San Francisco Business School

7 Ways to Earn ISC2 CPE Credits – Free CPE Credits Included

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 17:30:54 +0000

7 Ways to Earn ISC2 CPE Credits – Free CPE Credits Included

ISC2 requires certification holders to earn ISC2 CPE credits every three years. There are certain requirements and categories to earn ISC2 CPE credits. We’ve explored how to earn ISC2 CPE credits in this article.

📌 Hint: Do not skip this article, you will find FREE ISC2 CPE resources throughout the article.

Before diving into the best ways to earn ISC2 CPE credits, you need to know the CPE requirements and which activities can earn you CPE hours to renew your ISC2 certification. If you have a CISSP certification, you can read the CISSP Renewal article. If you have other certifications, keep on reading this article.

ISC2 CPE Requirements

CPE is the abbreviation of Continuing Professional Education. Typically, an hour spent on an activity equals one CPE credit. You can report CPE credits in 0.25, 0.50, and 0.75 increments. For instance, if you attended a 30-minute webinar, you can earn 0.5 CPE credits.

ISC2 requires certification holders to earn CPE credits in a three-year period and pay an Annual Management Fee (AMF) of 125 USD every year. CPE requirement for each certification track differs. You can see the required CPEs for each Certification in the following table.

Certification	Type	Suggested Annual	3-year Total
CC	Group A	15	45
	Group A or B	–	–
	Total Required	15	45
CISSP	Group A	30	90
	Group A or B	10	30
	Total Required	40	120
CCSP, CSSLP	Group A	20	60
	Group A or B	10	30
	Total Required	30	90
CGRC, HCISPP, SSCP	Group A	15	45
	Group A or B	5	15
	Total Required	20	60
CISSP-ISSAP, ISSEP, ISSMP	Group A	–	20
CISSP-ISSAP, ISSEP, ISSMP	Total Required	20	20

There are two groups of CPE categories to earn CPE credits. Group A activities are domain-related activities, and Group B activities are non-domain-related activities.

If you have a CISSP certification, you can read more in the 7 Ways to Get CISSP CPE Credits article.

Group A credits: domain-related activities

Group A credits relate directly to activities in the areas covered by the specific domains of the respective credential. These activities should be related to information security, information management, business management, etc.

You can earn Group A ISC2 CPE Credits through the following example activities:

Education: Taking an online course such as ISC2 CPE Courses (*Most Popular)
Reading a cybersecurity white paper
Publishing an article on cybersecurity
Attending ISC2 Security Congress
Preparing for a presentation or teaching information related to cybersecurity
Performing a unique work-related project that is not part of your normal work duties
Self-study related to research for a project or preparing for a certification examination
Volunteering for government, public sector, and other charitable organizations
Taking a higher education course

We will go through each of these ways to earn ISC2 CPE credits in detail throughout this article.

Note that, your day-to-day work activities do not count for CPE credits even if your job includes information security activities.

Watch 7 Ways to Earn ISC2 CPE Credits Video

We’ve listed the 7 ways to earn CPE credits in our following YouTube video.

Group B credits: professional development

Group B credits are earned for completion of general professional development activities that enhance your overall professional skills, education, knowledge, or competency outside the domains associated with your respective certifications. This can include programs such as professional speaking or general management courses. While these do not apply directly to the domains, ISC2 recognizes that these skills are vital in the growth of all professionals.

You can earn Group B ISC2 CPE Credits through the following example activities:

Attending non-security events, such as leadership conferences
Participating in non-security education courses such as Business Strategy Training.
Preparing for non-security presentations/lectures/trainings
Non-security government/private sector/charitable organization committees

Now, Let’s go through each CPE Credit earning way one by one.

1st Way – The Best Way to Earn ISC2 CPE Credits – Education

As we’ve highlighted in the previous section, earning ISC2 CPE credits through the Education category is the most popular way for professionals.

While there are several benefits of earning ISC2 CPE credits through CPE courses, here are the top five reasons:

No Caps: There is no maximum limit for the Education category, so, you can earn all ISC2 CPE needs in one program, and renew your certification. You do not need to go elsewhere to find additional CPEs to renew ISC2 certification.
Self-Paced: You do not need to attend an event, conference, or seminar. You can follow the courses at your place, at your pace.
Affordable: Depending on the program content, you can enroll in a self-paced ISC2 CPE Online Training for ~$200-300. However, seminars or conferences start from $1,000, not only that, you may not earn all CPE needs in one event.
Requires less effort: When you enroll in CPE Courses, all you have to do is follow the curriculum, earn CPEs, and renew your ISC2 certification. However, other CPE credits earning ways require significant effort from the ISC2 certification holder such as creating content, sharing a presentation, authoring, etc.
Less prone to ISC2® audit: Since the ISC2 CPE training programs are used by many certified professionals, ISC2 already has a track and record of the activities. However, for other categories, CPE submissions are more unique and may be more likely to hit an audit.

ISC2 CPE Online Courses to Renew Your ISC2 Certification

San Francisco Business School offers ISC2 Certification Renewal Course programs. The ISC2 CPE Training Programs by SFBS come with six self-paced cybersecurity and business training programs: AI & Cybersecurity, Machine Learning Principles for Secure Systems, Cybersecurity Best Practices for AI Systems, Executive Leadership, Strategy Creation & Execution, and Marketing Strategy. For each course in the programs, SFBS awards a certificate of graduation. While earning CPEs, you will earn reputable business merits to highlight in your resume and LinkedIn.

There is a CPE rule for Education CPE credits. You can submit a maximum of 40 CPE credits per entry. While you can earn all required CPEs through the education category, you need to submit different CPE entries for each course.

Watch How Kathy Renewed Her CISSP Certification

Kathy Buckley is a CISSP-certified Professional. Kathy enrolled in the 120 ISC2 CPE Course Online Program from SFBS and renewed her CISSP. Watch now her CISSP renewal journey.

2nd Way to Earn ISC2 CPE Credits – Reading

ISC2 accepts CPE credits by reading cybersecurity white papers, books, magazines, or white papers. For instance, reading a cyber security blog, a business education blog, or a book can count CPEs toward renewing your ISC2 certification. 1 hour of reading counts as 1 CPE, however, everyone’s reading pace is different. So, earning ISC2 CPE credits through reading resources is not a crystal clear way to go.

There are further requirements for earning CPEs through reading as well. A maximum number of CPE credits applies to the following activities:

Books – 5 CPE credits per book with a 250-word description
Magazines – 5 CPE credits per magazine issue with a 250-word description
White papers – 1 CPE credit per paper with a 250-word description

So, there is a limit to earning CPEs through reading.

3rd Way to Get ISC2 CPEs – Events

Several cybersecurity conferences, events, and activities are organized throughout the year. Some of the events that can earn you CPE credits are as follows:

Attending ISC2 Security Congress
Industry conferences (in-person or virtual) and seminars
Online webinars, podcasts, and other virtual offerings
Professional cybersecurity chapter meetings
Attending non-security events, such as leadership conferences

You can attend these events and earn ISC2 CPE credits. Typically, a one-day activity earns 6 CPEs. So, if you attended a two-day event, you will earn around 12 CPE credits.

Attending global events has benefits like expanding your professional network and learning the changing trends in your domain. However, there are some pitfalls to these events.

Typically organized in big cities. If you are living in a relatively smaller city, you might not see any events to earn CPEs.
Requires in-person attendance. Many of the events take a few days, and you have to take days off from your work to attend these events.
Expensive. Typically, these events are charged $1,000/day. So, for a two-day event, you need to pay around $2,000. Travel and accommodation, if needed, are not included in these fees.
Does not earn CPE credits at once. Although it requires a significant amount of time and money, you cannot earn all the required CPE credits you need through one event.

Considering you are a full-time working professional and looking to earn ISC2 CPE credits in one step, we do not recommend this way for earning CPEs.

San Francisco Business School offers a self-paced Free ISC2 CPE Course Online Program as well. If you attend this program, you can earn 3 Free ISC2 CPE credits and submit them in the education category.

You can read more about earning Free CISSP CPE credits.

4th Way to Earn ISC2 CPE Credits – Authoring

If you are authoring business or cybersecurity-related content, ISC2 accepts your activity as a source of CPE credits. Some of the activities you can earn ISC2 CPE credits for are as follows:

Publishing an article on cybersecurity
Preparing for a presentation or teaching information related to cybersecurity
Preparing for non-security presentations/lectures/trainings
Writing, researching, and publishing books, articles, papers, and blogs
Preparation time for webinars, podcasts, or presentations
Preparing new or updating existing training seminars or classroom materials

Do you write articles or blogs? Give webinars? Make videos? Today’s digital world is full of new content and anything you create counts towards your ISC2 re-certification. Typically, you can submit CPEs for the hours you worked on content creation. For instance, if you wrote a blog post for an hour, you can claim 1 CPE credit in your ISC2 profile.

Creating content is cumbersome. There are several aspects of curating quality content. If your profession involves creating content, it is fine, you can earn ISC2 CPE credits while you are working. However, just to earn CPEs, creating content is a tough path.

CPE rules for Authoring

There are further CPE rules for authoring activities. A maximum number of CPE credits applies to the following activities:

Books: 40 CPE credits per book as author, 20 CPE credits per book as co-author, 10 CPE credits per book as editor
Articles: 20 CPE credits per article as author, 10 CPE credits per article as co-author, 5 CPE credits per article as editor
Chapters in books: 20 CPE credits per chapter as author, 10 CPE credits per chapter as co-author, 5 CPE credits per chapter as editor
Professional blogs: 10 CPE credits per blog as author, 5 CPE credits per blog as co-author, 2 CPE credits per blog as editor
White papers: 10 CPE credits per white paper as author, 5 CPE credits per white paper as co-author, 2 CPE credits per white paper as editor
Preparing existing training: one-day course equals 2 CPE credits, two-day course equals 5 CPE credits, five- to seven-day courses equals 10 CPE credits, and semesters (12 or more weeks) equal 20 CPE credits.

If you are authoring and trying to earn CPE credits, make sure you do not exceed these limits.

5th Way to Get ISC2 CPEs – Unique Work Experience

ISC2 Members and Associates can earn up to 10 Group A CPE credits for activities performed during their regular working hours when they are engaged in unique projects, assignments, activities, or exercises. The unique project, assignment, activity, or exercise must fall outside their normal (or day-to-day) job responsibilities or job description.

For instance, if you are helping a charity organization audit its website vulnerabilities, this can count as a unique work experience and you can earn ISC2 CPE credits. One hour of participation related to the credential domains equals 1 CPE credit with a maximum of 10 CPE credits per unique work experience.

6th Way to Earn ISC2 CPE Credits – Self-Study

If you are working on a research project, or if you are preparing for another certification examination, you can count your self-study hours as CPE credits. Depending on the topic you are working on, it can count as Group A or Group B CPE credit.

Cybersecurity-related research and certification examination preparations count toward Group A CPE credits. All other business-related work counts for Group B ISC2 CPE credits.

7th Way to Earn ISC2 CPEs – Volunteering

ISC2 accepts volunteering activities as ISC2 CPE credits as well. Below are two examples of volunteering activities:

Volunteering for government, public sector, and other charitable organizations
Non-security government/private sector/charitable organization committees

You can search for volunteering options on the ISC2 website as well. Note that, these activities may not be available in your location if you are living in a small city.

Auditing of CPE credits

ISC2 CPE auditors perform random audits of submitted CPE activities by ISC2 certification holders. Certification holders will need to provide proof of attendance or a brief description of the activity. This is an important process that upholds the integrity of ISC2 credentials and maintains compliance with ANSI/ISO standards for certification.

If your ISC2 CPE submissions are selected for an audit, you will receive an email with instructions about the necessary documentation to support the activities. It is important to respond to this request and provide the information exactly as instructed within 90 days.

Upon providing relevant documentation to ISC2, your application will be reviewed and CPE credits will be processed on your account.

Summary

ISC2 certification holders need to earn CPEs every three years to renew their certification. There are Group A and Group B categories for earning CPE credits. Group A activities are domain-related activities mainly around cybersecurity. Group B activities are non-domain related activities that can be about business topics and personal development.

Although there are 7 different ways to earn ISC2 CPE credits, the most popular way is attending ISC2 CPE courses. Professionals choose ISC2 CPE courses mainly because there is no cap, affordable, and easy to earn CPEs. Besides, ISC2 CPE courses are less prone to audits as those activities are already known by ISC2.

The post 7 Ways to Earn ISC2 CPE Credits – Free CPE Credits Included appeared first on San Francisco Business School.

CISSP Renewal – 7 Paths to Renew CISSP Certification

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 16:37:37 +0000

CISSP Renewal – 7 Paths to Renew CISSP Certification

CISSP renewal requires certification holders to earn 120 CISSP CPE credits every three years. There are certain requirements and categories to earn CISSP CPE credits. We’ve explored the seven CISSP renewal steps in this article.

