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About The UnCommon Leadership®Institute

About The UnCommon Leadership®
Institute

MEET THE TEAM

UnCommon Leadership® requires an uncommon (yet extremely important, effective and impactful) approach to seeing a leaders’ role and uncovering their potential. The UnCommon Leadership® Institute is dedicated to doing that, building a world of UnCommon Leaders dedicated to inspiring others to embrace a new way of helping teams and organizations succeed.

At the UnCommon Leadership® Institute, we support organizations and leaders in transforming their approach through 3 simple steps.

Meet The UnCommon Leadership® Institute team.

The path to UnCommon Leadership® requires a team that doesn’t just understand how to get there, but lives out the principles of an UnCommon Leader.

Ed Chaffin, PCC

Ed Chaffin is the CEO and Founder of The UnCommon Leadership® Institute. He founded the Institute to live out his passion for changing the world one life at a time by helping leaders and their teams be the best version of themselves that they can be!

Ed is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) from the International Coach Federation, an SEIP Certified Coach from The Social and Emotional Intelligence Institute, a Senior Birkman Certified Consultant and holds a certification in Brain Based Leadership from the Academy of Brain Based Leadership. He has had affiliations with three major universities where he has taught leadership in a Master’s and an MBA program at Louisiana State University and the University of Missouri and coached at IMD, the International Institute of Management in Lausanne, Switzerland in their #1 Executive Development program High Performance Leadership.

Ed is a native of Georgia, but grew up in Charleston, SC, where he studied business administration at the College of Charleston. He has also attended and completed an Executive Development program at the Wharton School of Business as well as the High Performance Leadership program at IMD.

Ed and his wife Eva have a daughter who resides in Carmel, IN and Ed has two children, one who lives in Santa Fe, NM and the other that lives in Springdale, UT.

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Deborah O’Donnell, PCC, CPC

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Deborah is an Executive Coach and Leadership Development Consultant with more than 15 years of experience enhancing the performance of individual executives, teams, and organizations. Deborah has had the honor of working with hundreds of successful individuals and businesses on Leadership Development and Career Advancement.

Deborah has coached C-suite executives down to managers from diverse industries, including, Healthcare, Pharma, Entertainment, Advertising, Manufacturing, Law, Marketing, Accounting, and Finance, amongst others.

As an adjunct faculty member at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management, she teaches career management and coaches students and alumni. She developed her skills for giving excellent customer service through her experience at the Walt Disney Company in Orlando, Florida, where she worked as a Guest Relations Specialist and as an Assistant to the President and CEO.

Deborah holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Relations and a Master’s Degree in Business Management from Ball State University.  She also has been certified by the Coaches Training Institute (CTI), The Institute for Excellence in Coaching (iPEC), and the International Coach Federation (ICF) as a PCC (Professional Certified Coach).

Elisa Zervos, PCC

Elisa Zervios, UnCommon Leadership® coach profile set against a brick wall

As a Leadership Development Coach, Elisa integrates her education, a career in operations management, and her international experience to effectively guide leaders to higher levels of effectiveness. 

Elisa advises mid-senior level managers on how to coach their teams, become leaders of change and engage a multi-generational and globally diverse workforce. Together with the client, Elisa co-designs a “blueprint” of action steps that hold a client accountable, as they commit to favorable shifts in behavior. In addition, she formulates an individual’s “value proposition” or personal brand, based on the accumulation of continuously sharpened skills, natural abilities & interests and priorities during different phases of their career.

Skilled in applying results of 360 Assessments, MBTI. Birkman, STRONG and DISC, Elisa coaches high-potential individuals to integrate new behaviors and actions into their daily work routine, polishing their soft-skills and moving them towards the goal of becoming a stronger leader. Her background in management is her foundation for coaching leaders as she understands the challenges one faces relating to delegation, engagement, developing talent, connecting silos and providing the “gift” of feedback.

Elisa’s style is down-to-earth and authentic, removing any pretense in a coaching relationship. When her clients are 100% committed to achieving their goals, she steps up and delivers best-in-class coaching and follow-up actions items, tailored to her clients’ goals in areas of personal effectiveness, enhancing business acumen and corporate visibility.  She is flexible, objective and places heavy emphasis on maintaining a “no-judgment” zone.