About the Center for Respectful Leadership
We help organizations build Actively Respectful Culturesâ„¢ where people are treated with respect and do their best work because of it.
Why We Exist
Why We Exist
The Center for Respectful Leadership works with organizations whose leaders want to do better by their people. Our focus is Respectful Leadershipâ„¢, psychological safety, and emotional, social, and cultural intelligence: the skills that decide whether people trust their managers, speak up, and stay.
Our approach started in 1986, when Gregg Ward began using live theater to train New York City police officers. The principle hasn’t changed since. People learn to handle hard conversations by practicing them, not by reading slides about them.
Meet Gregg Ward, MCEC, BCC, CMC-Emeritus
Meet Gregg Ward, MCEC, BCC, CMC-Emeritus
Gregg Ward founded the Center for Respectful Leadership and the Respect for All Foundation. He is a best-selling, award-winning author, speaker, facilitator, and executive coach with more than 25 years of experience serving global companies, government agencies, and nonprofits.
Gregg has designed and delivered more than 2,500 keynotes, workshops, and learning programs across North America, Europe, and the Middle East, for groups from 20 to 2,000. He has coached more than 100 senior executives at global firms. Audiences describe him as “inspiring,” “high energy,” and “very memorable,” and in 2024 he received the Distinguished Speaker Award at Culture Con West. His TEDx talk was selected for the main TED.com platform.
Gregg trained and worked as a professional actor, writer, director, and producer in theater, television, and film in New York and London. In 1986 he began his career in learning and development as a specialist trainer for the New York City Police Department, using live theater to train officers, and later replicated the program in the UK.
He also spent five years as a freelance journalist in Europe for BBC Radio, The Times of London, Scotland on Sunday, and The Independent. He covered the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Gregg’s business fable The Respectful Leader: Seven Ways to Influence Without Intimidation (John Wiley & Sons, 2016) was named an Amazon Best Book of the Month, became a best-seller, and won the 2018 Axiom Business Book Awards gold medal for business fable. His latest book, Restoring Respect (2023), is a how-to guide for repairing broken work relationships. His articles have appeared in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, and the San Diego Union-Tribune. He writes Respectfully Resist, a column on respect published on LinkedIn, and hosts The Better Boss podcast.
Gregg holds a BFA from Boston University. He is a Board Certified Coach (BCC) and a Master Corporate Executive Coach (MCEC), a Certified Management Consultant Emeritus (CMC-Emeritus), and a former executive coach with the Center for Creative Leadership. He is certified in the Hogan, DISC, MBTI, FIRO-B, Workplace Big 5, and Leadership-360 assessments.
Clients include: ADP, AXA, Booz Allen Hamilton, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ericsson, the Federal Reserve Bank, Harley-Davidson, IHOP, Intel, InterContinental Hotels Group, Kaiser Permanente, Kraft Foods, Leonardo DRS, Macy’s, Major League Baseball, Novartis, Pacific Gas & Electric, Premier Members Credit Union, PwC, Qualcomm, Raytheon, San Diego State University, Shell, Siemens, Simpson Strong-Tie, the Texas Association of School Boards, the University of California, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Navy, and Warner Bros. Studios.
Gregg lives in San Diego with his partner, Kathleen. He has three children and three grandchildren. He umpires Little League and travel baseball and plays tennis as often as his knees and schedule allow. He funds an annual arts scholarship for young women at his former high school, and he recently led a charity event that raised more than $15,000 for the Alpha Project, which tackles homelessness in San Diego.
Facilitators Who Know How to Hold a Room
Facilitators Who Know How to Hold a Room
Gregg leads the R-Factor Workshop and all Executive Coaching himself. For other programs, he works with a small team of facilitators. Many trained in theater and improvisation at top schools in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. DISC Dialogues is led by Gregg or a certified DISC instructor.
That background shows up in the room. Sessions move. People laugh. Participants rehearse difficult conversations instead of discussing them in the abstract. For larger rollouts, we bring in professional actors so managers can practice with someone who pushes back the way a real employee would.
Every program is customized. Before we deliver anything, we learn about your organization, your culture, and the situations your people actually face.
Facilitators Who Know How to Hold a Room
Facilitators Who Know How to Hold a Room
Gregg leads the R-Factor Workshop and all Executive Coaching himself. For other programs, he works with a small team of facilitators. Many trained in theater and improvisation at top schools in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. DISC Dialogues is led by Gregg or a certified DISC instructor.
That background shows up in the room. Sessions move. People laugh. Participants rehearse difficult conversations instead of discussing them in the abstract. For larger rollouts, we bring in professional actors so managers can practice with someone who pushes back the way a real employee would.
Every program is customized. Before we deliver anything, we learn about your organization, your culture, and the situations your people actually face.
Our Leadership Team
Our Leadership Team
Gregg Ward, MCEC BCC
Founder/Executive DirectorDarrin Glesser
VP - Strategy and ProgramsAmy Jo Davies
Director of OutreachSarah Bacerra
Chief Learning OfficerAngie Schultz
Director, Design & UXPilar Montejo
Sr. Specialist, Learning & DevelopmentKayden Manning
Sr. Specialist, Learning & Development
What Clients & Participants Say
What Clients and Participants Say
“He worked well with Asian cultures. He had really done his homework, because as he was instructing, he said, ‘The ways she might communicate might be different.’ … He was just great.”
VP of Training, global automotive manufacturer
“I read his book, [The Respectful Leader], great book by the way, and reached out to him. He contacted me within five minutes, and we developed a rapport. I told him I was looking for someone to come in to speak to the credit union as a whole. We were going through a merger, and I felt it would be a great opportunity to take the two teams and bring them together, because we were kind of butting heads.”
Senior Executive at a well-established credit union
“Overall, I thought Gregg’s willingness to jump in and take real-life examples of some of our participants was incredibly valuable. Even on Zoom, we were able to have that type of respectful and honored relationship, which I think is just such a valuable skill. And translating that, of course, when we were back in person, and giving examples.”
Director of Learning and Development, technology company
Let’s Talk
If you’re responsible for how your managers lead, we’d like to hear what you’re seeing. A short call is the easiest way to find out whether we can help.
“He worked well with Asian cultures. He had really done his homework, because as he was instructing, he said, ‘The ways she might communicate might be different.’ … He was just great.”
VP of Training, global automotive manufacturer
“I read his book, [The Respectful Leader], great book by the way, and reached out to him. He contacted me within five minutes, and we developed a rapport. I told him I was looking for someone to come in to speak to the credit union as a whole. We were going through a merger, and I felt it would be a great opportunity to take the two teams and bring them together, because we were kind of butting heads.”
Senior Executive at a well-established credit union
“Overall, I thought Gregg’s willingness to jump in and take real-life examples of some of our participants was incredibly valuable. Even on Zoom, we were able to have that type of respectful and honored relationship, which I think is just such a valuable skill. And translating that, of course, when we were back in person, and giving examples.”
Director of Learning and Development, technology company