📌 Hint: Do not skip this article, you will find FREE CISSP Renewal CPE resources throughout the article.

Before diving into the best paths to earn CISSP CPE credits, you need to know the CISSP renewal requirements and which activities can earn you CPE hours to renew your CISSP certification. You might be interested in reading our 7 Ways to Get CISSP CPE Credits article as well.

CISSP Renewal CPE Requirements

ISC2 requires CISSP certification holders to earn 120 CISSP CPE credits in a three-year period and pay an Annual Management Fee (AMF) of 125 USD every year.

Certification	CPE Category	Suggested Annual CPEs	3-year Total
CISSP	Group A	30	90
	Group A or B	10	30
	Total Required	40	120

ISC2 has further requirements for the 120 CISSP renewal credits. There are two groups of CPE categories to earn CPE credits. Group A and Group B. ISC2 requires 90 CPE credits to be earned from Group A and 30 CPE credits from the Group B category.

Group A credits: domain-related activities

Group A credits relate directly to activities in the areas covered by the specific domains of the respective credential. For the CISSP certification renewal, these activities should be related to information security, information management, business management, etc.

You can earn Group A CISSP Credits through the following example activities:

Education: Taking an online course such as CISSP Renewal Courses (*Most Popular)
Reading a cybersecurity white paper
Publishing an article on cybersecurity
Attending ISC2 Security Congress
Preparing for a presentation or teaching information related to cybersecurity
Performing a unique work-related project that is not part of your normal work duties
Self-study related to research for a project or preparing for a certification examination
Volunteering for government, public sector, and other charitable organizations
Taking a higher education course

We will go through each of these paths to earn CISSP Renewal CPE credits in detail throughout this article.

Note that, your day-to-day work activities do not count for CISSP CPE credits even if your job includes information security activities.

Watch 7 Paths to Earn CISSP Renewal CPE Credits Video

We’ve listed the 7 paths to earn CPE credits in our following YouTube video.

Group B credits: professional development

You can earn Group B CISSP Renewal Credits through the following example activities:

Attending non-security events, such as leadership conferences
Participating in non-security education courses such as Business Strategy Training.
Preparing for non-security presentations/lectures/trainings
Non-security government/private sector/charitable organization committees

Now, Let’s go through each CISSP CPE Credit earning path one by one.

1st Path – The Best Way for CISSP Renewal – Education

As we’ve highlighted in the previous section, earning CISSP CPE credits through the Education category is the most popular way for professionals.

While there are several benefits of CISSP renewal through CPE courses, here are the top five reasons:

No Caps: There is no maximum limit for the Education category, so, you can earn all CISSP CPE needs in one program, and renew your certification. You do not need to go elsewhere to find additional CPEs to renew CISSP certification.
Self-Paced: You do not need to attend an event, conference, or seminar. You can follow the courses at your place, at your pace.
Affordable: Depending on the program content, you can enroll in a self-paced CISSP CPE Online Training for ~$200-300. However, seminars or conferences start from $1,000, not only that, you may not earn all CPE needs in one event.
Requires less effort: When you enroll in CPE Courses, all you have to do is follow the curriculum, earn CPEs, and renew your CISSP certification. However, other CPE credits earning paths require significant effort from the CISSP certification holder such as creating content, sharing a presentation, authoring, etc.
Less prone to ISC2® audit: Since the CISSP renewal training programs are used by many certified professionals, ISC2 already has a track and record of the activities. However, for other categories, CPE submissions are more unique and may be more likely to hit an audit.

ISC2 CPE Online Courses to Renew Your ISC2 Certification

There is a CPE rule for Education CPE credits. You can submit a maximum of 40 CPE credits per entry. While you can earn all 120 CPEs through the education category, you need to submit at least three different entries.

Watch Kathy’s CISSP Renewal Journey

Kathy Buckley is a CISSP-certified Professional. Kathy enrolled in the 120 CISSP CPE Course Program from SFBS and renewed her CISSP. Watch now her CISSP renewal journey.

2nd Path for CISSP Renewal – Reading

ISC2 accepts CPE credits by reading cybersecurity white papers, books, magazines, or white papers. For instance, reading a cyber security blog, a business education blog, or a book can count CPEs toward renewing your CISSP certification. 1 hour of reading counts as 1 CPE, however, everyone’s reading pace is different. So, earning CISSP renewal CPE credits through reading resources is not a crystal clear way to go.

There are further requirements for earning CPEs through reading as well. A maximum number of CPE credits applies to the following activities:

Books – 5 CPE credits per book with a 250-word description
Magazines – 5 CPE credits per magazine issue with a 250-word description
White papers – 1 CPE credit per paper with a 250-word description

So, there is a limit to earning CPEs through reading.

3rd Path for CISSP Certification Renewal – Events

Several cybersecurity conferences, events, and activities are organized throughout the year. Some of the events that can earn you CPE credits are as follows:

Attending ISC2 Security Congress
Industry conferences (in-person or virtual) and seminars
Online webinars, podcasts, and other virtual offerings
Professional cybersecurity chapter meetings
Attending non-security events, such as leadership conferences

You can attend these events and earn CISSP CPE credits. Typically, a one-day activity earns 6 CPEs. So, if you attended a two-day event, you will earn around 12 CISSP renewal CPE credits.

Attending global events has benefits like expanding your professional network and learning the changing trends in your domain. However, there are some pitfalls to these events.

Typically organized in big cities. If you are living in a relatively smaller city, you might not see any events to earn CPEs.
Requires in-person attendance. Many of the events take a few days, and you have to take days off from your work to attend these events.
Expensive. Typically, these events are charged $1,000/day. So, for a two-day event, you need to pay around $2,000. Travel and accommodation, if needed, are not included in these fees.
Does not earn CPE credits at once. Although it requires a significant amount of time and money, you cannot earn all the required CPE credits you need through one event.

Considering you are a full-time working professional and looking to earn CISSP renewal credits in one step, we do not recommend this path for earning CPEs.

San Francisco Business School offers a self-paced Free ISC2 CPE Course Online Program as well. If you attend this program, you can earn 3 Free CISSP CPE credits and submit them in the education category.

4th Path to Renew CISSP Certification – Authoring

If you are authoring business or cybersecurity-related content, ISC2 accepts your activity as a source of CPE credits. Some of the activities you can earn CISSP CPE credits are as follows:

Publishing an article on cybersecurity
Preparing for a presentation or teaching information related to cybersecurity
Preparing for non-security presentations/lectures/trainings
Writing, researching, and publishing books, articles, papers, and blogs
Preparation time for webinars, podcasts, or presentations
Preparing new or updating existing training seminars or classroom materials

Do you write articles or blogs? Give webinars? Make videos? Today’s digital world is full of new content and anything you create counts towards your CISSP renewal process. Typically, you can submit CPEs for the hours you worked on content creation. For instance, if you wrote a blog post for an hour, you can claim 1 CPE credit in your ISC2 profile.

Creating content is cumbersome. There are several aspects of curating quality content. If your profession involves creating content, it is fine, you can earn CISSP CPE credits while you are working. However, just to earn CPEs, creating content is a tough path.

CPE rules for Authoring

There are further CPE rules for authoring activities. A maximum number of CPE credits applies to the following activities:

Books: 40 CPE credits per book as author, 20 CPE credits per book as co-author, 10 CPE credits per book as editor
Articles: 20 CPE credits per article as author, 10 CPE credits per article as co-author, 5 CPE credits per article as editor
Chapters in books: 20 CPE credits per chapter as author, 10 CPE credits per chapter as co-author, 5 CPE credits per chapter as editor
Professional blogs: 10 CPE credits per blog as author, 5 CPE credits per blog as co-author, 2 CPE credits per blog as editor
White papers: 10 CPE credits per white paper as author, 5 CPE credits per white paper as co-author, 2 CPE credits per white paper as editor
Preparing existing training: one-day course equals 2 CPE credits, two-day course equals 5 CPE credits, five- to seven-day courses equals 10 CPE credits, and semesters (12 or more weeks) equal 20 CPE credits.

If you are authoring and trying to earn CPE credits, make sure you do not exceed these limits.

5th Path for CISSP Renewal – Unique Work Experience

For instance, if you are helping a charity organization audit its website vulnerabilities, this can count as a unique work experience and you can earn CISSP renewal CPE credits. One hour of participation related to the credential domains equals 1 CPE credit with a maximum of 10 CPE credits per unique work experience.

6th Path to Earn CISSP Renewal Credits – Self-Study

Cybersecurity-related research and certification examination preparations count toward Group A CPE credits. All other business-related work counts for Group B CISSP CPE credits.

7th Path to CISSP Certification Renewal – Volunteering

ISC2 accepts volunteering activities as CISSP CPE credits as well. Below are two examples of volunteering activities:

Volunteering for government, public sector, and other charitable organizations
Non-security government/private sector/charitable organization committees

You can search for volunteering options on the ISC2 website as well. Note that, these activities may not be available in your location if you are living in a small city.

Auditing of CPE credits

ISC2 CPE auditors perform random audits of submitted CPE activities by CISSP certification holders. Certification holders will need to provide proof of attendance or a brief description of the activity. This is an important process that upholds the integrity of ISC2 credentials and maintains compliance with ANSI/ISO standards for certification.

If your CISSP renewal CPE submissions are selected for an audit, you will receive an email with instructions about the necessary documentation to support the activities. It is important to respond to this request and provide the information exactly as instructed within 90 days.

Upon providing relevant documentation to ISC2, your application will be reviewed and CPE credits will be processed on your account.

Summary

CISSP certification holders need to earn 120 CPEs every three years to renew their certification. There are Group A and Group B categories for earning CPE credits. Group A activities are domain-related activities mainly around cybersecurity. Group B activities are non-domain related activities that can be about business topics and personal development.

Although there are 7 different paths to earn CISSP renewal CPE credits, the most popular way is attending CISSP CPE courses. Professionals choose CISSP CPE courses mainly because there is no cap, affordable, and easy to earn CPEs. Besides, CISSP CPE courses are less prone to audits as those activities are already known by ISC2.

The post CISSP Renewal – 7 Paths to Renew CISSP Certification appeared first on San Francisco Business School.

7 Ways to Get CISSP CPE Credits – Free CPE Credits

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 10:18:04 +0000

7 Ways to Get CISSP CPE Credits – Free CPE Credits Included

ISC2 requires CISSP certification holders to earn 120 CISSP CPE credits every three years. There are certain requirements and categories to earn CISSP CPE credits. We’ve explored how to get CISSP CPE credits in this article.

📌 Hint: Do not skip this article, you will find FREE CISSP CPE resources throughout the article.

Before diving into the best ways to get CISSP CPE credits, you need to know the CISSP CPE requirements and which activities can earn you CPE hours to renew your CISSP certification.

CISSP CPE Requirements

ISC2 requires CISSP certification holders to earn 120 CISSP CPE credits in a three-year period and pay an Annual Management Fee (AMF) of 125 USD every year.

Certification	CPE Category	Suggested Annual CPEs	3-year Total
CISSP	Group A	30	90
	Group A or B	10	30
	Total Required	40	120

ISC2 has further requirements for the 120 CISSP CPE credits. There are two groups of CPE categories to earn CPE credits. Group A and Group B. ISC2 requires 90 CPE credits to be earned from Group A and 30 CPE credits from the Group B category.

You can read more on CISSP Renewal – 7 Paths to Renew CISSP Certification article.

Group A credits: domain-related activities

Group A credits relate directly to activities in the areas covered by the specific domains of the respective credential. For the CISSP certification, these activities should be related to information security, information management, business management, etc.

You can earn Group A CISSP Credits through the following example activities:

Education: Taking an online course such as CISSP CPE Courses (*Most Popular)
Reading a cybersecurity white paper
Publishing an article on cybersecurity
Attending ISC2 Security Congress
Preparing for a presentation or teaching information related to cybersecurity
Performing a unique work-related project that is not part of your normal work duties
Self-study related to research for a project or preparing for a certification examination
Volunteering for government, public sector, and other charitable organizations
Taking a higher education course

We will go through each of these ways to earn CISSP CPE credits in detail throughout this article.

Note that, your day-to-day work activities do not count for CISSP CPE credits even if your job includes information security activities.

Watch 7 Ways to Earn CISSP CPE Credits Video

We’ve listed the 7 ways to earn CPE credits in our following YouTube video.

Group B credits: professional development

You can earn Group B CISSP Credits through the following example activities:

Attending non-security events, such as leadership conferences
Participating in non-security education courses such as Business Strategy Training.
Preparing for non-security presentations/lectures/trainings
Non-security government/private sector/charitable organization committees

Now, Let’s go through each CISSP CPE Credit earning way one by one.

1st Way – The Best Way to Get CISSP CPE Credits – Education

As we’ve highlighted in the previous section, earning CISSP CPE credits through the Education category is the most popular way for professionals.

