Brenda’s Most Popular Keynote Speaking Topics
Click on the links below to find out more.
Master the Brand Called YOU™®
How you develop your own leadership personal brand makes the difference between success and failure. In this powerful program, Brenda reveals the top errors she regularly sees leaders make at work. These mistakes can hold you back from achieving your full career potential or even stop your career dead in its tracks.
Would YOU Want to Work for YOU™®?
In this interactive, eye-opening program, Brenda Bence, Certified Executive Leadership Coach and Harvard MBA, shares the key tips, tools, and techniques to inspire loyalty as a leader, drive employee performance, and become the leader everybody wants to work for.
Master the “Inside Job” of Leadership
To be a truly inspiring leader during challenging times requires a clear understanding that how you behave on the outside starts first and foremost with what is going on inside. In this inspiring program, Brenda Bence, helps prepare you and your organization to face an uncertain and unknown future by embracing a sense of possibility.
Choose to Challenge: Disrupting YOU™ (Diversity & Inclusion)
How do you cut through the confusion of today’s increasingly diverse world and learn to navigate your way to success on a global scale? In this highly interactive and engaging presentation, Brenda Bence, MBA and Certified Global Speaking Professional, takes you on a journey into the fascinating world of how we all operate – from the inside out – and how that directly impacts diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
How to Achieve Workplace Wellness—for YOU™
Self-leadership is the highest form of all leadership which is why it’s so important to look after your own wellbeing. Doing so can make the difference between personal success and failure. This program will leave you feeling more in charge of your own personal wellbeing, equipped to thrive in a world filled with constant disruption.
How to Achieve Workplace Wellness—for Those You Lead
Today more than ever, team members are struggling with the unknown, resulting in greater challenges to their own wellbeing that impact the workplace, and overall productivity. At the end of this program, participants will be equipped to motivate and inspire their team members, improve their team’s wellbeing, and achieve greater productivity.
Boost Your Executive Presence
How do you send the right signals, influence others, and get better results at work? Executive Presence (also referred to as “gravitas”) is one of the most consistently requested topics in the leadership development world today. This interactive and engaging program, created by Certified Executive Leadership Coach and Global Certified Speaking Professional, Brenda Bence, can be tailored to the leadership challenges of any organization.
Managing Tough Feedback and the Art of Listening
Through coaching more than 1,000 leaders from 60 different nationalities across the world, Brenda has seen that the individuals who continue to rise in any organization have mastered critical self-leadership skills. In this program, learn how to propel your career forward by turning feedback into a powerful productivity improvement tool and building better relationships through active listening.
On-the-Job Coaching for Greater Success In Leading Others
Embrace powerful steps to becoming a more competent and effective leader-coach at work. This highly interactive program will allow you to return to the office with skills you can apply immediately to be a more effective leader-coach on the job. To ensure that the learning can be used immediately, you will practice coaching in a real-life challenging situation from your own work environment.
Learn more about Brenda's approachable and thought-provoking style here: Speaking Services >
Learn more about each of Brenda’s program topics below
** This program is customizable to a variety of needs and leadership levels within the organization, from early-career self-leadership, to senior-level executive leadership. **
Master the Brand Called YOU™®
How you develop your own leadership personal brand makes the difference between success and failure.
Why do some individuals excel in an organization and others don’t? The answer isn’t necessarily because they have the most experience or the most education. The truth is: You’re more likely to be selected for higher-level positions based on how well others perceive, think, and feel about “YOU™”- the Trademarked YOU. The art – and science – of leadership personal branding is what keeps successful individuals moving up the ladder.
In this engaging and highly interactive program, internationally renowned branding expert and Certified Executive Leadership Coach Brenda Bence will share the three actionable steps to establishing a successful leadership personal brand at work, both inside and outside your organization.
Based on Brenda’s experience helping individuals all around the world build successful brands for themselves, Brenda will reveal the top errors she regularly sees leaders make at work. These mistakes can hold you back from achieving your full career potential or even stop your career dead in its tracks.
During this enlightening and interactive program, you will:
- Get clear on what “leadership branding” really is – and what it’s not – whether you’re leading others or focused on self-leadership.
- Understand why leadership personal branding is so critical for your own individual development and for the success of your organization as a whole.
- Learn how to leverage the six, core personal brand positioning elements that go into defining your unique personal brand as a leader.
