Empowering Others Through Leadership — Karen Boykin-Towns
Karen Boykin-Town is the Founder of Encore Strategies, a boutique consultancy that focuses on integrating business and public affairs initiatives. She uses her strong voice to initiate tough conversations to bridge communication gaps and resolve pressing issues that generate meaningful change in today’s world. Karen spoke at the Leading Across Difference Panel at Brewster Academy’s Virtual Event.
“Leadership in the early days was probably where it was about being a leader but trying to prove yourself.
“As I’ve matured and had experiences, I think certainly your leadership style, if you’re a good leader, probably evolves because you want to be situational based, not just a rigid style but just kind of what the situation calls for.
“Leadership is really about helping to empower others. Leadership for me is about helping others be successful because recognizing that you don’t always have to be the smartest one in the room. If you’re a good leader, you’re about really drawing out from other people the best of what they have to contribute.
“Sometimes you have to definitely have to have the dominant sort of style when you say, “Stop, this what we’re doing,” and being okay with that.
“More often it’s about bringing people together and helping them to understand the vision and the mission and empowering them to be successful at it.”
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Karen Boykin-Towns is a distinguished strategist who has forged a reputation as a global business and civic leader. Being solution-oriented, she focuses on creating strategies to tackle the problem at hand. Karen also serves as vice-chair of the NAACP National Board of Directors and committee chair of the Image Awards.