While there are several benefits of earning CISSP CPE credits through CPE courses, here are the top five reasons:

No Caps: There is no maximum limit for the Education category, so, you can earn all CISSP CPE needs in one program, and renew your certification. You do not need to go elsewhere to find additional CPEs to renew CISSP certification.
Self-Paced: You do not need to attend an event, conference, or seminar. You can follow the courses at your place, at your pace.
Affordable: Depending on the program content, you can enroll in a self-paced CISSP CPE Online Training for ~$200-300. However, seminars or conferences start from $1,000, not only that, you may not earn all CPE needs in one event.
Requires less effort: When you enroll in CPE Courses, all you have to do is follow the curriculum, earn CPEs, and renew your CISSP certification. However, other CPE credits earning ways require significant effort from the CISSP certification holder such as creating content, sharing a presentation, authoring, etc.
Less prone to ISC2® audit: Since the CISSP CPE training programs are used by many certified professionals, ISC2 already has a track and record of the activities. However, for other categories, CPE submissions are more unique and may be more likely to hit an audit.

ISC2 CPE Online Courses to Renew Your ISC2 Certification

Watch How Kathy Renewed Her CISSP Certification

Kathy Buckley is a CISSP-certified Professional. Kathy enrolled in the 120 CISSP CPE Course Program from SFBS and renewed her CISSP. Watch now her CISSP renewal journey.

2nd Way to Earn CISSP CPE Credits – Reading

ISC2 accepts CPE credits by reading cybersecurity white papers, books, magazines, or white papers. For instance, reading a cyber security blog, a business education blog, or a book can count CPEs toward renewing your CISSP certification. 1 hour of reading counts as 1 CPE, however, everyone’s reading pace is different. So, earning CISSP CPE credits through reading resources is not a crystal clear way to go.

There are further requirements for earning CPEs through reading as well. A maximum number of CPE credits applies to the following activities:

Books – 5 CPE credits per book with a 250-word description
Magazines – 5 CPE credits per magazine issue with a 250-word description
White papers – 1 CPE credit per paper with a 250-word description

So, there is a limit to earning CPEs through reading.

3rd Way to Get CISSP CPEs – Events

Several cybersecurity conferences, events, and activities are organized throughout the year. Some of the events that can earn you CPE credits are as follows:

Attending ISC2 Security Congress
Industry conferences (in-person or virtual) and seminars
Online webinars, podcasts, and other virtual offerings
Professional cybersecurity chapter meetings
Attending non-security events, such as leadership conferences

You can attend these events and earn CISSP CPE credits. Typically, a one-day activity earns 6 CPEs. So, if you attended a two-day event, you will earn around 12 CPE credits.

Attending global events has benefits like expanding your professional network and learning the changing trends in your domain. However, there are some pitfalls to these events.

Typically organized in big cities. If you are living in a relatively smaller city, you might not see any events to earn CPEs.
Requires in-person attendance. Many of the events take a few days, and you have to take days off from your work to attend these events.
Expensive. Typically, these events are charged $1,000/day. So, for a two-day event, you need to pay around $2,000. Travel and accommodation, if needed, are not included in these fees.
Does not earn CPE credits at once. Although it requires a significant amount of time and money, you cannot earn all the required CPE credits you need through one event.

Considering you are a full-time working professional and looking to earn CISSP CPE credits in one step, we do not recommend this way for earning CPEs.

4th Way to Earn CISSP CPE Credits – Authoring

If you are authoring business or cybersecurity-related content, ISC2 accepts your activity as a source of CPE credits. Some of the activities you can earn CISSP CPE credits are as follows:

Publishing an article on cybersecurity
Preparing for a presentation or teaching information related to cybersecurity
Preparing for non-security presentations/lectures/trainings
Writing, researching, and publishing books, articles, papers, and blogs
Preparation time for webinars, podcasts, or presentations
Preparing new or updating existing training seminars or classroom materials

Do you write articles or blogs? Give webinars? Make videos? Today’s digital world is full of new content and anything you create counts towards your CISSP re-certification. Typically, you can submit CPEs for the hours you worked on content creation. For instance, if you wrote a blog post for an hour, you can claim 1 CPE credit in your ISC2 profile.

CPE rules for Authoring

There are further CPE rules for authoring activities. A maximum number of CPE credits applies to the following activities:

Books: 40 CPE credits per book as author, 20 CPE credits per book as co-author, 10 CPE credits per book as editor
Articles: 20 CPE credits per article as author, 10 CPE credits per article as co-author, 5 CPE credits per article as editor
Chapters in books: 20 CPE credits per chapter as author, 10 CPE credits per chapter as co-author, 5 CPE credits per chapter as editor
Professional blogs: 10 CPE credits per blog as author, 5 CPE credits per blog as co-author, 2 CPE credits per blog as editor
White papers: 10 CPE credits per white paper as author, 5 CPE credits per white paper as co-author, 2 CPE credits per white paper as editor
Preparing existing training: one-day course equals 2 CPE credits, two-day course equals 5 CPE credits, five- to seven-day courses equals 10 CPE credits, and semesters (12 or more weeks) equal 20 CPE credits.

If you are authoring and trying to earn CPE credits, make sure you do not exceed these limits.

5th Way to Get CISSP CPEs – Unique Work Experience

For instance, if you are helping a charity organization audit its website vulnerabilities, this can count as a unique work experience and you can earn CISSP CPE credits. One hour of participation related to the credential domains equals 1 CPE credit with a maximum of 10 CPE credits per unique work experience.

6th Way to Earn CISSP CPE Credits – Self-Study

Cybersecurity-related research and certification examination preparations count toward Group A CPE credits. All other business-related work counts for Group B CISSP CPE credits.

7th Way to Earn CISSP CPEs – Volunteering

ISC2 accepts volunteering activities as CISSP CPE credits as well. Below are two examples of volunteering activities:

Volunteering for government, public sector, and other charitable organizations
Non-security government/private sector/charitable organization committees

You can search for volunteering options on the ISC2 website as well. Note that, these activities may not be available in your location if you are living in a small city.

Auditing of CPE credits

If your CISSP CPE submissions are selected for an audit, you will receive an email with instructions about the necessary documentation to support the activities. It is important to respond to this request and provide the information exactly as instructed within 90 days.

Upon providing relevant documentation to ISC2, your application will be reviewed and CPE credits will be processed on your account.

Summary

Although there are 7 different ways to earn CISSP CPE credits, the most popular way is attending CISSP CPE courses. Professionals choose CISSP CPE courses mainly because there is no cap, affordable, and easy to earn CPEs. Besides, CISSP CPE courses are less prone to audits as those activities are already known by ISC2.

The post 7 Ways to Get CISSP CPE Credits – Free CPE Credits appeared first on San Francisco Business School.

7 Options to Get Free CISSP CPE Credits – Free ISC2 CPEs

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 09:37:44 +0000

7 Options to Earn Free CISSP CPE Credits – Free ISC2 CPE Credits Online

ISC2 requires certification holders to earn ISC2 CPE credits every three years. ISC2 certification holders are looking for options to earn Free ISC2 CPE credits, or CISSP holders are looking for Free CISSP CPE credits to renew their certification. There are certain requirements and categories to earn ISC2 CPE credits. We’ve explored how to earn Free ISC2 CPE credits in this article.

📌 Hint: Do not skip this article, you will find FREE ISC2 CPE resources throughout the article.

Before diving into the best ways to earn Free CISSP CPE credits, you need to know the CPE requirements and which activities can earn you CPE hours to renew your ISC2 certification. If you have a CISSP certification, you can read the CISSP Renewal article. If you have other certifications, keep on reading this article.

ISC2 CPE Requirements

CPE is the abbreviation of Continuing Professional Education. Typically, an hour spent on an activity equals one CPE credit. You can report Free CISSP CPE credits in 0.25, 0.50, and 0.75 increments. For instance, if you attended a 30-minute webinar, you can earn 0.5 CPE credits.

Certification	Type	Suggested Annual	3-year Total
CC	Group A	15	45
	Group A or B	–	–
	Total Required	15	45
CISSP	Group A	30	90
	Group A or B	10	30
	Total Required	40	120
CCSP, CSSLP	Group A	20	60
	Group A or B	10	30
	Total Required	30	90
CGRC, HCISPP, SSCP	Group A	15	45
	Group A or B	5	15
	Total Required	20	60
CISSP-ISSAP, ISSEP, ISSMP	Group A	–	20
CISSP-ISSAP, ISSEP, ISSMP	Total Required	20	20

There are two groups of CPE categories to earn CPE credits. Group A activities are domain-related activities, and Group B activities are non-domain-related activities.

If you have a CISSP certification, you can read more in the 7 Ways to Get CISSP CPE Credits article to learn more about Free CISSP CPE credits.

Group A credits: domain-related activities

You can earn Group A ISC2 CPE Credits through the following example activities:

Education: Taking an online course such as Free CISSP CPE Courses (*Most Popular)
Reading a cybersecurity white paper
Publishing an article on cybersecurity
Attending ISC2 Security Congress
Preparing for a presentation or teaching information related to cybersecurity
Performing a unique work-related project that is not part of your normal work duties
Self-study related to research for a project or preparing for a certification examination
Volunteering for government, public sector, and other charitable organizations
Taking a higher education course

We will go through each of these ways to earn Free ISC2 CPE credits in detail throughout this article.

Note that, your day-to-day work activities do not count for CPE credits even if your job includes information security activities.

Watch 7 Ways to Earn Free CISSP CPE Credits Video

We’ve listed the 7 ways to earn CPE credits in our following YouTube video.

Group B credits: professional development

You can earn Group B ISC2 CPE Credits through the following example activities:

Attending non-security events, such as leadership conferences
Participating in non-security education courses such as Business Strategy Training.
Preparing for non-security presentations/lectures/trainings
Non-security government/private sector/charitable organization committees

Now, Let’s go through each. Free ISC2 CPE Credit earning way one by one.

1st Way – The Best Way to Earn Free CISSP CPE Credits – Education

As we’ve highlighted in the previous section, earning ISC2 CPE credits through the Education category is the most popular way for professionals.

While there are several benefits of earning ISC2 CPE credits through CPE courses, here are the top five reasons:

No Caps: There is no maximum limit for the Education category, so, you can earn all ISC2 CPE needs in one program, and renew your certification. You do not need to go elsewhere to find additional CPEs to renew ISC2 certification. Note that, comprehensive CPE course programs will be paid, so earning all CPEs through Free ISC2 CPE courses may not be possible.
Self-Paced: You do not need to attend an event, conference, or seminar. You can follow the courses at your place, at your pace.
Affordable: Depending on the program content, you can enroll in a self-paced ISC2 CPE Online Training for ~$200-300. However, seminars or conferences start from $1,000, not only that, you may not earn all CPE needs in one event.
Requires less effort: When you enroll in Free CISSP CPE Courses, all you have to do is follow the curriculum, earn CPEs, and renew your ISC2 certification. However, other CPE credits earning ways require significant effort from the ISC2 certification holder such as creating content, sharing a presentation, authoring, etc.
Less prone to ISC2® audit: Since the ISC2 CPE training programs are used by many certified professionals, ISC2 already has a track and record of the activities. However, for other categories, CPE submissions are more unique and may be more likely to hit an audit.

ISC2 CPE Online Courses to Renew Your ISC2 Certification

There is a CPE rule for Education CPE credits. You can submit a maximum of 40 CPE credits per entry. While you can earn all required Free CISSP CPE credits through the education category, you need to submit at least three different entries.

Learn more about 7 Ways to Earn ISC2 CPE Credits.

Watch How Kathy Renewed Her CISSP Certification

Kathy Buckley is a CISSP-certified Professional. Kathy enrolled in the 120 ISC2 CPE Course Program from SFBS and renewed her CISSP. Watch now her CISSP renewal journey.

2nd Way to Earn Free ISC2 CPE Credits – Reading

ISC2 accepts CPE credits by reading cybersecurity white papers, books, magazines, or white papers. For instance, reading a cyber security blog, a business education blog, or a book can count CPEs toward renewing your ISC2 certification. 1 hour of reading counts as 1 CPE, however, everyone’s reading pace is different. So, earning Free ISC2 CPE credits through reading resources is not a crystal clear way to go.

There are further requirements for earning Free CISSP CPEs through reading as well. A maximum number of CPE credits applies to the following activities:

Books – 5 CPE credits per book with a 250-word description
Magazines – 5 CPE credits per magazine issue with a 250-word description
White papers – 1 CPE credit per paper with a 250-word description

So, there is a limit to earning CPEs through reading.

3rd Way to Get Free CISSP CPEs – Events

Several cybersecurity conferences, events, and activities are organized throughout the year. Some of the events that can earn you CPE credits are as follows:

Attending ISC2 Security Congress
Industry conferences (in-person or virtual) and seminars
Online webinars, podcasts, and other virtual offerings
Professional cybersecurity chapter meetings
Attending non-security events, such as leadership conferences

You can attend these events and earn Free CISSP CPE credits. Typically, a one-day activity earns 6 CPEs. So, if you attended a two-day event, you will earn around 12 CPE credits.