- Find out how your own brand is being perceived right now so that you can make adjustments as needed.
- Master and take charge of the five everyday activities that most communicate your brand to superiors, peers, subordinates (if applicable), teams you lead, and clients.
- Avoid Top Leadership Personal Brand Busters® that you may be committing right now that can damage your brand either consciously.
Interested to find out more?
Would YOU Want to Work for YOU™®?
Learn key tips, tools, and techniques to inspire loyalty as a leader, drive employee performance, and become the leader everybody wants to work for.
In this interactive, eye-opening program, Brenda Bence, Certified Executive Leadership Coach and Harvard MBA, reveals the most damaging behaviors she regularly sees in the workplace—the same behaviors that consistently hold otherwise-successful leaders back. There is one common thread that unites all of these behaviors: They are related to the art—and the science—of leading others.
Through her successful coaching practice, Brenda has worked with over 1,000 senior-level leaders from over 60 nationalities and across 70 different industries. In this program, Brenda shares simple yet powerful tips, tools, and techniques that you can apply immediately to get better results and achieve greater productivity from the people you lead, while motivating and inspiring them at the same time.
In this engaging yet practical leadership development program, you will learn:
- The single most important factor to becoming a better leader of others—and the fundamental leadership mindset that goes along with it.
- The most critical cause of regretted employee turnover, and how taking simple steps to adapt your leadership style can immediately improve retention.
- What your most preferred management approach is, and when—and how—to adapt it as needed.
- How to avoid conflict with subordinates forever—even when it comes to having difficult performance conversations.
- A five-point model for effectively leading others that will also drive a much greater understanding of your organization’s culture so that you can improve it.
- Mind-management techniques that are critical to effective leadership and how to identify where you are focusing your attention.
- A simple self-test to help you stay focused on the most critical actions you take every day that will have the greatest impact on the people you lead.
- How to quickly identify which model of delegation you are using so that you can adapt as necessary.
- One of the most powerful—yet simple—ways to motivate employees and build a reputation as a great leader, both inside and outside of your organization.
- The single most important factor to becoming a better leader of others—and the fundamental leadership mindset that goes along with it.
- The most critical cause of regretted employee turnover, and how taking simple steps to adapt your leadership style can immediately improve retention.
- What your most preferred management approach is, and when—and how—to adapt it as needed.
- How to avoid conflict with subordinates forever—even when it comes to having difficult performance conversations.
- A five-point model for effectively leading others that will also drive a much greater understanding of your organization’s culture so that you can improve it.
- Mind-management techniques that are critical to effective leadership and how to identify where you are focusing your attention.
- A simple self-test to help you stay focused on the most critical actions you take every day that will have the greatest impact on the people you lead.
- How to quickly identify which model of delegation you are using so that you can adapt as necessary.
- One of the most powerful—yet simple—ways to motivate employees and build a reputation as a great leader, both inside and outside of your organization.
Interested to find out more?
Master the “Inside Job” of Leadership
Take charge of the “inside job” of leadership to achieve ongoing success
The entire world is in a state of uncertainty. Everything is changing: the way we communicate, work, shop, pay for goods, access news, what we eat, how we eat, and how we manage our daily lives. Before the start of the pandemic, ongoing turmoil was already causing rising levels of unanswered questions around how to lead others in the workplace. Now, add to that the first global pandemic in more than 100 years, and it begs the question: How do you succeed as a leader in a world that is so unsettling?
To be a truly inspiring leader during challenging times requires a clear understanding that how you behave on the outside starts first and foremost with what is going on inside. In other words, successful leadership today requires mastery of the “inside job” of being a leader.
Come join this highly interactive and engaging presentation, as top-ranked Executive Coach and professional speaker, Brenda Bence, helps prepare you and your organization to face an uncertain and unknown future by embracing a sense of possibility.
In this program, you will…
- Learn about three keys to taking charge of the “un-seen” aspects of leading others during these unprecedented and tumultuous times.
- Explore a fascinating study that demonstrates the relationship between the “inner work” of leadership and why it’s so critical to the results you get.
- Get clear on where to place your focus during challenging times, and why it makes such a difference in leading others successfully.
- Get comfortable being a leader who doesn’t have all the answers.
- Overcome one of the biggest fears that holds us back from achieving our true leadership potential.
- Recognize the most important inner conversations taking place and the impact they have on our success.
