Patrick Leddin, PhD

Best-Selling WSJ Author, Speaker, Podcast Host, Entrepreneur & Professor

Patrick Leddin, PhD

Best-Selling WSJ Author, Speaker, Podcast Host, Entrepreneur & Professor

Add to List Availability & Fees

Biography

Patrick Leddin, PhD brings a powerful blend of academic, military, corporate, and entrepreneurial experience to his mission of helping people become the leaders they are meant to be and grow in any environment. From leading soldiers in the U.S. Army to advising senior leaders at KPMG, FranklinCovey, and his own successful firms, Patrick understands leadership and disruption at every level.

He is the author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller The 5-Week Leadership Challenge and three additional books for public and private sector leaders. His book, Disrupt Everything—was co-authored with the world’s bestselling author James Patterson.

Patrick hosts the globally ranked Leadership Lab podcast, where he’s interviewed more than 120 influential guests, including Stephen M.R. Covey, Patrick Lencioni, James Patterson, and Marshall Goldsmith. His client list includes General Electric, Samsung, the U.S. Secret Service, Vector, Boston Consulting Group, and others across industries and continents.

As former Associate Professor and Associate Director of the Practice of Business Studies at Vanderbilt University, Patrick taught courses in Corporate Strategy, Negotiation, Crisis Leadership, and more. He also led The Disruption Project there surveying over 3,000 people to uncover how individuals and organizations thrive through disruption.

Patrick continues to work with leaders worldwide to spark transformation, build resilience, and deliver extraordinary results. A passionate outdoorsman and mountain climber, he believes that the challenges we face in nature often reflect the ones we must conquer in life and leadership.

Speaker Videos

Speaker Reel Patrick Leddin

Speech Topics

5 Practices of an Impactful Leader: Become the Leader You Were Meant to Be!

Patrick Leddin, PhD is a powerful storyteller who takes his audiences on a journey that explores what it truly means to lead themselves and others effectively. Current and aspiring leaders will be drawn into the presentation as they reflect on their motivations, desires, and commitments. They will leave the presentation inspired to write their own leadership story and to achieve new levels of performance.

Participants will:

Gain clarity and knowledge to better lead themselves and others.
Be inspired to own their leadership story by taking full responsibility for their mindset, behaviors, and results.
Understand and appreciate the leadership journey that they are on and how to put their daily challenges into a long-term perspective.

Key Themes

Leadership Is Your Decision, Not Your Title

You have likely met someone who held a formal leadership position but failed to lead others. That person was unable to understand that being a leader is not about a title, job description, or spot in the parking lot. It’s about daily choices, the desire to influence and grow others, and the drive to deliver positive, measurable results. None of these actions require a title, but they do require you to choose to lead.

The Power of Your Story

Stories allow us to share our history, teach lessons, and influence others. You can learn to leverage this power as you write your personal leadership story. A story that will endure beyond your time in the organization. It will serve as a long-term reminder of what it felt like to work for you, the results you achieved, and how you grew others in the process. Not only is your leadership story memorable and influential, but it is a function of your daily intentions, behaviors, and results. You are the author of your leadership story.

Think Like a Leader

If you aren’t thrilled with your results, don’t merely look at your actions. Dig deeper and consider your mindset. In other words, think about how you think. Being a great leader requires you to think differently. Explore ten key leadership mindsets, learn why each mindset matters, assess how you are currently performing, and create a plan to get better.

Step Up and Disrupt: Trust Your Gut, Take a Risk, and Change the World

In his keynote, Dr. Patrick Leddin will challenge you to think and act in new ways. He will share real life examples of disruptive leaders who trust their gut, blaze a new path, walk to the beat of their own drum, and bring out the best in others. These are people who have found what they love to do in their work and life, and choose every day to make a difference.

After attending this keynote, leaders will:

Assess gaps in their mindset, actions, and results through the lens of disruption.
See opportunities for disruption in their world, within their team, and with their customers for greater success.
Commit to carving out their own disruptive path and be better prepared to help others to do the same.
Use a new disruptive framework including 4 disruptive areas (Self, Others, Opportunities, Execution), 8 disruptive mindsets and 16 disruptive actions driving innovation in their organization.

Disrupt Everything

Are you living a good life? Imagine being drawn into a world of powerful stories, each one a light of hope, resilience, and transformation. These are tales of ordinary people who turned the chaos of disruption into stepping stones toward their best lives. In the Disrupt Everything keynote, you’ll embark on an inspiring journey that challenges you to redefine your approach to life and work. These aren’t just stories; they’re data-backed insights from a groundbreaking two-and-a-half-year study, The Disruption Project at Vanderbilt University, led by Dr. Patrick Leddin, surveyed more than 3,000 people to uncover the secrets of thriving through disruption.

You’ll be inspired by real-world examples about nurturing and building a community for street children in India to launching car washes that employ the autistic in Florida, to becoming a ventriloquist on Sesame Street and so much more. Each story is a testament to the incredible opportunities that lie within disruption, showing you how to turn obstacles into opportunities and elevate every aspect of your life.