Attending global events has benefits like expanding your professional network and learning the changing trends in your domain. However, there are some pitfalls to these events.

Typically organized in big cities. If you are living in a relatively smaller city, you might not see any events to earn Free CISSP CPEs.
Requires in-person attendance. Many of the events take a few days, and you have to take days off from your work to attend these events.
Expensive. Typically, these events are charged $1,000/day. So, for a two-day event, you need to pay around $2,000. Travel and accommodation, if needed, are not included in these fees.
Does not earn CPE credits at once. Although it requires a significant amount of time and money, you cannot earn all the required CPE credits you need through one event.

Considering you are a full-time working professional and looking to earn ISC2 CPE credits in one step, we do not recommend this way for earning Free CISSP CPEs.

San Francisco Business School offers a self-paced Free CISSP CPE Course Online Program as well. If you attend this program, you can earn 3 Free ISC2 CPE credits and submit them in the education category.

4th Way to Earn Free ISC2 CPE Credits – Authoring

If you are authoring business or cybersecurity-related content, ISC2 accepts your activity as a source of Free ISC2 CPE credits. Some of the activities you can earn Free ISC2 CPE credits are as follows:

Publishing an article on cybersecurity
Preparing for a presentation or teaching information related to cybersecurity
Preparing for non-security presentations/lectures/trainings
Writing, researching, and publishing books, articles, papers, and blogs
Preparation time for webinars, podcasts, or presentations
Preparing new or updating existing training seminars or classroom materials

Creating content is cumbersome. There are several aspects of curating quality content. If your profession involves creating content, it is fine, you can earn Free CISSP CPE credits while you are working. However, just to earn CPEs, creating content is a tough path.

CPE rules for Authoring

There are further CPE rules for authoring activities. A maximum number of CPE credits applies to the following activities:

Books: 40 CPE credits per book as author, 20 CPE credits per book as co-author, 10 CPE credits per book as editor
Articles: 20 CPE credits per article as author, 10 CPE credits per article as co-author, 5 CPE credits per article as editor
Chapters in books: 20 CPE credits per chapter as author, 10 CPE credits per chapter as co-author, 5 CPE credits per chapter as editor
Professional blogs: 10 CPE credits per blog as author, 5 CPE credits per blog as co-author, 2 CPE credits per blog as editor
White papers: 10 CPE credits per white paper as author, 5 CPE credits per white paper as co-author, 2 CPE credits per white paper as editor
Preparing existing training: one-day course equals 2 CPE credits, two-day course equals 5 CPE credits, five- to seven-day courses equals 10 CPE credits, and semesters (12 or more weeks) equal 20 CPE credits.

If you are authoring and trying to earn Free ISC2 CPE credits, make sure you do not exceed these limits.

5th Way to Get Free CISSP CPEs – Unique Work Experience

For instance, if you are helping a charity organization audit its website vulnerabilities, this can count as a unique work experience and you can earn Free CISSP CPE credits. One hour of participation related to the credential domains equals 1 CPE credit with a maximum of 10 CPE credits per unique work experience.

6th Way to Earn Free CISSP CPE Credits – Self-Study

Cybersecurity-related research and certification examination preparations count toward Group A CPE credits. All other business-related work counts for Group B ISC2 CPE credits.

7th Way to Earn Free ISC2 CPEs – Volunteering

ISC2 accepts volunteering activities as ISC2 CPE credits as well. Below are two examples of volunteering activities:

Volunteering for government, public sector, and other charitable organizations
Non-security government/private sector/charitable organization committees

You can search for volunteering options on the ISC2 website as well. Note that, these activities may not be available in your location if you live in a small city.

Auditing of CPE credits

Upon providing relevant documentation to ISC2, your application will be reviewed and Free CISSP CPE credits will be processed on your account.

Summary

ISC2 certification holders need to earn CPEs every three years to renew their certification. Professionals look for Free ISC2 CPE credits or Free CISSP CPE credits to renew their certifications. There are Group A and Group B categories for earning CPE credits. Group A activities are domain-related activities mainly around cybersecurity. Group B activities are non-domain related activities that can be about business topics and personal development.

Although there are 7 different ways to earn Free ISC2 CPE credits, the most popular way is attending Free ISC2 CPE courses. Professionals choose Free CISSP CPE courses mainly because there is no cap, affordable, and easy to earn CPEs. Besides, CPE courses are less prone to audits as those activities are already known by ISC2.

The post 7 Options to Get Free CISSP CPE Credits – Free ISC2 CPEs appeared first on San Francisco Business School.

John C. Maxwell – Top 5 Leadership Books & Tips

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 22:39:41 +0000

John C. Maxwell – Top 5 Leadership Books & Tips

John C. Maxwell is an internationally recognized leadership expert, speaker, and author who has sold over 19 million books. When it comes to talking about leadership, John Maxwell is one of the gurus in this area. We’ve explored John Maxwell’s leadership work, books, and famous quotes in this article.

📌 Hint: Do not skip this article, you will find FREE Leadership Training resources throughout the article.

Top 5 John Maxwell Leadership Books

John Maxwell speaks to Fortune 500 companies, international government leaders, and audiences as diverse as the United States Military Academy at West Point, the National Football League, and ambassadors at the United Nations. He is an awarded bestseller by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Business Week. Maxwell was named the World’s Top Leadership Guru by Leadershipgurus.net.

💡 You might be interested in the 21 Leadership Skills Professionals Expect to See at the Workplace article.

We’ve examined John Maxwell’s leadership books and picked the top 5 most popular ones in this article. While we are picking the top 5 books, we’ve gone through the review ratings and number of reviews on Amazon and Good Reads. The combined rating is the weighted average of the Amazon and Good Reads ratings.

John Maxwell Leadership Book	Amazon Rating	Number of Reviews	Good Reads Rating	Number of Reviews	Combined Rating
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership	4.70	8,130	4.15	51,633	4.22
The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth	4.80	5,116	4.32	8,146	4.51
The 5 Levels of Leadership	4.70	4,239	4.29	6,059	4.46
How Successful People Think	4.70	3,893	3.93	12,751	4.11
Developing the Leader Within You 2.0	4.70	3,171	4.21	23,664	4.27

If you like reading books for your self-development, you should add these leadership books to your reading list. Let’s go through each of these John Maxwell books and examine them.

Enhance Your Leadership Skills – Executive Leadership Training Program

San Francisco Business School offers an online, self-paced comprehensive executive leadership training program. You can consider enrolling in this program to improve your leadership skills.

1- The Most Popular John Maxwell Book- The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

The most popular and best John Maxwell leadership book is “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You”.

This book has over 8,000 reviews on Amazon with an average rating of 4.7. There are even more ratings on Good Reads with over 51,000 reviews and an average rating of 4.15.

John Maxwell focuses on the fundamental pillars of successful leadership such as vision, influence, responsibility, and commitment in this book. While defining leadership, it focuses on how to set targets for yourself and for your team. The book shows how to manage the emotional balance in hard times as well. While the book goes over the 21 laws, each law is justified by scenarios and examples from John Maxell’s leadership experience.

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership book by John Maxwell is a go-to resource for exploring the ways to become a leader and be successful in the workplace. This book is the best John Maxwell leadership book people can read if they want to:

Learn leadership on their own,
Develop as leaders in a group
Teach leadership to others as a mentor.

Watch 21 Leadership Skills Professionals Expect to See at the Workplace YouTube Video

If you like watching videos rather than reading, you can watch our Top 21 Leadership Skills YouTube video.

2- The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth

The second John Maxwell book in our list is “The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential”.

This book has over 5,000 reviews on Amazon with an average rating of 4.8, and over 8,000 reviews on Good Reads with an average rating of 4.32.

John C. Maxwell wrote his tested and true principles for maximum personal growth. According to John Maxwell, there are tested and correct principles that can help personal growth. The book focuses on:

The Law of the Mirror: You Must See Value in Yourself to Add Value to Yourself
The Law of Awareness: You Must Know Yourself to Grow Yourself
The Law of Modeling: It’s Hard to Improve When You Have No One But Yourself to Follow
The Law of the Rubber Band: Growth Stops When You Lose the Tension Between Where You Are and Where You Could Be
The Law of Contribution: Developing Yourself Enables You to Develop Others

Free Online Leadership Skills Training Program

One of the requirements to be a good leader is to improve yourself continuously. The best way to do this is, to enhance your competence through training. Take a step ahead and jumpstart your leadership competence. Enroll in our 1-hour Free Leadership Training program.

3- The 5 Levels of Leadership

The third John Maxwell leadership book is “The 5 Levels of Leadership: Proven Steps to Maximize Your Potential”.

This book has over 4,000 reviews on Amazon with an average rating of 4.7, and over 6,000 reviews on Good Reads with an average rating of 4.29.

You can read this John Maxwell book to learn about the leadership tools to fuel success, grow your team, and become the visionary you were meant to be.

True leadership is not related to having particular jobs or titles. In order to grow your career, you must be successful and reach targets with your team. You must act as a servant leader and help your people to improve their skills to become leaders as well.

The book focuses on the following 5 Levels of Leadership:
1. Position—People follow because they have to.
2. Permission—People follow because they want to.
3. Production—People follow because of what you have done for the organization.
4. People Development—People follow because of what you have done for them personally.
5. Pinnacle—People follow because of who you are and what you represent.

John Maxwell goes over each of these five levels of leadership through insights and examples.

Watch Laura’s 30 Seconds Experience – Executive Leadership Program

Hear from Our Alumni Laura Smith, Head of Design. Laura attended the Executive Leadership Program at SFBS.

4- How Successful People Think

The fourth John Maxwell leadership book on our list is “How Successful People Think: Change Your Life”.

This John Maxwell leadership book has over 3,800 reviews on Amazon with an average rating of 4.7, and over 12,500 reviews on Good Reads with an average rating of 3.93.

How Successful People Think, a Wall Street Journal best-seller, is the ideal, concise read for the fast-paced world of today. John C. Maxwell writes about how to be innovative and challenge traditional traits. The book teaches you to see the big picture while you are focusing on day-to-day activities.

5- Developing the Leader Within You 2.0

The fifth and last leadership book by John Maxwell on our list is “Developing the Leader Within You 2.0”.

This John Maxwell leadership book has over 3,000 reviews on Amazon with an average rating of 4.7, and over 23,500 reviews on Good Reads with an average rating of 4.21.

This book can help you develop the influence, character, service, and vision that it takes to be a leader in every aspect of your life. John Maxwell analyzes the different types of leadership styles and lists the following fundamental principles for inspiration, motivation, and influence.

Influence – using the 5 Levels of Leadership as a roadmap to influence others
Character – embracing good ethics, practicing self-leadership, and valuing people
Service – asking eight questions to develop into a leader who serves others daily
Vision – including eight components when painting a vision for your people so they can experience it

Developing the Leader Within You 2.0 book will help you transform the way you think about leadership.

Top 10 John Maxwell Quotes

There are thousands of famous quotes by John Maxwell. We’ve picked the top 10 quotes voted on Good Reads.

Quote #1 – “Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.”

Quote #2 – “Seven Steps to Success
1) Make a commitment to grow daily.
2) Value the process more than events.
3) Don’t wait for inspiration.
4) Be willing to sacrifice pleasure for opportunity.
5) Dream big.
6) Plan your priorities.
7) Give up to go up.”

Quote #3 – “We cannot become what we need by remaining what we are.”

Quote #4 – “Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.”

Quote #5 – “The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up.”

Quote #6 – “A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.”

Quote #7 – “Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.”

Quote #8 – “Talent is a gift, but character is a choice.”

Quote #9 – “Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.”

Quote #10 – “Success is…
knowing your purpose in life,
growing to reach your maximum potential, and
sowing seeds that benefit others.”

All of them are inspirational, which one is your favorite?

Summary – John Maxwell

John Calvin Maxwell (born February 20, 1947) is an American author, speaker, and pastor who has written many books, primarily focusing on leadership. We’ve reviewed the hundreds of books written by John Maxwell and picked the top 5 based on Amazon and Good Reads.

The top 5 John Maxwell books are:

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You
The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential
The 5 Levels of Leadership: Proven Steps to Maximize Your Potential
How Successful People Think: Change Your Life
Developing the Leader Within You 2.0

John Maxwell has thousands of quotes about leadership as well. We’ve picked the top 10 for our article as well.

The post John C. Maxwell – Top 5 Leadership Books & Tips appeared first on San Francisco Business School.

10 Ways to Earn CISA CPE Credits – Free CISA CPEs Included

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 22:17:55 +0000

10 Ways to Earn CISA CPE Credits – Free CISA CPEs Included

ISACA requires CISA certification holders to earn 120 CISA CPE credits every three years to renew their certification. There are certain CISA CPE requirements. We’ve explored the ways to earn ISACA CPE credits in this post.

📌 Hint: Do not skip this article, you will find FREE CISA CPE resources throughout the article.

