David Irvine is sought after internationally as a speaker, author, and trusted leadership advisor. His work has contributed to the building of accountable, dynamic and engaged organizations across North America. As one of Canada’s most respected voices on leadership, organizational culture, and personal development, David has dedicated his life to creating workplaces, communities, and families that foster accountability, authenticity, and caring.
With a Master’s Degree in Social Work, David originally trained as a family therapist and has integrated family systems theory into the field of organizational development. This has resulted in successfully guiding leaders to amplify their impact through a stronger, deeper authentic presence and in turn, guiding organizations to create aligned, engaged, and vital workplaces.
David has published several best-selling books, including the recent and notable, Caring Is Everything: Getting to The Heart of Humanity, Leadership, and Life, a powerful work on the importance of seeking an authentic life. The Other Everest: Navigating the Pathway to Authentic Leadership, released in August 2018, provides a synthesis of David’s learnings, teachings and wisdom gleaned over a lifetime of connecting and communicating at the cutting edge of entrepreneurial, business and organizational culture.
In his over thirty-five years’ experience as a highly sought-after advisor, David has worked with CEOs and senior executives, as well as all levels of management, front-line service providers, salespeople, educators, and health care professionals in the public, private, not-for-profit, family business, and entrepreneurial sectors across North America. He has impacted the lives of thousands of people through his presentations, workshops, retreats, and writing. His approach is down-to-earth, simple and powerful.
As a formerly nationally ranked distance runner, David maintains an active lifestyle of yoga and hiking in the beautiful foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Canada where he makes his home.
David Irvine’s Approach
As The Leader’s Navigator™ David has dedicated his life and work to inspire, encourage, and guide leaders at all levels and in all walks of life to be more authentic and more accountable – thus enabling themselves and others to reach their full potential.
David believes that being an impactful leader is synonymous with being oneself. It is that simple, and it is also that difficult.
He has an exceptional ability to create a trusting learning environment through the power of his authentic presence. He tackles the toughest problems today’s leaders face, proposing unique strategies to:
- Build trust
- Sustain high performance
- Build a new kind of loyalty and high morale
- Embrace change
- Develop leadership capacity
- Implement accountability
- Find personal balance
David has a unique ability to tackle the bottom-line issues facing organizations with profound insight, humanity, and humor. If you are committed to attracting, retaining, and engaging talent, fostering a culture of ownership and personal accountability, building trust, and getting a grip on results, hire David Irvine and you get:
- David’s promise to exceed your expectations. For every presentation, David will interview a cross-section of audience members before each event to make certain that his material is pertinent to the real issues they are facing.
- Accountability. David is accountable for every bit of work he or his associates bring to your organization.
- David’s more than three decades of experience in speaking, coaching, learning, and sharing lessons on organizational culture, leadership, and life.
- Authenticity. David lives what he teaches, bringing a personal and practical perspective to everything he does.
BUILDING A HIGH-PERFORMANCE CULTURE
The Power of Alignment
If you are committed to attract and retain the best talent, provide the best possible service to customers, get a grip on results that matter, remain profitable, and reach your fullest potential as an organization, then culture will be your most critical competitive advantage. This is because organizational culture trumps everything else in business.
Discover the power of alignment and why building a high-performance culture is the key to success.
Execute a practical, meaningful process for getting your organization’s value statements off the wall and into people’s hearts and actions.
Leave with a practical method for building a cohesive, engaged, high-performance organization – that engenders trust, loyalty, safety, and ownership.
Note: This process can be adapted to any culture, whether an entire organization, a division, a team, or even a family. If you are a CEO, senior executive, director, middle manager, supervisor, team lead, or parent, you will find value in the process for building an aligned, engaged, healthy culture within your sphere of influence.
AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP
It’s About PRESENCE, Not Position
Great leadership cannot be reduced to technique, position or power. Great leadership comes from the strength of one’s authentic presence – the identity and integrity of the leader.
While you might get promoted to be a boss, you don’t get promoted to be a leader. Leadership isn’t something that you get from your title. Leadership – your capacity to inspire and influence others – is something you earn by the decisions you make and the actions you take. Leadership is about building trust, inspiring the people around you with a compelling vision, engaging yourself and others, and achieving results through those you serve. Leadership is about accomplishing this with presence, not position.
Step back and gain a new perspective on leadership from one of Canada’s most respected voices on leadership and organizational culture. Based on David Irvine’s best-selling book, The Authentic Leader, you will be inspired by a new view of who you are as a leader and a fresh vision of leadership in today’s changing, demanding world.
- Learn the difference between a transactional boss and a transformational leader, and the true source of leadership power: your authentic, accountable presence.
- Discover how a strong leadership presence can inspire trust, engender loyalty, engage people, dispel entitlement, and get a grip on results.
