Dr. Lisa R. Withrow – Ph.D., ICF-PCC, GPCC, IMI
With a Ph.D. in Leadership Studies and three certificates from Cornell University’s S.C. Johnson School of Management in Executive Leadership, High-Performance Leadership, and Change Leadership, Lisa has an up-to-date portfolio of trends, research, and challenges facing the worlds of business and higher education. She also is a trained leadership coach and mediator for the times when conflict has possibility to change the energy and direction of an organization.
Lisa is an innovator who provides insight about the intersection of research on leadership excellence and business needs. Additional training includes use of the Conflict Dynamics Profile (CDP) for conflict teaching, coaching, and mediation; Myers-Briggs (MBTI); Appreciative Inquiry (AI); Theological Worlds; Positive Intelligence coaching; Neuroscience of Change; InnerMBA; and Qualified Administrator status for the Inter-cultural Development Inventory (IDI). She has expertise in consultations with small businesses, religious and non-profit organizations, and 20 years of experience as a leadership professor and academic administrator in higher education.
Lisa’s home base is the Akron-Cleveland corridor, Ohio, though most of her connections are online, nationally and internationally.
Experience
Lisa Withrow is a certified Gestalt leadership coach and Gestalt coaching instructor, a trained team coach, an organizational consultant for scenario-building and planning as well as conflict transformation, ordained minister, veteran international presenter for leadership and innovative learning, and a leader of cross-cultural immersion experiences in Russia, Central America, southern Africa, and Europe. Lisa’s presentations offer to widen and deepen persons’ perspectives about leadership connecting with partners and stakeholders. She often is called upon to co-create new possibilities for organizations in the midst of conflict or transition.
As a coach, Lisa improves strategic focus and accelerates the development of individuals, leaders, and teams. She coaches for performance improvement and competency-building, facilitates scenario-building for emerging futures, and brings a unique perspective to how internal and external partnerships can be leveraged creatively. Strategic understanding of stakeholders, emerging challenges, and promising trends aid her in this work. She leans on leadership and conflict styles, Positive Intelligence, Gestalt training, and neuroscience in her coaching engagements.
As a consultant, Lisa has more than 20 years of successful leadership experience, ranging from customer interface in a family-owned business to executive-level experience in academia: director of internship and doctoral programs, dean, and vice president, with responsibilities in strategic planning, team oversight, program development, budget management, and transition initiation with an eye toward conflict management and the importance of diverse voices. She has served higher education institutions, profit and not-for-profit organizations, and worked with religious and faith-based communities.
As a certified mediator, Lisa used her workplace mediation and mediation training for individuals and teams who are unable to move forward through conflict.
As a long-time teacher, Lisa develops tailored, engaging online and in-person workshops for teams, organizations, and groups; one-time or series-workshops include helpful tools alongside powerful questions for focus, mobilization, and creation of powerful, positive change. Lisa designs curricula for organizational trainings in leadership and also is an affiliate professor at Bexley-Seabury in Chicago.
Sample of Book Publications
The Liminal Loop: Twelve Tales of Transformation (contributing author, 2022)
Choice Magazine, “From Surviving to Thriving: Coaching as Disruption in Disruptive Times,” (fall 2021)
Crossing Thresholds: A Practical Theology of Liminality (co-author, 2021)
Leadership in Unknown Waters: Liminality as Threshold to the Future (2020)
Alienation and Connection: Suffering in a Global Age (editor and co-author, 2011)
Claiming New Life: Process-Church for the Future (2008)
At a Glance
• Ph.D. – leadership studies; Certified Coach — International Coach Federation, Center for Credentialing and Education, Gestalt; Certified Mediator – CMT, IMI.
• Coach for leaders working with transition — increasing performance, adding value, discerning vocation, managing and enhancing teams.
• Consultant for organizations — managing conflict, developing scenarios and strategies, onboarding, developing team focus and effectiveness, attending to diversity, and envisioning and mobilizing powerful change.
• Teacher and workshop leader for teams, groups, organizations — creating powerful change, managing conflict, team dynamics, discovering the emerging future.