- Embrace key approaches to boosting your resilience as a leader during challenging times.
Recognized by both Thinkers50 and Global Gurus as a key thought leader in leadership coaching, Brenda will demonstrate how to achieve ongoing success, even in the face of an uncertain future.
Interested to find out more?
Choose to Challenge: Disrupting YOU™ (Diversity & Inclusion)
How do you cut through the confusion of today’s increasingly diverse world and learn to navigate your way to success on a global scale?
Today’s workplace is the most diverse in the history of humankind. We regularly work across cultures, languages, nationalities, religions, and more – all without a textbook or a roadmap. So, how do you succeed in a workplace that seems to be in a constant state of change and disruption?
The answer: Disrupt the one thing inside of you that can create real, lasting, and positive change: The way you think.
In this highly interactive and engaging presentation, Brenda Bence, MBA and Certified Global Speaking Professional, takes you on a journey into the fascinating world of how we all operate – from the inside out – and how that directly impacts diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
By attending this eye-opening event, you will:
- Gain an understanding of the power and impact of preconceived notions and beliefs.
- Get clear on the biology behind why it’s so hard for us to change.
- Investigate the surprising yet true foundation of diversity, through a step-by-step model we subconsciously use every day.
- Understand why diversity and inclusion is so important today for business success.
- Learn how to test assumptions before acting on them.
- Learn how to create a diversified and inclusive workplace that cultivates greater trust, strengthens relationships, increases engagement, and improves productivity.
- Walk away with tips, tools, and techniques that can be immediately applied to collaborate across the organization and drive sustainable performance as you work with diverse teams.
- Find out the key biases that happen every day at work and the implications of each.
- Gain an understanding of the power and impact of preconceived notions and beliefs.
- Get clear on the biology behind why it’s so hard for us to change.
- Investigate the surprising yet true foundation of diversity, through a step-by-step model we subconsciously use every day.
- Understand why diversity and inclusion is so important today for business success.
- Learn how to test assumptions before acting on them.
- Learn how to create a diversified and inclusive workplace that cultivates greater trust, strengthens relationships, increases engagement, and improves productivity.
- Walk away with tips, tools, and techniques that can be immediately applied to collaborate across the organization and drive sustainable performance as you work with diverse teams.
- Find out the key biases that happen every day at work and the implications of each.
Brenda will demonstrate how the power of what you think and believe impacts the way you interact with others, both professionally and personally. Join in, choose to challenge, and get results that will serve as the foundation for your future growth and development for years to come.
Recognized by both Thinkers50 and Global Gurus as a key thought leader in coaching, Brenda will demonstrate how to inspire your team members in our increasingly diverse work world.
Interested to find out more?
How to Achieve Workplace Wellness—for YOU™
(For both individual contributors and/or leaders of others)
Self-leadership is the highest form of all leadership which is why it’s so important to look after your own wellbeing. Doing so can make the difference between personal success and failure.
In this engaging and pragmatic program, you will:
- Take a self-assessment to better understand how well you are currently managing your own wellbeing in the workplace.
- Learn the science behind why wellbeing is so critical during unsettling times.
- Identify and overcome self-limiting beliefs that hold you back from reaching your full potential and your optimal state of wellness.
- Use a 60-second trick to learn how to stay in the present.
- Implement an easily accessible, step-by-step model for taking charge and creating the results you want, both professionally and personally, no matter what the circumstances.
- Gain clarity around the three “time zones” humans operate in, and why being in the present is so critical to success.
- Embrace decision making in times of turmoil by leveraging two unknown “extra brains” we all have as humans.
You will leave this program feeling more in charge of your own personal wellbeing, equipped to thrive in a world filled with constant disruption.
Interested to find out more?
How to Achieve Workplace Wellness—for Those You Lead
(For people leaders)
Today more than ever, team members are struggling with the unknown, resulting in greater challenges to their own wellbeing that impact the workplace, and overall productivity.
Whether you are leading a team of two, 10, 50, or 5000, people are looking to you for answers. And most leaders today don’t have the solutions to share with others because they aren’t sure of the answers themselves.
In this inspiring and interactive leadership session, you will:
- Learn about the single most important factor to developing a culture of wellness—and the fundamental leadership mindset that goes along with it.
- Uncover how to quickly identify the right approach to help team members who are struggling with their personal wellbeing.
