Self-Reliant Leadership®

Cultivate Grit. Amplify Action.

“Cultivating grit is the secret ingredient that empowers your team to foster trust, overcome challenges, and achieve uncommon results.” -Jan Rutherford

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Self-Reliant Leadership®

Cultivate Grit. Amplify Action.

“Cultivating grit is the secret ingredient that empowers your team to foster trust, overcome challenges, and achieve uncommon results.”

- Jan Rutherford

Leaders who personify grit have one thing in common - they’re backed by a team who share a common purpose and a trust to Get Stuff Done!

As a successful business consultant, and a former Green Beret, I’ve been fortunate to see firsthand why character still matters, because it separates effective leaders from those who are mired in mediocrity.

Developing grit is the secret ingredient that helps you and your team build trust, overcome tough times, and achieve the extraordinary.

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The student of leadership regularly works to develop mastery in the three pillars of Self-Reliant Leadership®

I

Leading
Self

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Amplify personal responsibility and ownership by cultivating grit.

II

Leading
Others

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Boost accountability by getting people to not only work with each other, but work for each other.

III

Leading the Organization

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Conduct courageous conversations that result in greater collaboration, alignment and focus.

Clients Include

Self-Reliant Leadership® is a proud veteran-owned business, and we’re committed to giving back to veterans throughout the year.

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Speaking

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Executive Coaching

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Online Courses

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Crucible® Expeditions

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"Thank you for an engaging and meaningful presentation. I resonated with your message about cultivating grit, fostering duty, and setting pace – and you brought those concepts to life in your video and audience involvement. Appreciated the exchange of stories about our military experiences."

John Hinck, PhD

Former Colonel and Apache Pilot, Assistant Professor of Leadership Institute
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“Thank you for what you’ve done for me, for my team and for veterans and leaders everywhere.”

Jacqueline Molnar

Chief Compliance Officer, Western Union
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“We haven’t had an event like this for years. It was the most on-point, useful dialogue we have had. Your communication style engaged the crowd quickly and your real life stories really helped cement the concepts. Many thanks for your time and effort. You made a difference.”

Steve Steele

CEO, IBMC College
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"Once Jan and I spoke I knew we had to ask him to speak at our annual Leadership Symposium (LEDx) at Air University. Of course Jan did not fail to deliver—he connected with our crowd in a way that few have done—combining the best of academic leadership theory with practicality that only a true practitioner in the art of leadership can. Thank you Jan—can not wait for next year."

Professor J. William “Bill” DeMarco

Department Chair, Department of Leadership Studies at USAF Air Command and Staff College
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"Self Reliant Leadership and their expeditions stood out right away. Jan Rutherford and his team pair transitioning military members to senior business leaders in an open environment, helping them realize they already possess the skills necessary to tackle today’s business challenges: leadership, teamwork, critical problem solving skills, resourcefulness, resilience, and a high adversity quotient. I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity to help me understand how my last year at Amazon and my previous eight in the Coast Guard related to one another and what improvements could be made in my ability to help lead and be a part of successful teams in the future."

Maggie Ward

Program Manager, Amazon and Coast Guard Veteran
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"I found your TEDx talk very wise…and refreshing. You have the quiet authority to make the case, without a trace of bluster or inauthenticity, for the value of perseverance and sacrifice; all the better that you tie the sufferance of personal risk and discomfort to the need to reflect on your deepest values and to live by them. Your call to action is not to change the myth-of-your-life so you like yourself better but to change your life to earn the change of story."

Vincent Stanley

Director of Philosophy at Patagonia, Inc.
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“I’ve done other leadership courses at Oxford and Harvard, but neither are as profound as the Crucible experience.”

Tristan Van Der Vijver

Global Head of Compliance at Western Union Business Solutions
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“There are a lot of ways to develop the next generation of high potential leaders, but the Self-Reliant Leadership Crucible is 100% proven. Your leaders will be forever changed to the benefit of their teams and your entire organization.”

Rear Admiral Kerry Metz

Retired U.S. Navy SEAL
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"I have been on two Crucibles with Jan, including the Patagonia trip. Jan is a superb coach. He makes you think, he makes to see things differently, and most important, he helps you see your real strengths. Jan likes to say real leaders have heroic aspirations and when you work with Jan, you believe that you can."

Kevin Glynn

CIO, DSC Logistics
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"The environment forced us to communicate more effectively, support and hold each other accountable, perform roles outside our comfort zone or area of expertise, and perhaps most surprisingly, have a great time doing it. Nothing is forced; he quietly prods you out of your comfort zone and let’s you see what you are capable of. The real reward is taking this experience back to my co-workers, and showing them that a team can be much more than the sum of its parts. The lessons I learned on the Crucible made me a better leader and helped me take my team to the next level."

Tyler Hand

VP, Western Union
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“Notwithstanding your generation or your state of life – student, new hire, young professional, captain of industry, buck private, or general – this book will enrich your mind and ignite the spiritual forces of your leadership. Jan Rutherford is at once a fire-hardened leader, an inspiring storyteller, and a contemplative scholar. His treatment of Self-Reliant Leadership is the hypergolic fuel that will move you and your organization from excellence to extraordinary, from success to significance.”

Joseph A. “Bud” Ahearn

Major General U.S. Air Force (Retired)

About Jan Rutherford

Jan Rutherford is a former Green Beret and a successful entrepreneur, podcast host, wilderness expedition leader, and author of the book, The Littlest Green Beret.

Jan’s experience comes from the business world, the military and academia; but his philosophy is from a confluence of Sparta’s discipline, Socrates’ self-awareness, Aristotle’s courage, Emerson’s self-reliance, and Thoreau’s reflective seclusion.

His coaching and speaking work also includes leading expeditions with executives and military veterans, and sharing leadership insights from those experiences.