2025 Global Impact Summit: George Sifakis and George Sifakis ll

Some leaders chase the spotlight; others build trust, recover fast, and keep everyone moving toward a clear mission. From the Ideagen Global Impact Summit at ACS Athens, we sit down to unpack the traits that actually move teams: empathy that listens, humility that invites honest data, resilience that turns setbacks into systems, and mission focus that cuts through noise. Along the way, a future global leader brings a timely challenge—help people look up from their screens and back into real connection—reminding us that leadership starts with how we shape the spaces around us.

We start by demystifying leadership beyond buzzwords. Empathy becomes a practical tool for setting realistic goals and surfacing early warnings. Humility evolves into a strategic edge that raises decision quality by tapping the whole team’s intelligence. Resilience shows up as a visible bounce-back loop—learn, adjust, reassign, and move—so morale stays intact and projects keep momentum. Throughout, mission clarity anchors decisions so we avoid vanity metrics and focus on work that genuinely advances outcomes.

Then we tackle the question that haunts every corner office: what separates good from great? Often, greatness is only clear in hindsight. History tends to honor leaders who serve first, stay steady through storms, and sacrifice for the people they lead. Our take: don’t chase the label. Practice the habits. When a leader makes failure safe to examine, keeps the team aligned to purpose, and models presence in a distracted world, performance improves—quietly at first, then unmistakably.

If you found value in this conversation, follow the show, share it with someone who leads a team, and leave a review with your one leadership habit you’ll practice this week. Your insight might be the nudge another listener needs to lead with courage and care.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome From Athens And Setup
• 0:40 Defining Leadership: Empathy And Humility
• 1:46 Measuring Effective Leadership Through Impact
• 2:41 Resilience And Modeling Imperfection
• 3:18 Good Vs Great: Judgment Over Time
• 4:49 Youth Perspective On Digital Distraction
• 5:36 Closing Thanks From ACS Athens

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:11

Welcome to the Idea Gen Global Summit, live here at ACS Athens in Athens, Greece, with a focus on the Idea Gen Foundation Future Global Leaders portion with George Safakis II. Welcome, George. It's a pleasure to be here. It's always a pleasure to have you, son. And so I know you have some great questions to ask on this Idea Gen Foundation portion. Of course. I'll shoot. So what does leadership mean to you? Yeah, George, a leadership is complex. It's a complex amalgamation of so many different things that you learn in life, and there's specific leadership skills that you can be taught, some that you can't. One key piece of leadership, I believe, is empathy, is being able to put yourself in someone else's shoes when you're leading. And these are the critical aspects that I think combine with being humble. The ability to have that you know notion of being humble is critical in leadership as well, because people respect you more. And so I think leadership is empathy, it's being humble, and it's being able to understand that you're dealing with human beings that also have um different skill sets and different uh ways to be motivated.

SPEAKER_00: 1:46

And how would you describe the qualities of an effective leader?

SPEAKER_01: 1:50

Well, exactly. I I think that's a great question. That's a really, really uh a deep question that you ask. And it's deep because the qualities of you know of an effective leader are really measured by the impact that their organization is having, um, the success they're having, and how much are their um the other folks that work for them uh that they're leading able to accomplish based on that leadership? It's it's and do they respect that leader? Uh it's a complex uh but yet in some ways simple uh question to answer, meaning empathy, being humble, and helping to stay focused on the mission.

SPEAKER_00: 2:34

Exactly. Right. And how do you personally embody this, those key leadership features?

SPEAKER_01: 2:41

You know, George, um it's you know, leadership also includes resiliency, uh being able to get back up. How fast do you get back up when you fall down? And folks around you see that. They they they understand um that a leader is not infallible, that they are not perfect. And I think that goes back to the humility piece and the empathy piece and being humble piece. And I that's how I define it being humble, having empathy, and humility.

SPEAKER_00: 3:18

And final question what differentiates you think, what differentiates a good leader from a great leader?

SPEAKER_01: 3:27

That's a really deep question. It's a great question. And I think sometimes we don't recognize that someone was a great leader until after they're no longer in the leadership role. I mean, there's so many folks in history that we deem to be good leaders, and then history judged them as great leaders. And why is that? Um, because we look back and we say, well, uh they had great humility. Wow, they were resilient. Gosh, what they went through to sacrifice on behalf of those that they were leading. And so there are countless examples of that in history, and I think that I don't believe a leader should be thinking about whether they're good or great. I think they should be embodying on a daily basis humility, uh, being humble, of course, empathy, and staying focused on the mission of their organization. And I think greatness then just is judged at a later date. That shouldn't be what you're focused on as a leader.

SPEAKER_00: 4:39

Amazing. Right. I think it's definitely hard to recognize a great leader in the moment, and it's much easier in the history to recognize it as well.

SPEAKER_01: 4:49

And as a future global leader, why is leadership important to you?

SPEAKER_00: 4:54

That's a great question. Um I think I mean with uh like nowadays you have uh devices, people are stuck on their devices, and I think it's good to help pe like bring people back to the real world. Like I see all my friends, like they get into these like social media too much, and it's good to bring them out of that and like invite them to real connections and social connections, and I think that's something that people need to recognize on a daily basis today, with devices today, like technology.

SPEAKER_01: 5:36

Well, there's no doubt you're gonna change the world, you're already doing it, and I'm proud of you. Uh the Idea Gen Global Foundation, proud to have you here today and uh to be changing the world. From ACS Athens live in Athens, Greece. Thank you so very much.