"Developing Yourself as a Leader" with Jacki Davidoff

Developing Yourself As a Leader

As professionals, and especially as women, we tend to assess our worth from external measures. There is value in this – we seek to contribute to those around us, to our families and communities, and in a work context, to our organization’s mission.

However, there is another measure of success that is often overlooked. These are internal measures of success.

• Are you approaching your job or job search intending to grow and develop?
• Do you seek to take risks that challenge you but lead to greater accomplishments?
• Do you recognize you have more potential, and take steps to raise expectations on yourself and your colleagues?
• Do you have a clear vision of the next level of your professional self?
• Are you aware of the ways you often limit yourself and hold back from expressing your perspective, especially when it goes against the grain?
• Have you established a culture on your team of giving and receiving honest feedback so you can see your blind spots and gaps and decide to address them?

Principal and Executive Leadership Coach of Davidoff Strategy Jacki Davidoff will be offering an interactive workshop on self-development, called “Being-Based Leadership." This provides a framework for your continuous learning -- integrating social emotional intelligence, transformational leadership principles, and neuroscience!

Jacki has coached and trained executive teams, leaders, and Boards across the country on living as a Mission-Driver. Mission-Drivers are increasingly developing themselves in service of their mission – so that they can be of greater contribution. Our missions, our purpose… is to contribute, to be of service. This is what sharpens and motivates us to seek to grow personally and professionally.

Jacki will share tools and ways of shifting our mindsets to discover the potential we each have to be more satisfied and fulfilled, to step into our power and authority, and to disrupt our internal “systems” towards greater discovery of who we are and who we’re capable of becoming.

About Jacki Davidoff:

Jacki is Principal of Davidoff Strategy, a national consulting firm for philanthropic and corporate organizations. Davidoff integrates strategy, culture, and leadership development to lead organizations to identify the next level of their organizational growth, including uncovering internal barriers that limit their effectiveness.

Davidoff clients include the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, CAN-TV, Christopher Family Foundation, Common Pantry, de Beaumont Foundation, Illinois Action for Children, One Hope United, Public Health Institute, Public Narrative, NORC at the University of Chicago, and Seattle Foundation.

Jacki is also an executive leadership coach, presenter, and sought-after facilitator.

Davidoff’s suite of services helps organizations name internal cultural shifts that promote high functioning, lower drama organizational cultures.

Jacki has been actively involved in racial justice training nationally and locally. She is immediate past Board Co-Chair of Chicago Women in Philanthropy and is former Co-Chair of the Racial Equity & Social Justice committee. Jacki completed the inaugural cohort of Dismantling White Supremacy led by Chicago African Americans in Philanthropy and University of Illinois at Chicago’s Institute on Race and Public Policy.

Jacki is founder and facilitator of the Leadership Forum, a monthly convening for diverse nonprofit CEO’s and Executive Directors; and the Leadership Intensive, supporting women at all levels of leadership. She is also co-founder and co-facilitator with Jessyca Dudley, founder of Bold Ventures, of The Self-Aware Leader: Understanding How Race Affects Your Leadership, a 12-week cohort women’s leadership group for women of color and white women launched in April 2022.

Jacki’s background includes 30 years in leading national advertising agencies including Ogilvy & Mather and DDB, and executive positions in Chicago nonprofits. Prior to joining Davidoff, Jacki completed nine years at the Chicago Botanic Garden where she worked in corporate/foundation fundraising, increasing the organization’s national and regional presence and growing its corporate support to record levels.

She is from Houston, Texas and earned her BS in Advertising with highest honors from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She completed her Masters in Transformational Leadership and Coaching at Wright Graduate University for the Realization of Human Potential in 2017.

Jacki lives in Evanston, IL with her business partner John Davidoff and two former foster dogs, Poppy and Lou. They can be spotted roaming around the lakefront and barking loudly. Jacki and John have two young adult sons, 25 and 28.