- Be inspired to be a leader, with or without a title.
ACCOUNTABILITY
Getting A Grip On Sustainable Results
Get to the deep meaning and application of accountability – so it isn’t just a hammer to blame or punish people, or just another organizational buzzword.
- Leave this session with a renewed and positive perspective on accountability, tools to build an ownership attitude in your organization, and a practical process for holding people accountable.
- Build a proven and practical approach to accountability that will build trust, respect, and integrity while banishing blame and fear, transforming entitlement into ownership.
- Close the gap between intention and success and get a grip on sustainable results.
- Leave with a simple and practical process that will inspire your high performers, deal effectively and respectfully with your “non-performers,” and renew your organization.
- Leave with a new outlook on the responsibility and opportunity of every employee to build an engaged, energized, and renewed culture.
ACCOUNTABILITY IN AN AGE OF ENTITLEMENT
The Power Of Agreement
With everyone talking about the need for more accountability in the workplace, why is it that accountability is so likely to turn people off? Why is it that unearned entitlement remains so prevalent, both in the workplace and in society? You have to get to the deep meaning and application of accountability. If you don’t, it becomes a hammer to blame and punish people, or at best, just another organizational buzzword.
David Irvine’s proven and practical philosophy and approach to accountability helps leaders build trust, respect, and integrity. It reveals how to banish blame and fear, transform entitlement into ownership, close the gap between intention and success, and get a grip on results.
Leave this session with a renewed and positive perspective on accountability. Based on David’s inspiring best-selling book, Bridges of Trust, this session will illustrate how accountability is not a “program” to be “installed” throughout an organization or a “flavor of the month” management fad. Accountability is an inspiring leadership philosophy that lies at the foundation of both labor and life.
Accountability promises five vital results:
1) Clarity – about your role, direction, and promises;
2) Communication – at a new depth, with the right focus;
3) Alignment – of values, purpose, passion, and agreements;
4) Energy – to build sustained engagement and commitment; and
5) Trust – the one thing that changes everything. Inspire people around you by being accountable.
- Inspire people around you by being accountable.
- Inspire your employees to think like owners and foster an accountable attitude at every level of your organization.
- Transform blame, entitlement, and fear into courage, personal responsibility, and commitment – through the power of agreement.
EMBRACING CHANGE
The Power Of Possibility
“In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” – Eric Hoffer, philosopher
To survive – and thrive – you have to adapt and embrace change. When you have decided to be a leader, you become an agent of change. But where is your road map? Where are your tools? There are eight stages of change. The first is chaos; the eighth is possibility. Once you lead yourself and others to embrace possibility, transforming chaos into confidence, resistance into wisdom, and fear into possibility, you have done your job. Once you’ve mastered the art of embracing change, you will not only build a strong, vital organization, you will build a strong, vital life.
Leave this session with a new view of embracing and leading change from one of Canada’s most respected voices on leadership and organizational culture. You will leave this inspiring session with renewed clarity, confidence, and compassion to lead those you serve through the stages of change.
- Make change inspiring, productive, and creative – through the power of possibility.
- Turn fear and resistance into confidence and commitment – through the power of connection.
- Recognize and lead people through the stages of change in a way that supports both people and change.
BUILDING BRIDGES OF TRUST
The Power Of Interpersonal Excellence
Building and restoring trust is mission-critical in organizations today. At the core of effective and productive organizations and teams lies an abundance of mutual trust and respect based upon authentic and accountable connections. Regardless of what you do in your organization and your life, to be successful you must be able to connect with people in a way that builds trust.
With a background in family therapy, David Irvine offers an in-depth approach to interpersonal relationships that you won’t find in mainstream leadership training programs. Leave this engaging, and practical session with the interpersonal skills necessary to build bridges of trust with those who depend on you, and those upon whom you depend.
- Understand how the actions of every employee either builds or destroys the culture where you work.
- Inspire deep trust in your organization through the power of interpersonal excellence.
- Embrace conflict in a way that builds trust, respect, and focus.
Additional Topics Include:
THE ART OF CARING LEADERSHIP
THE OTHER EVEREST™️
Secrets to Navigate the Journey to Authentic Leadership (Presentation or Workshop adapted from David’s 3 Day Retreat)
ORGANIZATIONAL RECOVERY
Keeping The Survivors Engaged Amidst The Layoffs
BUILDING BRIDGES OF TRUST
The Foundation Of Leadership
SUCCEEDING AS A FAMILY BUSINESS
Working With The One's You Love
SERVICE LEADERSHIP
Coaching And Development Skills
LEADERSHIP AND BOARD GOVERNANCE
RAISING ACCOUNTABLE YOUNG PEOPLE
