Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit. This year, there is a shadow hanging over the summit as I outlined here, but I’m still trusting that it will have some incredibly helpful content, just like in past years. To capture what I’m learning and to help you grow as a leader, I always share my notes from each session, so be sure to check back after each session and bookmark them for future use.

The third session featured a talk from Carla Harris, who is the Vice Chairman, Managing Director and Senior Client Advisor at Morgan Stanley. She talked about how to achieve your potential and become the leader you were created to be. She used the word leader (Leverage, Efficiency, Authenticity, Decisive, Engagement, Risk taker) to show what makes an impactful leader.

The following are some takeaways:

1. Leverage: powerful, impactful leaders know there is not a monopoly on intelligence.
2. Someone on your team has the access or experience that you need.
3. If people think there will be retribution for making a mistake, no one will give you an out of the box idea.
4. A leaders job is to create an environment where people want to contribute.
5. Leadership is a journey from execution to empowerment.
6. Efficiency: If you are an influential, impactful leader, you must be clear about what success looks like.
7. If you aren’t clear about what success looks like, you will create a tremendous amount of frustration.
8. Productivity goes down when things aren’t clear.
9. If you aren’t clear on what’s next, you must be clear on what success looks like.
10. If it doesn’t work this time, it informs your next success.
11. Authenticity: this is the heart of your power and the heart of influential leadership.
12. No one else can be you.
13. Most people are not comfortable in their own skin, so when they see someone who is, they gravitate towards you.
14. The easiest way to penetrate a relationship is to bring your authentic self to the table.
15. Your authenticity is your distinct competitive advantage.
16. To be authentic, you have to know who you are and what you bring to the table.
17. Decisiveness and diversity: the price of inaction is greater than the cost of making a mistake.
18. At the end of the day, your team is depending on you as the leader to make a decision.
19. Part of your task as a leader is to make a decision, even in the face of incomplete information.
20. If you need a lot of ideas (and you do to succeed), you need a lot of perspectives and experiences in the room.
21. Engagement: you must be engaged with your people and understand what makes people motivated to win. What engages your staff?
22. Everyone on your team wants to be seen and heard.
23. Risk taker: leaders must be comfortable taking risks.
24. The way you differentiate yourself is by taking risks.
25. Fear has no place in your success equation.
26. The thing that makes a leader stand out is courage. This is what holds all these words together.