CISA CPE Requirements

Before diving into the ways of earning CISA CPE credits, you need to know how many CPEs you need to renew your CISA certification and which activities count as CPE credits. CPE stands for continuing professional education and typically, one hour spent on an activity earns one CPE credit.

Certification	CPEs Required Annually	CPEs Required Over a 3-Year Period	Annual Maintenance Fee
CISA	20	120	45 USD for Members 85 USD for Non-Members

ISACA requires CISA certification holders to earn 120 CPEs every three years. You must earn at least 20 CISA CPE credits every year and pay the annual maintenance fee as well. Read more on CISA renewal article.

The annual reporting period begins on 1 January of each year. The three-year certification period varies and is indicated on each annual invoice and on the letter confirming annual compliance. For newly certified CISAs, the annual and three-year certification period begins on 1 January of the year succeeding certification. Reporting CISA CPE hours attained during the year of certification is not required. However, hours attained between the date of certification and 31 December of that year can be used and reported as hours earned in the initial reporting period.

Watch 10 Ways to Earn CISA CPE Credits Video

We’ve listed the 10 ways to earn CPE credits in our following YouTube video.

There are 10 different ways to earn CISA CPE hours. Let’s go over each way to earn CPE credits.

1st & Best Way to Earn CISA CPE Credits – Online Courses

While there are 10 different ways to earn CISA CPE credits, the most popular way to earn CPEs for professionals is through online courses. Here are the top 5 reasons why professionals choose CPE courses to renew their CISA certification.

No Caps: There is no maximum limit for the Education category, so, you can earn all ISACA CPE needs in one program, and renew your certification. You do not need to go elsewhere to find additional CISA CPE credits to renew ISACA certification.
Self-Paced: You do not need to attend an event, conference, or seminar. You can follow the courses at your place, at your pace.
Affordable: Depending on the program content, you can enroll in a self-paced CISA CPE Online Course for ~$200-300. However, seminars or conferences start from $1,000, not only that, you may not earn all CPE needs in one event.
Requires less effort: When you enroll in CISA CPE Courses, all you have to do is follow the curriculum, earn CPEs, and renew your ISACA certification. However, other CPE credits earning ways require significant effort from the ISACA certification holder such as creating content, sharing a presentation, authoring, etc.
Less prone to ISACA® audit: Since the ISACA CPE training programs are used by many certified professionals, ISACA already has a track and record of the activities. However, for other categories, CPE submissions are more unique and may be more likely to hit an audit.

60 CISA CPE Credits Program

San Francisco Business School offers a CISA CPE Course program.

The program offers three self-paced business training programs: Executive Leadership, Strategy Creation & Execution, and Marketing Strategy. For each course in the program, SFBS awards a certificate of graduation. While earning CPEs, you will earn reputable business merits to highlight in your resume and LinkedIn.

3 Types of Educational CPEs

ISACA classifies educational CPEs into three different categories.

Self-study courses (no limit): These activities include structured courses designed for self-study that offer CPE hours. These courses will only be accepted if the course provider issues a certificate of completion and the certificate contains the number of CPE hours earned for the course. SFBS 60 ISACA CPE course program goes into this category.
ISACA professional education activities and meetings (no limit): These activities include ISACA conferences, seminars, workshops, chapter program meetings, and related activities. CISAs earn CPE hours according to the number of hours of active participation.
Non-ISACA professional education activities and meetings (no limit): These activities include in-house corporate training, university courses, conferences, seminars, workshops, professional meetings and related activities not sponsored by ISACA. In addition, successfully completed university courses in related fields, including university online courses, earn 15 CPE hours per semester credit hour and 10 CPE hours per quarter credit hour (semester = 15 weeks of class; quarter = 10 weeks of class).

Watch How Suleiman Renewed His CISA Certification

Suleiman Adams is a CISA-certified Professional. Suleiman enrolled in the CISA CPE Course from SFBS and renewed his CISA. Watch now his CISA renewal journey.

2nd Way to Earn CISA CPE Credits – Events

Attending events has benefits like expanding your professional network and learning the changing trends in your domain. However, there are some pitfalls to these events.

Typically organized in big cities. If you are living in a relatively smaller city, you might not see any events to earn CISA CPE credits.
Requires in-person attendance. Many of the events take a few days, and you have to take days off from your work to attend these events.
Expensive. Typically, these events are charged $1,000/day. So, for a two-day event, you need to pay around $2,000. Travel and accommodation, if needed, are not included in these fees.
Does not earn CPE credits at once. Although it requires a significant amount of time and money, you cannot earn all the required CPE credits you need through one event.

Considering you are a full-time working professional and looking to earn ISACA CPE credits in one step, we do not recommend this way for earning CISA CPEs.

San Francisco Business School offers a self-paced Free CISA CPE Course Online Program as well. If you attend this program, you can earn 3 Free ISACA CPE credits and submit them in the education category.

3rd Way to Earn CISA CPE Credits – Presentation

Vendor sales and marketing presentations can count for CPE credits as well. These activities include vendor product or system-specific sales presentations related to the assessment of information systems. There is a maximum CPE earning limit of 10 CPEs for this way.

4th Way to Earn CPEs – Teaching

These activities include the development and delivery of professional educational presentations and the development of self-study or distance education courses related to the assessment of information systems. For presentations and courses (all types), CISA CPE hours are earned at five times the presentation time or time estimated to take the course for the first delivery.

For instance, a two-hour presentation earns ten CISA CPE hours and the actual presentation time for the second delivery.

5th Way to Earn CISA CPE Credits – Authoring

Publication of articles, monographs, and books count for CPE credits. These activities include the publication or review of material directly related to the information systems audit and control profession. Submissions must appear in a formal publication, website, or business blog and a copy of the article or the website address must be available if requested. For books and monographs, the table of contents and title page must be available. CISA CPE hours are earned for the actual number of hours taken to complete or review the material.

6th Way to Earn CPEs – Exam Development

Exam question development and review for ISACA counts as CPE as well. This activity pertains to the development or review of items for the CISA exam or review materials. Two CISA CPE hours are earned for each question accepted by an ISACA CISA item review committee.

7th Way to Earn ISACA CPE Credits – Passing a Related Certification

Passing related professional examinations counts for CPEs. This activity pertains to the pursuit of other related professional examinations. Two CPE hours are earned for each examination hour when a passing score is achieved.

8th Way to Earn CISA CPEs – Working on ISACA Boards/Committees

Working on ISACA Boards or Committees counts for CPE hours as well. There is a maximum 20-hour annual limitation per ISACA certification for this way. These activities include active participation on an ISACA Board, committee, sub-committee, task force, or active participation as an officer of an ISACA chapter. One CPE hour is earned for each hour of active participation. Active participation includes, but is not limited to, the development, implementation, and/or maintenance of a chapter website.

9th Way to Earn CPEs – Contribution to the Profession

Contributions to the IS audit and control profession are another way to earn CISA CPE credits. There is a 20-hour annual limitation in total for all related activities for this type of activity. These activities include work performed for ISACA and other bodies that contribute to the IS audit and control profession (i.e. research development, certification review manual development, Knowledge Centre Contributor, performing peer reviews). CPE hours are earned for the actual number of hours contributed.

10th Way to Earn CISA CPE Credits – Mentoring

You can earn CISA CPE hours through mentoring. There is a limitation of 10 maximum CPE limits per year. Activities include mentoring efforts directly related to coaching, reviewing, or assisting with CISA exam preparation or providing career guidance through the credentialing process either at the organizational, chapter, or individual level. The mentoring activity must be an activity supporting a specific person in preparation for their ISACA exam or certification career decisions. One CPE hour is earned for each hour of assistance.

How to Calculate CISA CPE Hours

One actual hour of activity counts for one CPE credit. When calculating CPE hours, you must count the actual hours spent for the activity. Let’s go through an example.

Dave is a CISA-certified Information Security Analyst and attends a conference, IS360. IS360 is a one-day conference with several talks and discussions ongoing in different rooms. The schedule of the conference is as follows:

IS360 Conference Schedule		Actual Hours	Minutes
09:00-10:15	Master Talk	1.25	75
10:15-10:30	Coffee Break	0	15
10:30-11:45	Talks in Various Rooms	1.25	75
11:45-13:30	Lunch Break	0	105
13:30-14:45	Talks in Various Rooms	1.25	75
14:45-15:00	Coffee Break	0	15
15:00-16:30	Talks in Various Rooms	1.5	90
	TOTAL	5.25	315

Although the event is scheduled from 09:00 until 16:30, breaks do not count as CPEs. The actual hours spent for the activity is 5.25, and Dave can submit 5.25 CISA CPE hours toward renewing his CISA certification.

Summary

CISA-certified professionals need to earn 120 CPEs every three years. At least 20 CISA CPE hours must be submitted annually. Professionals earning the required CPEs and paying the ISACA annual management fees can renew their CISA certification.

There are 10 different ways to earn CISA CPE hours. The most popular way chosen by professionals is earning CPEs through CPE online courses. Professionals opt for online CPE courses because there is no limit to earning CPEs, affordable and easy to earn CPEs. Besides, CPE courses are less prone to audits as those activities are already known by ISACA.

When submitting CPEs, be careful to submit the “actual hours” you spent on the activity. For instance, breaks do not count in a full-day activity.

The post 10 Ways to Earn CISA CPE Credits – Free CISA CPEs Included appeared first on San Francisco Business School.

PMP Renewal PDU – 11 PMI Approved Ways to Earn PMP PDUs

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 21:58:45 +0000

PMP Renewal PDU – 11 PMI Approved Ways to Earn PMP PDUs

As you land on this page, you should have a PMP certification and look for PMP renewal PDU options. You are on the right track! There are 11 legitimate ways to earn PMP renewal PDUs and we’ve explored all of them in this article. Let’s go over each of them one by one.

📌 Hint: Do not skip this article, you will find FREE PMP Renewal PDU resources throughout the article.

PMP Renewal PDU Requirements

Before exploring how to earn PDUs, first, remember the PMP PDU requirements as they are crucial in the PMP renewal process. PMI requires PMP certification holders to earn 60 PMP PDU hours every three years. And, there are further requirements for this requirement. The following three are the fundamental PMP renewal PDU requirements:

A minimum of 35 PDUs must be earned through the Education category. (There is no maximum limit, all 60 PDUs can be earned through Education PDUs)
A maximum of 25 PDUs can be earned through the Giving Back category. You cannot claim more than 25 PDUs
A maximum of 8 PDUs can be earned as working as a practitioner.

You can learn more details in our PMP PDU Requirements article.

As long as you satisfy these PDU requirements, PMI will approve your PDU claims, and you will proceed to renew your PMP certification.

💡Julia Boyer renewed her PMP certification. Read Julia’s PMP renewal story!

PMI PDU Categories

There are two main categories to earn PDUs. Education and Giving Back. Education PDUs can be earned at professional seminars, webinars, classes, or even self-directed learning. Giving Back to the Profession PDUs can be earned through volunteering, mentoring, working with professional groups, and more. Each of these are the ways to earn PMP renewal PDU hours.

The following table summarizes the 11 ways to earn PMP Renewal PDUs.

11 Ways to Earn PMP Renewal PDUs
Education (Min 35 PDUs)	Giving Back (Max 25 PDUs)
*1-Course or Training (Most Popular)**	1- Work as a Practitioner
2- Global Events	2- Create Content
3- Local Meetings	3- Give a Presentation
4- Online or Digital Media	4- Share Knowledge
5- Reading	5- Volunteer
6- Informal Learning

You can watch our 11 PMI Approved Ways to Earn PMP PDU videos on YouTube.

Let’s go through each way and explore the details.

1st Way – PMP Renewal PDU Courses

As we’ve highlighted in the table, PMP renewal PDU course programs are the most popular way to earn PDUs among PMP-certified professionals.

While there are several benefits of renewing PMP through PMP renewal PDU courses, here are the top five reasons:

No Caps: There is no maximum limit for the education category, so, you can earn all 60 PMP PDUs in one program, and renew your PMP. You do not need to go elsewhere to find additional PDUs.
Self-Paced: You do not need to attend an event, conference, or seminar. You can follow the courses at your place, at your pace.
Affordable: Depending on the program content, you can enroll in a self-paced PMP Renewal PDU course bundle for ~$200-300. However, seminars or conferences start from $1,000, not only that, you cannot earn all PDU needs in one event.
Requires less effort: When you enroll in PMP Renewal PDU Courses, all you have to do is follow the curriculum, earn PDUs, and renew your PMP. However, other PDU earning ways require significant effort from the PMP-certification holder such as creating content, sharing a presentation, volunteering, etc.
Less prone to PMI audit: Since the PDU training programs are used by many PMP-certified professionals, PMI already has a track and record of the activities. However, for other categories, PDU submissions are more unique and may be more likely to hit a PMI audit.

We’ve explored this alternative in detail in the PMP PDU Courses article.