- Become aware of subconscious limiting leadership habits that may be impacting your team’s wellbeing—without even knowing it.
- Discover how to engage with and motivate your team remotely and improve their overall state of mind (even when you don’t know what your team members are doing).
- Get clear on your current perception as a leader—what it is and what it isn’t—and why it matters to employees’ state of wellness.
- Apply a powerful model to managing conflict effectively when emotions and stress are high.
- Embrace a powerful paradox as a leader, to better communicate with your team and improve productivity during uncertain times.
- Understand where the best leaders have been focusing their attention during COVID and how it impacts overall employee motivation.
At the end of this program, participants will be equipped to motivate and inspire their team members, improve their team’s wellbeing, and achieve greater productivity.
Interested to find out more?
Boost Your Executive Presence
How do you send the right signals, influence others, and get better results at work?
Executive Presence (also referred to as “gravitas”) is one of the most consistently requested topics in the leadership development world today. Defined in a variety of ways, “Executive Presence” generally means the attitudes, skills, and behaviors that – when combined – send the right signals, influence others, and ultimately drive better outcomes, both professionally and personally. Executive Presence is a critical part of building a powerful brand as a leader and is also a core fundamental to career success, both short-term and long-term.
This interactive and engaging program, created by Certified Executive Leadership Coach and Global Certified Speaking Professional, Brenda Bence, can be tailored to the leadership challenges of any organization. The topic options offered are based on Brenda’s extensive experience as a Senior Executive for Fortune 100 companies and her work as an external Leadership Coach, having coached over 1,000 leaders from more than 60 nationalities and across 70 different industries. The program offers tips and tools that help strengthen the level of Executive Presence required for success as a leader today.
Since Executive Presence is a broad topic, a variety of aspects related to Executive Presence are covered in this program. Conducted in modular fashion, and customized to the needs of the client, some of the most popular requested modules are:
Influencing without Title or Authority – A critical skill for both self-leaders and leaders of others, effective influencing – especially if you don’t have direct authority – is an increasingly important skill in today’s global, matrix-system world. Using Brenda’s powerful Influence Toolbox, you will explore a variety of influence tactics that you can start using immediately.
Speaking Up/Improving Communications – This module not only covers clarity of communications and articulating well, but also how to present effectively to senior management, ask strategic and relevant questions, and learn to “ask not tell” as a key influencing mechanism.
Assertiveness – When stressors are high and anxiety is present, all of us can fall into bad habits and end up becoming either passive or aggressive – without even realizing it. The challenge is: we often lack understanding of the difference between being those two modes. Using Brenda’s proprietary Passive-Aggressive-Assertive model, you will not only get clear on this important difference but also learn how to embrace another, better choice to help you lead more effectively during challenging times.
Below are additional in-demand modules that can be included in Brenda’s Executive Presence program:
- Active listening
- Building a strong network
- Developing charisma
- Developing confidence
- Effective electronic and remote communication
- Emotional intelligence
- How to engage via storytelling
- Leading in today’s diverse, multi-cultural workplace
- Leading in today’s multi-generational workplace
- Managing your brand externally
- Maneuvering office politics
- Presenting powerfully
- Mastering the art of small talk
- How to think on your feet
- Active listening
- Building a strong network
- Developing charisma
- Developing confidence
- Effective electronic and remote communication
- Emotional intelligence
- How to engage via storytelling
- Leading in today’s diverse, multi-cultural workplace
- Leading in today’s multi-generational workplace
- Managing your brand externally
- Maneuvering office politics
- Presenting powerfully
- Mastering the art of small talk
- How to think on your feet
Interested to find out more?
Managing Tough Feedback and the Art of Listening
How to propel your career forward by turning feedback into a powerful productivity improvement tool and building better relationships through active listening.
What two skills do the most effective contributors possess in the workplace? “Listening effectively and knowing how to manage tough feedback,” says Certified Senior Executive Coach and international leadership expert Brenda Bence.
Through coaching more than 1,000 leaders from 60 different nationalities across the world, Brenda has seen that the individuals who continue to rise in any organization have mastered critical self-leadership skills: how to regularly give and receive feedback as well as how to master the art of listening actively.
By attending this practical, hands-on program, you will:
- Gain greater self-awareness about your reactions to feedback and uncover the typical reasons we typically don’t accept or give feedback as often as we should.
- Learn how to take the “fear” out of giving and receiving tough feedback.
