Anton Gunn

How to Increase Influence and Impact

Your effectiveness as a leader is only as strong as your ability to influence. The problem is that most organizations do not give their leaders the tools needed to create a lasting impact on their workforce.

Furthermore, a myriad of recent workplace studies show that employees today are disengaged at work; actively looking for other jobs; “quiet quitting”; and prefer to work with leaders who will help them build a career path that benefits them and the organization.

Anton Gunn knows the negative impact of an ineffective leader. Nearly 30 years ago, he was a disengaged team member and a marginal performer on a lousy team. As a result, he was in a toxic culture full of unfairness that forced him to quit that organization.

Since then, Anton rose to become a senior advisor to President Barack Obama and an award-winning leader in multiple organizations over his 25-year career in public, private, and non-profit sectors.

As a keynote speaker, author, and business consultant, Anton’s programs teach that anyone can become an influential and effective leader when they know how to serve, empower, and create a legacy of trust in the workplace.

Just Lead will provide you with a straightforward strategy to increase your professional development, improve your team culture, and become a world-class leader that everyone will admire.

In this inspiring presentation, participants will leave knowing how to:

• Identify which leadership behaviors employees are looking for at work.
• Inspire those you lead and create a positive legacy in their lives.
• Develop a strategic approach to increasing trust in the workplace.
• Engage your teams in the power of personal development.
• Build a team culture that is caring and helpful.
• Model behaviors of the most admired leaders in the world.
• Customized and personalized for each audience, this program is a powerful leadership program for leaders at any level.

Boost Employee Retention and Build Your Bottom Line

The best workplaces have three things in common: strong values, influential leaders, and excellent team culture.

Unfortunately, business leaders have lost focus on what it takes to build and maintain successful workplaces. Over the last two years, millions of employees have quietly quit their jobs, citing distrust, inequity, mistreatment, and exclusion among their reasons for shifting
priorities and walking away from work.

The result of this shift has left numerous organizations without an effective strategy to retain top talent, build inclusive workplaces, and address the low morale, low productivity, and high turnover impacting mission and margin.

Building a world-class culture requires the knowledge of service, empowerment, and creating a legacy of trust in the workplace. This program shares six pillars that Anton Gunn has used to build award-winning workplace cultures in multiple organizations over his 25-year career in the public, private, and non-profit sectors.

World-Class Culture delivers the tools, tactics, and actions needed to break down barriers, boost retention, and build a productive workplace culture.

Customized for each audience to address important topics such as diversity, equity, inclusion, employee engagement, retention, or solving systemic problems, this program will provide the roadmap to improve your organizational and team culture.

In this empowering session, participants will:

• Learn the top six drivers of a toxic workplace culture.
• Understand the five aspects of culture that matter the most to employees.
• Identify three tangible action steps to increase your impact on the workplace.
• Gain simple, low-cost strategies that break down silos and improve teamwork.
• Discover the bottom-line financial benefits of a world-class workplace culture.

This program can be personalized for audiences of leaders and managers, or entire teams and organizations working together to build a better culture.

Break Down Barriers and Build a Winning Organization

Industry-leading organizations have two things in common: they have inclusive leaders, and they are intentional about corporate diversity.

In today’s economy, too many organizations and executives have collectively taken their eyes off these two things. Instead, they have reduced diversity and inclusion (D&I) efforts and allowed the silence and the conflict around diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility to spread like cancer throughout their business culture and workforce.

A pulse survey by the research firm The Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) found that 27% of organizations have put all or most D&I initiatives on hold because of their response to the pandemic. And 12% say that D&I is less of a consideration when companies are making decisions about workforce changes such as reductions, promotions, special assignments, and compensation.

Eliminating the intentionality on diversity and inclusion can result in low morale, low productivity, high turnover, discrimination claims, and toxic workplace culture. Anton Gunn has seen the negative impact of a failed diversity strategy on business. In 2014, the crisis of race and injustice nearly consumed the culture of a $1 billion academic healthcare system in protests and discrimination claims.

His expertise as a strategic advisor to the President and CEO and the executive team led to impactful initiatives that improved employee engagement, workplace culture, and community relations – fueling their growth strategy to nearly $3 billion in revenue and resulting in the organization making the Forbes List of America’s Top Employers for Diversity.

In this program, Anton reveals how anyone can build an industry-leading organization if they gain The Diversity Advantage. By learning and embracing a few leadership traits modeled by some of the best organizations, you can build your company culture and boost your bottom line.

Your audience will leave knowing how to:

• Develop the right mindset around racial justice, diversity, and equity.
• Build inclusive and resilient teams that are prepared to grow your company.
• Model the behaviors of an inclusive leader.
• Define new opportunities to drive leadership accountability on diversity and inclusion.
• Build a culture that is responsive – not reactive – to external changes.

This program can be personalized for audiences of leaders and managers, or entire teams and organizations working together to create a more impactful, diverse workplace culture.

How Great Leaders Prepare for and Come Back from Tough Times

Motivated and prepared teams with the right tools can not only survive a crisis, but they can also thrive in a crisis.

Unfortunately, the best teams can quickly fall apart in turbulent times without a crisis leadership strategy.

Global pandemics, racial and social unrest, economic calamity, and other catastrophic events are just a few potential crises that can devastate an organization. An online poll of more than 2,000 executives and organizations found that a large percentage of respondents did not know what their biggest gap in crisis preparedness would be. Further, half of the respondents were unsure whether their teams would even be prepared to respond to a crisis.

Not having the tools to respond can cost an organization everything. Loss of revenues, market share, brand positioning, plus a loss of talent and employee trust are the first things that can impact your organization in times of crisis.

Anton Gunn has experienced the massive impact of a crisis. More than 20 years ago, the crisis of terrorism that devastated the American economy after 9/11 almost cost him and his family everything. But since that time, he has led a remarkable turnaround to become one of the most influential minority executives in healthcare and a former senior advisor to President Barack Obama.

With more than two decades of successful leadership development experience, helping some of America’s top organizations, Anton teaches that any high-performing team can thrive through tough times by embracing a few key principles modeled by some of the greatest leaders.

Key points in this presentation include:

• Identify and understand disruptive environments.
• Develop the right mindset during a crisis.
• Build resilient teams that are prepared for adversity.
• Respond to the impact of the crisis; do not react to the circumstances.
• Become better prepared for the next challenge.

Customized and personalized for each audience, this program is an impactful program for leaders at any level.