Course or Training Programs Accepted by PMI as Source of PDU

PMI accepts instructor-led formal education courses or classes held in-person or online. Here is a list of courses accepted by PMI as a source of PDUs.

Virtual and in-person instructor-led courses from PMI Training
Online courses are available on demand
Academic education through programs accredited by the PMI Global Accreditation Center (GAC)
Training courses offered by PMI Authorized Training Partners
Disciplined Agile or PMP® certification training courses offered by a PMI Authorized Training Partner
Courses from other third-party providers (SFBS 60 PMP PDU Course Online program belongs to this category).

San Francisco Business School offers a comprehensive 60 PMP PDU Online Course program. The program offers three self-paced business training programs: Executive Leadership, Strategy Creation & Execution, and Marketing Strategy. For each course in the program, SFBS awards a certificate of graduation. While earning PDUs, you will earn reputable business merits to highlight in your resume and LinkedIn.

Watch how Julia Earned 60 PDUs and Renewed Her PMP

Julia Boyer is a PMP-certified Professional from Dallas, Texas. Julia enrolled in the 60 PMP PDU Program from SFBS and renewed her PMP. Watch now her PMP renewal journey.

2nd Way – Attending Global Events

Several project management conferences, events, and activities are organized throughout the year. You can attend these events and earn PMP Renewal PDU credits. Typically, a one-day activity earns 6 PDUs. So, if you attended a two-day event, you will earn around 12 PDUs.

Attending global events has benefits like expanding your professional network and learning the changing trends in your domain. However, there are some pitfalls to these events.

Typically organized in big cities. If you are living in a relatively smaller city, you might not see any events to earn PDUs.
Requires in-person attendance. Many of the events take a few days, and you have to take days off from your work to attend these events.
Expensive. Typically, these events are charged $1,000/day. So, for a two-day event, you need to pay around $2,000. Travel and accommodation, if needed, are not included in these fees.
Does not earn 60 PDUs at once. Although it requires a significant amount of time and money, you cannot earn all 60 PDUs through one event.

Considering you are a full-time working professional and looking to earn 60 PMP Renewal PDU hours in one step, we do not recommend this way for earning PDUs.

3rd Way – Local Meetings

PMI has an extensive network in many countries and cities. In many major cities, there are PMI chapters and they organize 1-2 hour events every month. Typically, one presenter talks about a topic for 1-2 hours and the attendees follow the activity. These activities typically earn 1-2 PDUs.

4th Way – PMP Renewal PDU Online or Digital Media

PMI accepts self-paced learning activities as a source of PDUs. You can find several PMP renewal PDU programs online while many of them offer limited PDUs. San Francisco Business School offers a self-paced Free PMP PDU Course Online Program as well. If you attend this program, you can earn 3 Free PDUs and submit them in the Online or Digital Media sub-category under the Education category.

5th Way – Reading

Self-directed reading relevant to the certification you hold can be claimed for PDUs. For instance, reading a project management-related blog, a business education blog, or a book can count PDUs toward renewing your PMP certification. 1 hour of reading counts as 1 PDU, however, everyone’s reading pace is different. So, earning PMP renewal PDUs through reading resources is not a crystal clear way to go.

6th Way – Informal Learning

You can earn PDUs by engaging in structured professional discussions with others, for example, mentoring or “lunch and learn” sessions. For instance, if you are giving a presentation to your colleagues about project management, you can submit this as PDUs.

Important Note: The 7th through 11th Way of Earning PMP Renewal PDUs below are under the Giving Back category. As we’ve outlined in the beginning of the article, you can claim a maximum of 25 PDUs through Giving Back PDUs.

7th Way – PMP Renewal PDU Working as a Practitioner

By working in your certified role, you can earn PDUs by applying your knowledge and skills in a practical setting. If you are working in a project management-related role, you can earn up to 8 PDUs as working as a practitioner. However, it has a limitation. PMI accepts a maximum of 8 PDUs in a three-year cycle for the work as a practitioner category.

After earning 8 PDUs under the Working as a Practitioner category, you will need additional PDUs to complete your 60 PMP PDU cycle. SFBS offers 45, 30, and 15 PDU programs as well.

If you need fewer than 60 PDUs, you can opt for one of these programs.

8th Way – Create Content

Do you write articles or blogs? Give webinars? Make videos? Today’s digital world is full of new content and anything you create counts towards your re-certification. Typically, you can submit PDUs for the hours you worked on project management content creation. For instance, if you wrote a blog post for an hour, you can claim 1 PDU in your PMI profile.

Creating content is cumbersome. There are several aspects of curating quality content. If your profession involves creating content, it is fine, you can earn PMP renewal PDU hours while you are working. However, just to earn PDUs, creating content is a tough path.

9th Way – Give a Presentation

If you speak at your organization, at a PMI chapter event, or at a conference, you can claim PDUs for it. For instance, if you gave a speech in a project management activity for an hour, you can submit 1 hour PDU for this activity in your PMI profile.

While there are nearly one million PMP-certified professionals, only a few thousand professionals could have earned PMP PDUs through this way. Because giving a speech to top-notch professionals requires exclusive skills. Besides, you should be invited to these events as a speaker, so you can earn PDUs.

10th Way – Share Knowledge

Others can benefit from your experience and knowledge. Keep track of the time you spend mentoring and teaching and claim it towards re-certification. An example of this can be sharing your knowledge in a discussion group at work. If you have a group of professionals sharing knowledge, if you attend those activities, you can claim PDUs.

For instance, if you’ve explored the ways of using AI in project management and want to share this knowledge with your colleagues, you can earn PDUs through this activity. You can gather in a meeting room and share your knowledge with your colleagues.

11th Way – Volunteer

PMI is just one of many organizations that relies on volunteers. Why not become one and earn credit toward re-certification in the process? You can search for volunteering options at the PMI website. Note that, these activities may not be available in your location if you are living in a small city.

Summary of PMP Renewal PDU Ways

PMI requires PMP-certified professionals to earn 60 PMP renewal PDU hours every three years. There are 11 ways to earn PMP PDUs. The first six are under the Education category and the last five are under the Giving Back category. You can earn all 60 PDUs in the Education category. However, there is a maximum 25 PDUs earning limit for the Giving Back category.

PMP Renewal PDU course programs are the most popular way to earn PDUs. Professionals choose to earn PDUs through courses because they are self-paced, affordable, and require less effort. Since there is no cap for the education category, professionals can earn all 60 PDUs at once through PMP PDU course programs. One of the other benefits of PDU courses is they are less prone to PMI audits.

The post PMP Renewal PDU – 11 PMI Approved Ways to Earn PMP PDUs appeared first on San Francisco Business School.

Participative Leadership: 7 Traits, Pros, Cons & When to Use

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 21:46:33 +0000

Participative Leadership: 7 Traits, Pros, Cons & When to Use

Participative leadership style is also known as democratic leadership. In the participative leadership approach, the leader fosters group participation in decision-making processes, although the final words might be told by the leader. We have gone through the 7 traits of participative leadership style, pros, and cons, when to use this leadership style, and when to avoid it.

Bill Gates and Jim Lentz are known as famous participative leaders. We will show some examples from their leadership as well.

📌 Hint: Do not skip this article, you will find FREE Leadership Training resources throughout the article.

What is Participative Leadership?

The inception of the participative leadership style dates back to the 1930s. Kurt Lewin, a German-born American social psychologist known for his field theory of behavior, developed a framework based on a leader’s behavior. Lewin argued that there are three types of leaders:

Autocratic leaders make decisions without consulting their teams. You can read more in the Authoritarian Leadership article.
Laissez-faire leaders do not step in; they create the environment for maximum participation, and let the people make many of the decisions. You can read more in the Laissez Faire Leadership article.
Democratic leaders foster team participation before making a decision.

The level of participation in participative leadership depends on the leader. Democratic leadership style is considered when a consensus is important to get team buy-in. Note that, if there are several differing ideas in the team, it might be difficult to manage and reach a conclusion.

💡 You might be interested in the 21 Leadership Skills Professionals Expect to See at the Workplace article.

Enhance Your Leadership Skills – Executive Leadership Training Program

San Francisco Business School offers an online, self-paced comprehensive executive leadership training program. You can consider enrolling in this program to improve your leadership skills.

7 Traits of Participative Leadership Style

There are several traits of participative leadership. We will go through the most common 7 traits in this article.

1- Participative Leadership Requires Active Listening

The backbone of participative leadership is about encouraging group decision-making. To do this, participative leaders must be an active listener. Active listening is about following what people say without interruption, providing feedback about their ideas, and also welcoming feedback about what you say.

To evaluate every perspective emerging from the group, participative leaders must be active listeners.

2- Approachable

Participative leadership requires being approachable. Do you know leaders who go straight to their rooms, attend meeting after meeting until the evening, and do not contact their teams? This is an old-school type of management.

Participative leadership style requires the leaders to be approachable. Team members should be able to talk with their leaders without barriers. This will encourage better communication and relationship which will lead the team members to express their ideas freely.

Free Online Leadership Skills Training Program

3- Participative Leaders are Open-minded

Open-minded is defined as “willing to consider new ideas; unprejudiced” in the dictionary. No matter what the team members bring in, participative leaders should give appropriate time to consider new ideas within the group. Personal feelings or beliefs on a particular perspective should not hinder the leader from evaluating this together with the group.

4- Communication

Participative leadership requires efficient and effective communication. Several ideas might be discussed within the group and while evaluating each idea, especially if there are opposing ideas, leaders should be careful to manage the discussion.

Efficient and effective communication ensures that the morale and motivation of the team are not hampered while evaluating different ideas.

5- Participative Leadership Fosters Accountability

Group members can bring in new ideas to discuss with the group. This fosters accountability in the group. Because, individuals are expected to bring in their ideas, and all groups will consider those perspectives in a group meeting.

Watch Laura’s 30 Seconds Experience – Executive Leadership Program

Hear from Our Alumni Laura Smith, Head of Design. Laura attended the Executive Leadership Program at SFBS.

6- Participative Leadership Motivates People

Participative leadership motivates people. Because, when making a decision, a participative leader looks for the team’s buy-in. The ideal scenario is consensus.

Since people actively participate in group discussions and decision-making, they feel that their ideas are important and affect the results. This motivates people.

7- Team-Building

As the team makes the decision as a group, participative leadership improves team-building. During the discussions, team members get to know each other better, this improves the relationship among the team and increases the team performance.

💡 Read 15 Types of Leadership article to learn about other leadership styles.

When to Use Participative Leadership Style

With participative leadership, you focus on mutual participation. You consult with your group, and you consider their ideas and expertise before making a decision. This approach works best when your team members are experienced, when the task is complex and challenging, and when your team members want to give you their input.

Even if the participative leader has the final say on decisions, team members are involved in the decision-making process. This builds trust and good working relationships, and team members feel empowered and engaged with their work. You depend on your group to develop ideas, not just offer opinions on an idea. The participative style is more about group problem-solving and brainstorming. So, make sure each person’s voice is heard equally.

Participative leadership works best when there are no tight deadlines, high-pressure, and when creativity is expected. Because, participative leadership is about hearing everyone’s voice on the team, evaluating the options, and making the best decision. This requires time.

Some example industries or places where participative leadership works best are:

Universities
Technology companies because they need innovation,
Creative agencies for the generation of out-of-the-box ideas

When to Avoid Participative Leadership Style

The downside of participative leadership is that it can slow the decision-making process, which can lead to missed opportunities. This can be particularly damaging in emergencies or crises. Emergencies, time-critical tasks, and having an inexperienced team are the cases when you should avoid a participative leadership style.

Emergency cases: quick decisions and fast reactions are needed in case of emergencies. This requires minimum time to decide on a solution. Autocratic leadership will work in emergencies.
Time-critical tasks: When there is time pressure, there might not be time to evaluate different perspectives and opinions from the team.
Inexperienced teams: If your team members are junior and need maximum guidance to perform, it is less likely to receive creative ideas from them. So, group participation may not be needed if you have an inexperienced team.
Operational works: If the team is working on operational tasks such as customer support requests, answering phone calls, or working on field cases, you might avoid participative leadership as the key performance indicators will be timely responses and the procedure is already defined in most of the cases.

3 Benefits of Participative Leadership Style

There are several benefits of the participative leadership style. We will go through the top 3 benefits here.

1- Employee Retention

People may think their existence is not important to the organization if their ideas are not asked or if they do not contribute in the decision-making process. This can cause absenteeism. Absenteeism is a habitual pattern of absence from a duty or obligation without good reason.

Participative leadership values the individuals’ ideas and perspectives. Therefore, they feel they are important to the organization. This cuts down on turnover and absenteeism.

2- Higher Morale

Having words in group discussions, contributing to the decision-making, and taking a more active part in the organization make employees feel like more than just a number, they’re more likely to engage in company policy and enjoy their work.

No doubt, higher morale will lead to higher productivity.

3- Creative and Innovative Thinking

Every individual has a different experience, insight, and perspective. Therefore, having words from each member can lead to creative and innovative ideas.

