Joan Goldsmith is an educator, facilitator, coach, mediator and organizational consultant who as worked in the private and public sectors. She specializes in leadership development, organizational change, team building, strategic planning, collaborative negotiation and conflict resolution.

Joan is an author who has written and co-written numerous books about organizational management and how to resolve conflicts in the workplace.
She is also a fierce feminist and advocate for social change, and she's the recent author of the upcoming book, Women Leaders at the Grassroots: 9 stories and 9 strategies. If you would like to get a copy of the book, you can contact her through me: [email protected].

n this conversation we talk about the special role that women play in creating social change as weavers of webs of association and by being models of balanced living. We talk about the importance of inclusion. We talk about listening to the voices of the voiceless, and making the extra effort to lift up those around us that the current systems doesn't hear. We ponder the difference between managers and leaders, between the quality of leadership and the role of being a leader. While managers focus on “doing things right” by following the rules, true leaders focus on “doing the right thing” by asking: Am I following my values? Am I speaking up for the right group of people?

And we reflect on the importance of setting limits, finding time to be in silence and letting yourself get bored sometimes.

Book written with Warren Bennis

Learning to Lead: A Workbook on Becoming a Leader

Book written with Ken Cloke (Previous guest on Fractal Friends)

The End of Management and the Rise of Organizational Democracy

Resolving Conflicts at Work: Ten Strategies for Everyone on the Job

Resolving Conflicts At Work : A Complete Guide for Everyone on the Job

The Art of Waking People Up: Cultivating Awareness and Authenticity at Work

Resolving Personal and Organizational Conflict: Stories of Transformation and Forgiveness

In this episode, we talk about the dearth of teachers of color in U.S. schools. This episode of Malcolm Gladwell's podcast Revisionist History by talks about the hidden impact of Brown vs. Board on teachers. Listen to it here:"Miss Buchanan's Period of Adjustment"

In this episode, Joan says that there are hundreds of thousands of homeless children. The National Center of Family Homelessness put the number of homeless children in a year at nearly 2.5 million. You can read more about this grave problem here: National Center on Family Homelessness

More Info at: Grassroots Women Leaders Building Webs” with Joan Goldsmith

Music: “To Love” byKR3TURE ft. Cello Joe