- Get clear on how feedback relates to managing conflict at work – and what this means for you, your team, your peers, subordinates – and even your clients.
- Role-play providing challenging feedback and handling conflict by using the “IDEA” model.
- Conduct a self-assessment of your own listening capabilities, explore key barriers that prevent you from listening well, and learn simple techniques to overcome those barriers.
- Practice and role-play three proven techniques for more effective listening.
- Practice implementing newly learned listening, conflict management, and feedback skills using tough scenarios from real-life case studies at work.
- Identify one individual who needs to receive difficult feedback on the job, and make a plan to make this happen as soon as you return to the office.
- Gain greater self-awareness about your reactions to feedback and uncover the typical reasons we typically don’t accept or give feedback as often as we should.
- Learn how to take the “fear” out of giving and receiving tough feedback.
- Get clear on how feedback relates to managing conflict at work – and what this means for you, your team, your peers, subordinates – and even your clients.
- Role-play providing challenging feedback and handling conflict by using the “IDEA” model.
- Conduct a self-assessment of your own listening capabilities, explore key barriers that prevent you from listening well, and learn simple techniques to overcome those barriers.
- Practice and role-play three proven techniques for more effective listening.
- Practice implementing newly learned listening, conflict management, and feedback skills using tough scenarios from real-life case studies at work.
- Identify one individual who needs to receive difficult feedback on the job, and make a plan to make this happen as soon as you return to the office.
Interested to find out more?
On-the-Job Coaching for Greater Success In Leading Others
Embrace powerful steps to becoming a more competent and effective leader-coach at work.
This highly interactive program will allow you to return to the office with skills you can apply immediately to be a more effective leader-coach on the job. Certified Executive Coach and international leadership expert, Brenda Bence, will share powerful, proven tips, tools, and techniques that will not only help you have a greater impact as an individual leader within your company, but that can also make a positive impact on your organization as a whole, helping to instill a stronger coaching culture.
To ensure that the learning can be used immediately, you will practice coaching in a real-life challenging situation from your own work environment.
During this engaging, practical, and hands-on leadership development program, you will:
- Get clear on what on-the-job coaching really is – and what it’s not – and why the distinction is so critical to your success as a leader.
- Strengthen your understanding of what makes a “good” and “bad” coach at work.
- Assess your own personal strengths and development areas as an on-the-job coach.
- Understand challenges and potential roadblocks that can prevent you from being a good leader-coach at work.
- Discuss the relevance and impact of country/corporate culture when it comes to successful on-the-job coaching.
- Get clear on the six fundamental elements that make up a good coaching discussion.
- Gain practical coaching experience through each portion of a good coaching discussion using a real-life work situation.
- Become a much more competent leader on the job by using a proven framework for crafting excellent coaching questions.
- Develop an action plan for implementing this framework at work with a specific, individual “coachee” in mind.
- Fully embrace coaching as a “mindset” that can help you achieve more at work, ultimately bringing you higher productivity, better results, and greater job satisfaction.
- Get clear on what on-the-job coaching really is – and what it’s not – and why the distinction is so critical to your success as a leader.
- Strengthen your understanding of what makes a “good” and “bad” coach at work.
- Assess your own personal strengths and development areas as an on-the-job coach.
- Understand challenges and potential roadblocks that can prevent you from being a good leader-coach at work.
- Discuss the relevance and impact of country/corporate culture when it comes to successful on-the-job coaching.
- Get clear on the six fundamental elements that make up a good coaching discussion.
- Gain practical coaching experience through each portion of a good coaching discussion using a real-life work situation.
- Become a much more competent leader on the job by using a proven framework for crafting excellent coaching questions.
- Develop an action plan for implementing this framework at work with a specific, individual “coachee” in mind.
- Fully embrace coaching as a “mindset” that can help you achieve more at work, ultimately bringing you higher productivity, better results, and greater job satisfaction.
Interested to find out more?
If you don’t see what you’re looking for here, we can customize all topics based on your specific event needs & objectives. Write us to find out more!
The Forgotten Choice
Discover a little-known decision you make every moment that either holds you back or opens doors to unlimited possibility. Learn More >
Get your free gift here
Sign up for Brenda's newsletter, and receive her "Inspired Mindset" Toolbox with 7 powerful tips to help strengthen your mindset and build an inspiring brand. Learn More >
