How to be a better leader in a diverse workplace, with Dr Steve Yacovelli, “The Gay Leadership Dude”

Dr Steve Yacovelli, aka “The Gay Leadership Dude”, literally wrote the book on leadership in a diverse workplace – “Pride Leadership: Strategies for the LGBTQ+ Leader to be the King or Queen of Their Jungle“.  Today, Jackie and Steve talk about his experience leading multi-cultural teams on Disney Cruises, the Pulse Massacre and how that brought his hometown Orlando together, and the 5 layers of diversity.

Steve Yacovelli The Gay Leadership Dude

Transcript

Jackie Ferguson: Everyone. Please welcome, Dr. Steve Yacovelli to our show today. Steve is an author, speaker, consultant, and owner and principal of Top Dog Learning Group; a learning and development and diversity and inclusion consulting firm with a focus on how to be a great leader. Steve, thank you for being here today.

Dr Steve Yacovelli: Thank you so much, Jackie. So happy to be here today.

Jackie Ferguson: Great. Well, Steve, tell us a little about your journey. You didn’t start out as a leadership entrepreneur. How did you get there?

Dr Steve Yacovelli: So, I started my journey in the learning and development space, if you will, actually doing software training of all things. And that’s where I started understanding how humans, especially adults, kind of learn stuff. And, I actually got a master’s degree in educational policy and leadership because I wanted to be a college administrator at one point. That didn’t work. But the cool thing was, it was, it was very “HR-ey.”.

So, I focused on the leadership and work development side, and that’s where I was like, “Wow, this is really cool. I can take some of that training stuff that I learned and now apply to this different subject matter expertise.”

Full Episode Transcript

MOP+SAM, Inclusive Language to Beat Silent CollusionTop Dog Learning Group
Diversity Beyond the Checkbox is presented by The Diversity Movement and hosted by Jackie Ferguson. For more information including the latest webinars and other DEI content, head over to TheDiversityMovement.com. Podcast production by Earfluence.

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