Sometimes, management can get stuck in a loop that leads them to make stagnant or outdated decisions. By opening up the floor to employee input, creative thinking ensues—and that opens the door for cost-saving innovations, unique approaches to productivity and efficiency, and more.

3 Flaws of Participative Leadership Style

Nothing is perfect, participative leadership has some flaws as well. While there may be many flaws, we’ve listed the top three here.

1- Slower Decision-Making Process

Group participation, hearing every voice in the team may require a significant amount of time especially if the team is big. If you are trying to reach a consensus, it might be impractical as well. This causes slower decision-making. If there are tight deadlines or high pressure such as an emergency, participative leadership may not be possible.

2- May Not Work in Inexperienced Teams

Group participation and welcoming new rationale ideas and perspectives are possible only if the team members are experienced. Inexperienced team members will have limited knowledge and insights, so, applying a participative leadership style with an inexperienced team may not work.

3- May Question the Leadership Existence

As the group is making decisions, in some cases, the existence of the participative leader may be questioned. Because, the team evaluates the different ideas on their own, makes a decision, and comes to a conclusion. Team members might question the existence of the leader in this case even though the final words rely on the leader.

Famous Participative Leaders

Although there are several participative leaders, the most famous two most famous participative leaders are Bill Gates and Jim Lentz.

Bill Gates as a Participative Leader

I think everyone knows who Bill Gates is. Co-founder of Microsoft, billionaire, computer tycoon, and a predictor of future technology. Gates managed Microsoft’s product strategy from 1975 until 2006.

Bill Gates was using both transactional leadership and participative leadership. He asked for the ideas of his team members and valued the group participation. However, in some cases, he was the quick decision maker and excellent delegator of the tasks even if the majority of the team was thinking differently than him.

Bill Gates is one of the great leaders affected our lives in the last 25 years. Do you want to see all 12 Great Leaders Who Affected Our Lives?

Jim Lentz as a Participative Leader

James E. Lentz is an American business executive and former chief executive officer for Toyota North America. Lentz began his career at Toyota in 1982 as a Merchandising Manager climbed up the ladder to the top and ended his Toyota career by 2019.

Through his years at the company, he has realized that being a “tyrant boss” isn’t going to get you very far. The following quotes from an interview show his participative leadership style:

“You’re not going to motivate people that way. Even back in the day, if you were very dictatorial in your management style, you got exactly what someone asked you to do. Not less, but not more. Today if people really understand why they’re doing something, I think they give more.”

Summary

The participative leadership style allows group discussion in decision-making processes, evaluating different ideas and perspectives, and looking for a consensus and team buy-in. This increases morale, motivation, and performance as the team members feel their ideas are important. Also, creative and innovative ideas emerge under participative leadership.

Participative leadership can be applied when there is no high pressure when deadlines are not critical, and if the team is experienced. Some examples are universities, technology companies, and creative agencies. If there are tight deadlines, if there is an emergency, or if the tasks are operational, a participative leadership style is not appropriate.

Benefits of the participative leadership are employee retention, higher morale, and creativity. Flaws are a slower decision-making process, inapplicable in inexperienced teams, and leadership existence may be questioned.

Bill Gates and Jim Lentz are famous participative leaders to name a few from several famous leaders believing in participative leadership.

The post Participative Leadership: 7 Traits, Pros, Cons & When to Use appeared first on San Francisco Business School.

CSPO Renewal in 3 Steps – Renew CSPO Certification

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 21:41:29 +0000

CSPO Renewal in 3 Steps – Renew Your CSPO Certification

Scrum Alliance requires CSPO renewal every two years. How to renew CSPO certification is the next question asked by Agile Product Owners once they get their CSPO certification.

We’ve explored the 3 steps for CSPO certification renewal in this article. Let’s go through each step one by one.

📌 Hint: Do not skip this article, you will find FREE CSPO Renewal resources throughout the article.

Crucial Impact of CSPO Renewal to Your Career

When it comes to renewing CSPO certification, you might wonder if it is worth renewing CSPO certification. Definitely worths! Let me explain why.

While we were preparing this post, we searched for the CSPO certification holders in California, US. Guess the number. There are over 6,000 CSPO-certified professionals in California and counting. Note that this is the number of professionals who allowed their credentials to be shown on the Scrum Alliance website. The real number should be slightly above these numbers.

Source: Scrum Alliance® Certificant Directory

We are living in a world of harsh competition. If you are working in agile roles, having a certification is a must more than an asset. Assume that you are looking for a Product Manager or Product Owner role. Without having an active CSPO certification, you will decrease your chances of securing a new agile job. Therefore, while you have earned CSPO certification, earn SEUs, and renew your CSPO certification.

Step 1 – Earn SEUs to Renew CSPO Certification

Before diving into how to earn SEU for renewing your CSPO, you must know how many SEUs you need to renew your CSPO. Scrum Alliance requires different numbers of Scrum Alliance SEU credits for different levels of certifications. CSPO certification is a foundational level certification and requires 20 SEUs to be earned every two years.

An SEU is based on a 1:1 ratio of contact hours to points. For example, if you attended a Scrum SEU Course and the duration of the course is 20 hours, you will earn a maximum of 20 SEUs.

No limits or caps exist for earning SEU credits from a certain category. So, you can attend an online self-paced Scrum SEU Course, and earn all required SEUs for your CSPO certification renewal. Your SEUs must have been earned within the CSPO renewal period, which is two years prior to your certification’s current active-through date. SEUs must have been earned within thirty (30) months for all certification renewal cycles.

You can read other requirements in our Scrum Alliance SEU article.

How to Renew CSPO Certification

There are four main SEU categories that Scrum Alliance accepts for renewing CSPO certification.

Learning (*Most Popular)
Events
Volunteering
Other

You can read more in our Scrum SEU article.

Watch 4 Ways for CSPO Renewal

We’ve explained the 4 Scrum Alliance-approved ways to Earn SEUs in our following YouTube video. Watch now.

Let’s go through each SEU category one by one now.

1st Way – Renew CSPO through Learning

As we’ve highlighted in the previous section, earning Scrum SEUs through the learning category is the most popular way for professionals.

While there are several benefits of renewing CSPO certification through SEU courses, here are the top five reasons:

No Caps: There is no maximum limit for the learning category, so, you can earn all Scrum SEU needs in one program, and renew your CSPO certification. You do not need to go elsewhere and search for how to earn SEU for CSPO certification renewal.
Self-Paced: You do not need to attend an event, conference, or seminar. You can follow the courses at your place, at your pace.
Affordable: Depending on the program content, you can enroll in a self-paced Scrum Alliance SEU course bundle for ~$200-300. However, seminars or conferences start from $1,000, not only that, you may not earn all SEU needs in one event.
Requires less effort: When you enroll in SEU Courses, all you have to do is follow the curriculum, earn SEUs, and renew your CSPO certification. However, other SEU earning ways require significant effort from the certification holder such as creating content, sharing a presentation, authoring, etc.
Less prone to Scrum Alliance® audit: Since the SEU training programs are used by many certified professionals, Scrum Alliance already has a track and record of the activities. However, for other categories, SEU submissions are more unique and may be more likely to hit an audit.

How to Earn 20 SEUs to Renew Your CSPO Easily

San Francisco Business School offers a 20 SEU Course program. The program offers a self-paced business training program: Executive Leadership. SFBS awards a certificate of graduation. While earning SEUs, you will earn reputable business merits to highlight in your resume and LinkedIn.

Watch how Natalia Earned 20 SEUs for CSM Renewal

Natalia Olson is a CSM-certified Professional. Natalia enrolled in the 20 SEU Program from SFBS and renewed her CSM. Since the CSPO renewal requirements and steps are the same, you can be inspired by Natalia’s journey!

Watch now her CSM renewal journey.

2nd Way – CSPO Renewal through Events

You can earn SEUs for participating in events like Scrum Alliance Global Gatherings, Scrum Alliance Regional Gatherings, and Non-Scrum Alliance-Sponsored Events, as well as in User Groups events and activities. Presenting, coaching, and attending sessions all count as SEU-eligible activities.

Typically, the duration of the activity determines the number of SEUs you will earn. For instance, if you attended a one-day Scrum Alliance SEU event, if the schedule of the event was 9 to 12 in the morning, and 1 to 5 pm in the afternoon, the total hours for the event would be 7 hours. So, you can earn 7 SEUs with this event toward renewing your CSPO certification.

Attending events has benefits like expanding your professional network and learning the changing trends in your domain. However, there are some pitfalls to these events.

Typically organized in big cities. If you are living in a relatively smaller city, you might not see any events to earn SEUs.
Requires in-person attendance. Many of the events take a few days, and you have to take days off from your work to attend these events.
Expensive. On average, these events are charged $1,000/day. So, for a two-day event, you need to pay around $2,000. Travel and accommodation, if needed, are not included in these fees.
May not earn required SEUs at once. Although it requires a significant amount of time and money, you may not earn all SEUs through one event. Considering you are a full-time professional looking to earn the CSPO SEU hours you need in one step, you may opt for other alternatives to earn SEUs.

3rd Way – CSPO Renewal through Volunteering

Scrum Alliance encourages professionals to give back to the community. Therefore, SEUs may be earned by providing non-compensated professional Scrum services.

For instance, if you are volunteering in an activity for teaching the basics of agile to high school students, this activity can earn you SEUs for CSPO renewal. The critical point here is, that you should not be compensated if you are in a volunteering activity. You can submit SEUs for the duration of the activity. For instance, if you attended a one-hour event, you can submit 1 SEU toward renewing your certification.

Note that, these activities may not be available in your location if you are living in a small city.

4th Way – Certified Product Owner Certification Renewal through Other sources

SEUs may be earned through a variety of other learning activities as Scrum Alliance acknowledges that not all learning fits neatly into the categories above. For instance, if you are reading a book, blog, or article about agile, you can earn SEUs in the Others category.

Renew CSPO Certification SEU Example

In this section, we will go through Scrum Alliance SEU examples by scenarios.

Note that, the following scenario is fictional to provide a better understanding of SEU reporting.

Scenario – How Jane Earned SEU to Renew CSPO Certification

Jane works as a Product Owner in a Fintech company. She earned her CSPO certification 1 year ago, and her certification due date is approaching.

Jane attends the San Francisco Business School’s Free Scrum SEU Course Online Program. The program contains three self-paced courses, and each course is one hour in length. After completing the self-paced program, Jane can submit 3 SEUs to renew her CSPO certification.

Step 2 – Submit Earned SEUs to Scrum Alliance

Once you earned the required SEUs in the CSPO renewal progress, the next step is submitting them to Scrum Alliance. Since you are a CSPO-certified professional, you should already have an account on the Scrum Alliance website.

To submit SEUs® toward your CSPO certification renewal, please do the following:

Log in to your Scrum Alliance Dashboard
Select SEUs from the navigation bar on the left
From the Select an Activity Type dropdown, choose an activity type
- Here, you need to select the category you earned the SEUs (Learning, Events, Volunteering, or Others)
In the Activity Description section, describe the activity
- This is where you explain the content of the activity. For instance, if you attended a course, you can submit the description of the course here.
In the Activity Date section select the date the activity was completed using the calendar widget
Enter the hours and minutes spent on the activity in whole numbers
Select the blue Submit button at the bottom

Please note that there is no limit to how many SEUs you can submit for a specific category. So, you can earn SEUs through any category.

Step 3 – Pay the CSPO Renewal Fee & Renew Your CSPO

Once you complete the required SEUs to renew your CSPO certification, the next step is paying the CSPO renewal fee and completing your process. To renew your certification(s) after submitting the required SEUs, please do the following:

Log in to your Scrum Alliance Dashboard
Select the Renew Now button in the upper left
Select the certifications you wish to renew
Confirm your renewal and proceed with the payment

Scrum Alliance requires a certification renewal fee at the end of the renewal process. For the CSPO certification, the renewal fee is $100. Note that, this is paid when you renew your CSPO certification. So, the CSPO renewal fee is $100 for every two years.

However, the CSPO renewal cost will be higher than this amount. To earn SEUs, you will attend courses, events, or other activities. If you need to pay for those activities, the cost of renewing your certification will be beyond the CSPO renewal fee paid to Scrum Alliance.

How to Renew an Expired CSPO Certification

Scrum Alliance certifications are renewed on a two-year basis. If your certification has expired, you are still able to renew it successfully after the expiration date. If you renew past the expiration date, your certification will be extended for a full two years from the date you pay to renew (vs. from the original expiration date.)

There are several benefits of having CSPO certification. Almost all agile roles require a reputable certification and CSPO is for sure the most reputable one. Therefore, we recommend keeping your CSPO certification active and renewing your CSPO certification before the expiration date.

Summary

You need to get 20 SEUs every two years to renew your CSPO certification. You can earn SEUs in four different categories: Learning, Events, Volunteering, and Others. Earning SEUs through Scrum SEU courses is the most popular among CSPO-certified professionals.

