From Individual Contributor to Extreme Leader
(Ideal audience: front-line employees or mixed level groups)
Whatever the challenge at your company—improving customer service, coping with change, inspiring transformation, improving corporate culture, recruiting and retaining great talent, building teamwork, fostering innovation—it all comes down to this: someone has to do something significant and enlist others to help. Someone, in other words, has to take accountability. Someone has to lead. And it doesn’t have to be the boss. Leadership, ultimately, has nothing to do with the title on your business card or your position on the organizational chart. It’s about who you are and what you do to change things for the better—regardless of your “place” in the company.
In Radical Accountability, leadership speaker, Steve Farber, will show you four personal strategies for being the architect of transformation from any position or level in the company.
The Extreme Leadership Jam Session
(Ideal audience: current, next generation, and high potential managers and leaders at all organizational levels)
Here’s the idea: Steve’s been in the trenches. He has over 20 years of experience working with thousands of business leaders in all kinds of industries. And much of that experience has revolved around having open, honest and powerful conversations about the nature of leadership with his clients and then helping them to apply new ideas to their specific challenges. To put it simply: there is no script when you’re dealing with your client’s current business realities.
Now, the fact is that Steve delivers a powerful and entertaining keynote speech. And he loves to do it. But the Extreme Leadership Jam Session is a departure from the leadership speaker norm, because there is no script. With the exception of a couple of principles to set the stage, there is no specific list of points to be covered. The audience will determine the course of the program. Right on the spot. And the program will develop according to the group’s most pressing leadership needs and questions. THIS WOULD SCARE THE PANTS OFF OF MANY “PROFESSIONAL SPEAKERS.” Take away their script, and you take away their net. And many speakers either don’t like that, or, frankly, have nothing to say beyond the scripted word. Farber loves it, and so will you…if you have the nerve to give it a try.
Here’s How It Works:
1. Farber sets the stage and proposes a few challenging ideas to the group. He briefly defines Extreme Leadership and talks about the importance of open dialogue.
2. The audience — which could be as small as 10 people or as large as several thousand — forms into small groups or clusters, has a quick discussion according to Farber’s guidelines and then generates One Important Question about leadership as it relates to their current work/life situation.
3. Farber fields the questions (as many as possible giving the amount of available time and the size of the group), and, when appropriate, facilitates a discussion with the entire audience.
4. And away we go! Learning about the Extreme Leadership principles that people need right now.
“Dear Steve…I can tell you first hand that our audience greatly resonated with your provocative and inspirational comments…From all of us at Raytheon, please accept our best wishes as you continue to spread the word. You have a powerful message that is artfully delivered!”
– William Swanson, Chairman and CEO, Raytheon
“Your message to our Leadership Team was so eloquently delivered I was left speechless. It wasn’t just a speech — one way and directional — but rather a mantra to live and work by. Your message about love, energy, audacity and proof hit home with every one of the folks in that room. It was tangible and practical and could be put to application immediately. In fact, we did so throughout the next day by creating action plans to implement that energy to create change in our culture. It was one of the best, if not the best, I have ever heard. I was thoroughly impressed in how you made the whole session so personal to Bayer Diagnostics. Your preparation is impeccable. I was personally moved and wanted to thank you for the opportunity to have that experience, to watch our Leadership Team get ignited. with passion, and to propel Bayer Diagnostics to GREATNESS.”
– Tony Bihl, President, Bayer Healthcare Diagnostics Division
“The strength of our leadership defines our success as a firm, and your presentation on “extreme leadership” provided our attendees with the means to become better leaders.”
– Michael E. Ventling, Vice Chair and North Central Managing Partner, Ernst & Young
“[Your presentation] was “bang on,” as the English say, extremely effective, and will be forever remembered by the members who were there. I have subsequently heard from several members who read your book on the way home and now aspire to use the LEAP process in their daily professional lives.”
– Marc F. Swiontkowski, MD, Professor and Chair, University of Minnesota Department of Orthopaedic Surgery (writing on behalf of The American Orthopaedic Association)
“I’d like to share with you a couple of the comments we received about your presentation from our evaluations: ’10+++ Unique and humorous take on leadership. Inspiration in a high-intensity delivery.’; ‘Dynamic presentation. Inspiring wrap-up. Again, this highlighted how critical our attitude is to leadership. I’ve always hoped that my work makes a difference.’; ‘I can’t wait to get on his web site. His message reenergizes my thoughts and hopefully my actions.”
– Karen Veling, Sr. Vice President, Fiserv
“It was an honor to have you among our distinctive speakers and to experience first hand not only your message on leadership, but your enthusiasm and energy as well. Your examples, authenticity, and humor captivated the attendees and left them wanting more!”
– Roger Shaffer, President and CEO, FCC Services, Inc.
“Your message of Extreme Leadership was directly on-target and inspired the entire group. Your mix of humor and emotion, together with the relevance of the topic to our situation at General Mills, kept the audience captivated. Thanks again for a great day and a compelling message. We will all remember the key message that you delivered and its importance to our everyday life both at work and home: ‘Do what you love in the service of people who love what you do.”
– Jay Gouliard, VP, Packaging Development, General Mills
