About Jan Rutherford

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“Developing grit is the secret ingredient that helps you and your team build trust, overcome obstacles, and achieve heroic aspirations.”

- Jan Rutherford

“As a successful business consultant, and a former Green Beret, I’ve been fortunate to see firsthand why character still matters, because it distinguishes effective leaders from those who are mired in mediocrity.

The most important character trait that defines an effective leader is courage: The willingness and ability to have tough conversations with associates, peers, superiors, committees and boards.

The ability to prioritize is a challenge for many executives in leadership positions. And balancing new challenges requires internal grit. Not everybody has it, but everybody has the capacity to develop it.

Developing grit is the secret ingredient that helps you and your team build trust, overcome tough times, and achieve the extraordinary.

Grit is about sacrifice, determination, and discipline. However, to strengthen your grit you also need to seek and embrace solitude. To truly reflect, you need to step back, slow down, and filter out the noise. Only then can you look at problems and priorities from a calm, collected and strategic perspective.

This is essential to what I call being ‘squared away’ as a leader. Only when you’re squared away physically, mentally and emotionally, can you become more self-reliant and better able to lead yourself, others, and the organization.

Self-reliant leaders know who they are and understand how their behavior impacts others. They’ve developed the ability to regulate their emotions so they can deliver responses that are best for the team – as opposed to what satisfies their ego.

When team members see leaders who are self-reliant, they also see a leader who is reliable, which fosters trust and commitment.

With a foundation of trust, team members take greater ownership of their roles, become more accountable to each other (and for each other), and align their purpose with that of the organization.

The result is the elimination of silos, turfwars, and petty politics. This is replaced with an attitude that everyone is pulling their weight, in the same direction, to achieve big-picture goals. This occurs because those behaviors reflect cultural core values that are the foundation of success.

If cultivating grit to drive ownership, creating a sense of duty to produce accountability, and balancing discipline with innovation to create focus and alignment are vital to your organization’s success, then let’s talk about how Self-Reliant Leadership® can be the key to success for you and your team.”

Self-Reliant Leadership® is a proud veteran-owned business, and we’re committed to giving back to veterans throughout the year.

Professional Background

Jan Rutherford is a former Green Beret and a successful business executive who knows the value of overcoming challenges to strengthen inner resilience and lead more effectively. His grit was built in part when he entered the military as one of the youngest (17) and littlest recruits, weighing only 114 pounds.

Jan went on to become a Special Forces soldier, and earned the Army’s distinguished Green Beret. He spent three years serving as a medic, three years as an A-Team executive leader, and three years as a military intelligence officer.

Jan has more than 25 years of business experience and has held key executive roles in business development, marketing, sales, training, product management, and as a CEO.

An award-winning keynote speaker, Jan was recognized as one of The Top 100 Leadership Speakers for 2018 by Inc. He was also selected as a TEDx speaker for his inspiring talk, Suffer Everything – Dare Everything: Why Difficulties Matter.

In addition, Jan is the author of The Littlest Green Beret: On Self-Reliant Leadership. The book details the cornerstone principles that form the foundation of his consulting firm, Self-Reliant Leadership®. Proceeds benefit veteran organizations.

Founded by Jan in 2011, Self-Reliant Leadership® focuses on helping leaders and teams develop self-reliance to create powerful results through executive coaching, speaking, workshops, and wilderness expeditions.

Jan is a LinkedIn Learning author, and co-host of The Leadership Podcast.

CONTACT JAN RUTHERFORD today to learn more about the three pillars of Self-Reliant Leadership®

Contact Jan Rutherford