CSPO professionals choose to earn SEUs through courses because they are self-paced, affordable, and require less effort. Since there is no cap for the learning category, professionals can earn all required SEUs at once through CSPO SEU course programs. One of the other benefits of SEU courses is they are less prone to Scrum Alliance audits.

The post CSPO Renewal in 3 Steps – Renew CSPO Certification appeared first on San Francisco Business School.

Adaptive Leadership: 5 Principles to Be an Adaptive Leader

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 21:32:03 +0000

Adaptive Leadership: 5 Principles to Be an Adaptive Leader

Adaptive leadership is using a set of strategies and practices you can use to overcome obstacles, accomplish meaningful change, and adapt to challenging and complex environments. We are living in a harsh competition age and the fast pace of business dynamics is like never before. This makes adaptive leadership a crucial strategy for many businesses to be successful. We have described adaptive leadership and the five principles of being an adaptive leader in this article.

📌 Hint: Do not skip this article, you will find FREE Leadership Training resources throughout the article.

What is Adaptive Leadership?

Inception of the adaptive leadership dates back to 1994. Ron Heifetz, a Harvard professor, described adaptive leadership as a set of strategies and practices you can use to overcome obstacles, accomplish meaningful change, and adapt to challenging and complex environments.

Heifetz’s theory was based on natural selection theory in biology. This theory supports that animals and plants which can adapt to changing conditions can survive for a longer time. Based on the theory, animals and plants keep the crucial parts of their body for their survival, and get rid of unnecessary parts as the species evolve over time.

Similarly, adaptive leaders take the most useful competence, skills, and lessons from past events and experiences to use them in the future. According to Heifetz, the adaptive leadership process has three stages as shown in the following figure.

3 Stages of Adaptive Leadership

3 Stages of Adaptive Leadership

Let’s go over the three stages of adaptive leadership now.

1- Observing Events and Patterns

During business transformation, there is a critical question you should ask: What’s worth keeping and what is not? Which processes and practices are useful to the organization and which are not? Which processes slow down business? How can you achieve faster decision-making?

Adaptive leadership requires observing the business, determining the patterns, keeping the useful practices, and eliminating the unnecessary ones. For example, bidding farewell to a vendor relationship the company has had for decades or nixing a process that used to boost efficiency but now hinders it. In short, for an organization to grow, this parting with the past has to happen because letting go has the power to prompt new economic opportunities, thoughts, and value systems.

2- Interpreting and Developing Hypotheses

At this stage, an adaptive leader directs and encourages creativity and innovation. New hypotheses are developed and tested at this stage of the adaptive leadership cycle. Be prepared for failures at this stage as the company is testing new things that have not been tested before. Adaptive leaders understand this and are prepared for these challenges because they know that within these challenges lies the potential to propel the company to new heights.

For instance, hypotheses, the company decides to remove managerial approvals up to $1,000 monthly expenses from employees. This will save time for managers and employees will not have to wait for their expenses to be approved to do their work. This can be tested in a few departments at first to see how it goes, and the process can be improved accordingly before making it company-wide applicable.

3- Designing Interventions

In the third phase of adaptive leadership, the trial phase for developing new approaches to operating the organization is over. The practices and hypotheses that worked well are applied and the ones that did not work out are eliminated. At this stage, adaptive leaders carefully monitor the impact of new systems and processes, report their findings, and work with teams to make any necessary adjustments for improvement.

💡 Read 15 Types of Leadership article to learn about other leadership styles.

These steps are iterative, so once you’ve completed them all, you repeat the process and refine your observations, interpretations, and interventions until you’re satisfied with the solution.

Enhance Your Leadership Skills – Executive Leadership Training Program

San Francisco Business School offers an online, self-paced comprehensive executive leadership training program. You can consider enrolling in this program to improve your HR leadership skills.

Adaptive Leadership Example – Best Buy Case Study

It is best to go over a real-life case example for adaptive leadership. In 2003, competition in the U.S. consumer electronics market was particularly fierce, with Wal-Mart®, Target®, and Costco® threatening to take market share from perennial leaders, Best Buy® and Circuit City®.

Julie Gilbert, Best Buy VP, noticed that her organization skipped an opportunity to win more market share by focusing on young and male customers and ignoring women. Julie decided to change this strategy and worked on how to target female customers.

Following Gilbert’s adaptive leadership, Best Buy updated its stores to make them more appealing to female customers. Some of the practices were widening the aisles for baby strollers, softening the lightning, and reducing the volume of background music in the stores. The output was fruitful. Best Buy increased the revenue from female customers by $4.4 billion in four years. This counted an 11% rise in overall revenue mainly because of Gilbert’s adaptive leadership strategy.

Like Best Buy, all businesses must adapt to different environments, whether these come from changes in technology, customer expectations, laws and regulations, or employees’ expectations. Leaders must find ways to adapt and take advantage of the opportunities that these changes bring.

5 Principles of Adaptive Leadership – How to Become an Adaptive Leader

There are five common principles of adaptive leadership. You can apply these in your role to become an adaptive leader and adapt your business to changing conditions.

1- Navigate the Business Environment

Adaptive leaders must embrace uncertainty and adopt new approaches to perform well in changeable environments. To succeed in this dimension, you should apply some tactics as follows.

Get the buy-in of all members of the organization. Less experienced professionals are more likely to be critical of processes and they can ask tough questions compared to more experienced professionals. If you involve as many people as possible, you can identify more improvement areas.
Share the leadership role. Every person has their own strengths and weaknesses. In some cases and roles, some people can be more successful than others while in another case, the same person can be less successful while another one can be more successful. You can use situational leadership strategies to allocate leadership responsibility to those who are most suited to making particular decisions to achieve the best result for your organization. Also, consider applying a laissez-faire leadership style.
Keep questioning. Analyze the risks and make tests by creating new hypotheses. As part of adaptive leadership, you can create “what if” scenarios to find new improvement areas. For instance, “What happens if we apply agile project management rather than a waterfall?”, “what happens if we limit the meeting durations to a maximum of 30 minutes?”.
Stay objective. Sometimes, it is hard to be objective, and humans are emotional and subjective in many cases. Heifetz used the concept of “getting on the balcony” as opposed to “being on the dance floor” to refer to the perspective you need. This means spotting trends and patterns rather than focusing on the minutiae of day-to-day activity.

2. Lead With Empathy

Great leaders are empathetic. Adaptive leaders create a shared sense of purpose and manage through influence rather than command and control. You can read more about this in the charismatic leadership article. To succeed in this dimension, you should apply the following tactics.

See the world from others’ perspectives. Do not focus on your or your team’s self-interests. Adaptive leadership requires focusing on the big picture and focusing on the optimum solutions that fit everyone or at least for the benefit of the majority.
Develop rapport with your team. Before you can influence others, you need to make a personal connection with them. To do so, you’ll need to understand their beliefs, values, and concerns. You can strengthen your bond with your team members by improving your emotional intelligence. You can apply authentic leadership to improve your rapport with your team.
Create a Common Goal. What is the mission and vision of the organization? What is the big picture? Encourage your followers by showing a clear vision and mission of the organization. Note that, these should align with the team members’ values and interests.
Reward accomplishment. Do not hesitate and delay rewarding accomplishments. Rewards can be monetary or non-monetary. For instance, a bonus payment for overperformance is a monetary reward. However, giving additional leading responsibility is a non-monetary reward if the team member is willing to take on new roles. By rewarding them, you build their loyalty and commitment to the organization and to your goals. HR leadership is also crucial when defining an organization’s rewards and punishment policies.

Watch Adaptive Leadership – Principles of Being an Adaptive Leader YouTube Video

We have a 12-minute video describing adaptive leadership and its principles. Watch now!

3. Learn Through Self-Correction

Adaptive leadership requires encouragement and persistence in experimentation. There will be failures and successes through these experiments. The important point is to try and find the correct practices. To succeed in this dimension, you can apply the following tactics.

Build trust and integrity. Adaptive leadership should ensure to creation of an environment where the team members can propose their ideas. New ideas should be encouraged as new practices can emerge from these ideas.
Encourage creativity and innovation. Ideas generate solutions and innovations. The more ideas your people generate, the more likely it is that you’ll arrive at an effective solution. Encourage people to discuss ideas, brainstorm, and evaluate different perspectives. Foster group discussions that will emerge new ideas.
Foster a learning environment. New ideas and innovations come out of competent people. Ensure an environment where people are not afraid of making mistakes. Improve skills and competence of the people. Pay attention to growing emerging leaders. New leaders with improved team leadership skills can lead the company to success.
Experiment and test ideas. Business tests allow you to assess your ideas before applying them to a large scale. For instance, if you are trying a new process, try it in a few departments or locations at first. You can see the weaknesses and strengths of the process. And then, you can apply it to all departments of the company.
Manage uncertainty. Many people are resistant to change by nature. You should guide people through the change and support them during new adaptions.

4. Create Win-Win Solutions

Adaptive leaders focus on achieving success for both the organization and its external network of stakeholders. To succeed in this dimension, you can apply the following tactics.

Build acceptance. The faster your people adjust to change, the less disruption there will be. Test your skills to pinpoint any areas that you need to develop further.
Extend engagement outside your four walls. Your organization’s success likely depends on the contribution and engagement of its external suppliers, vendors, and customers. Allow them to participate in decision-making and ask for their opinions regularly. Adaptive leadership welcomes new ideas inside and outside.
Strengthen the company’s reputation through social responsibility initiatives. Leaders must focus on more than the bottom line to succeed in the marketplace. By connecting with its community, an organization can help others while improving customer loyalty and its reputation as an employer of choice.

5. Become Persistent Until You Find the Best Practices

Adaptive leaders will never stop improvement. There is no end to process, practice, and tool improvement. Because, technology changes, industry changes, and market changes, as a result, your organization must be adaptive to ever-changing conditions. While finding and applying the best practices, you can follow the following tactics.

Do not be afraid to fail. If you are afraid to fail, you cannot try new ideas. This will hinder creativity and innovation.
Continue to ask “What’s Next?”. Once you iterate your results, focus on the next one. Improvement should be inevitable under adaptive leadership.

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Benefits of Adaptive Leadership

Organizations that adjust to changing circumstances do better financially than ones that don’t. It claims that agile, flexible businesses continually demonstrate strong, sustainable performances and outperform their peers during volatile periods.

Similarly, leaders who adopt an adaptive leadership approach alongside a transformational leadership style are often the best equipped to steer organizations through turbulent periods of change. They raise morale by generating solutions to issues with other team members, and then continually refine those ideas until they arrive at the best one. This iterative approach means that the final decision is typically the most effective one.

The process of coming up with multiple solutions builds a culture where people can have healthy debates with one another. It also empowers them to generate their own ideas and to think independently.

Flaws of Adaptive Leadership

Adaptive leadership does have its drawbacks. The process of exploring new possibilities can bring a degree of uncertainty, and this can create friction among team members. Leaders may resent their ideas being challenged, and block others’ suggestions.

It’s also not a leadership style that’s suitable in all situations. For example, it’s better applied to more unpredictable environments than stable ones. When an industry is mature, leaders may need to adopt a style that’s more disruptive to innovate and push the business ahead.

Furthermore, adaptive leadership may not be appropriate when senior managers need to make important decisions quickly, whereas authoritative leadership will be more suitable. It takes time to develop different processes and for people to adapt to new situations. Therefore, a more autocratic leadership approach may be suitable in this environment.

Famous Adaptive Leaders

There are several famous adaptive leaders. We will be focusing on two of them here.

1- Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln accepted diversity, appointed rivals for his cabinet, and was always open to debate and criticism. Lincoln was a believer of adaptive leadership and he also had an open-door policy, inviting citizens to discuss their challenges with him. His attentive ear and natural empathy helped him earn respect.

2- General George Patton

George Smith Patton Jr. was a general in the United States Army who commanded the Seventh United States Army in the Mediterranean Theater of World War II, and the Third United States Army in France and Germany after the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. The adaptive leadership style worked well for Patton. He gained respect as a military leader in large part by soliciting input from his team. Always one to anticipate trouble, he believed in having a backup plan in case a situation went south.

Summary

Adaptive leadership is using strategies and practices to overcome ever-changing business conditions and trying to achieve the best. Market changes, customer changes, unexpected things happen, and business changes. Adaptive leadership requires adapting the business to ever-changing conditions and managing the organization to success.

There are three stages of adaptive leadership. These are, observing events and patterns, interpreting and developing hypotheses, and designing interventions. There are five principles of adaptive leadership. These are navigating the business environment, leading with empathy, learning through self-correction, creating win-win solutions, and persistence until finding the best practices.

Organizations applying adaptive leadership are financially more successful. People are more committed as their ideas are valued and performance is typically better. However, there are flaws in the adaptive leadership style as well. Evaluating all ideas may require significant time and is not feasible when quick decisions need to be made. Abraham Lincoln and General George Patton are two famous adaptive leaders.

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