Last week, more than 125 representatives from Integrity Marketing Group’s strategic partners convened in Dallas, Texas, for the second session of the Integrity Leadership Academy hosted by Tom Ziglar, CEO of Ziglar and son of famous motivational speaker Zig Ziglar. The three-day session was attended by President Rick Kisser and Vice President of Marketing Darron Markwood to represent AIP Marketing Alliance.

Launched this year, the Integrity Leadership Academy was created to equip and empower management and leaders throughout Integrity with the tools, resources, and mindset to help our teams excel in our careers, serve more customers, and positively change our lives.

“Zig Ziglar was a pioneer in leadership, sales, and personal development, and his books and teachings influenced millions of people worldwide,” said Bryan Adams, Co-Founder and CEO of Integrity. “Zig Ziglar’s son, Tom Ziglar, has continued his father's legacy. Tom is known across the globe for his passion and expertise in leadership and success strategies. The Ziglar philosophy of serving others aligns so well with our mission at Integrity.”

“The Integrity Leadership Academy offers our team members the transformational opportunity to refine these skills by becoming effective Coach Leaders who can bring out the best in those they serve,” Adams added. “The Integrity Leadership Academy gives our leaders the mindset and platform to unleash the full potential of their teams, while creating a common leadership language across our entire platform. This industry-leading program will impact not just the career goals of Integrity’s leaders, but every aspect of their lives!”

The leadership training focused on the five main values of Integrity: integrity, family, service, respect, and partnership. Tom Ziglar and his training team also expounded on each of these values with secondary values such as self-control, humility, selflessness, standing firm, respect, positivity, kindness, being the light, looking for the best, and never giving up.

“Honestly, this leadership academy was not geared toward sales techniques or trying to drive business – Tom and his team focused on ways to strengthen our teams by eliminating T-Rex management styles and awakening the ‘zombies’ that might infect team performance,” Markwood said. “The combination of Tom’s stories, effective breakout group topics and interaction, and reinforcing a positive mindset by focusing on your personal ‘why’ truly drove home the importance of being a coach and effective leader.”

With two more leadership training sessions still to come, AIPMA doesn’t want to ruin the experience for Integrity’s other strategic partners (and our team members), as a few of AIPMA’s managers will attend the fourth session in late August. However, Markwood truly believes these sessions are more than just a training event.

“Since AIPMA’s strategic partnership, you see how we use the hashtags #integrityeffect and #integrityfamily throughout our corporate posts, and Integrity’s culture promotes that philosophy,” he added. “During this academy, I was lucky enough to meet and talk with the Integrity executive management team as well as interact with multiple strategic partners from around the country. I was blown away at the conversations as it’s great to interact with friendly peers about intelligent topics and ways we can help each other and AIPMA’s valued wholesalers and agents.”

Rick and Darron also enjoyed one-on-one conversations with Tom Ziglar, who shared some ideas for AIP Marketing Alliance through utilizing intentional coaching conversations. Some of these concepts started with a Disc Behavior Style and a Wheel of Life assessment to help assess our personal “why” and how we can leverage the “STICKY” method to increase collaboration and engagement when attacking problems/situations.

Each day included two sessions led by Tom Ziglar with breakout session groups where participants could interact with peers on how to implement coaching strategies at our respective organizations. These interactive groups shared experiences, ideas, and how to approach specific situations and better handle them to increase positivity and build relationships with team members.

“When I returned from Dallas, I had shared a bunch of pictures from the event – but they do not do the Integrity Leadership Academy justice,” Markwood said. “Between the training and meeting people, I could talk for hours about the positive impact this event made on my life and how I hope to share this philosophy with team members at AIPMA. I personally want to thank everyone I connected with during our session and hope to keep in touch for many years to come.”

If you would like to learn more about Ziglar, you can visit Ziglar.com or follow them on most social media platforms. You also can learn more about the Integrity Leadership Academy by visiting Integrity’s blog.