Session: How Improvisational Thinking Makes You a Better Leader
You may know about improv from Whose Line Is It Anyway?, or maybe you’ve seen a show at The Second City in Chicago. But improv isn’t just for actors and comedians. The skills you learn by doing improv increase your emotional intelligence, allow you to access your inner creativity and make you more resilient and adaptive when difficulties arise.
The only problem? Psychologists estimate that 75% of people are afraid of public speaking, and you can imagine how high that percentage goes when you’re also making up everything on the spot. The vast majority of people will never take an improv class.
But, what if you could build these skills and reap the benefits of them without ever having to get onstage?
In this talk, you’ll learn what differentiates an AdLib Leader™ - someone who actively applies improvisational thinking in their approach to managing and leading others. You’ll also walk away with some simple exercises you can do to increase your capacity for improvisational thinking as a woman in tech.
Bio
Kristen Brun is an executive and leadership coach and corporate trainer/facilitator who previously spent 15 years leading teams in advertising tech and marketing at companies ranging from early-stage startup to Fortune 100. Today she helps tech leaders advance their careers, make better decisions, execute change effectively, develop innovative solutions and successfully engage their teams.
She is the founder and CEO of Emboldify, a leadership development company that aims to empower the kind of leaders the world needs more of with the power of improv. She created the AdLib Leader™ model, a proprietary framework that applies the benefits of improvisational theatre to the workplace.
Kristen is an ICF-credentialed coach (considered the gold standard) as well as a Board Certified Coach. She has a Master’s degree in Management, Strategy and Leadership from Michigan State University in addition to an undergraduate business degree from the University of Southern California. She’s also a certified practitioner with the Applied Improvisation Network and a Certified Consultant for the Big Five Workplace assessments.
You can regularly find her performing in the San Francisco-based improv group Required Taste at theaters and festivals across the country. Learn more about Kristen at www.emboldify.com or connect with her on LinkedIn (@kristenbrun).