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Cultivating tomorrow’s leaders in our backyard

Ask someone to name a great leader, and he or she is likely to answer Winston Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt, or Nelson Mandela. Recently, however, the image of leadership too often has been of failure at the top – in corporations, government, and religious institutions. We desperately need leaders whose vision is based on strongly held principles that give them the courage to take positions that can cut across the grain, positions that respond to all parts of a community and not just their own self-interest.

By William Van Faasen

Occasionally, a natural-born leader comes along who has ”it” – that combination of charisma, intelligence, and values that holds great promise. But we don’t have to sit around and wait for that rare individual to arrive. We already have the tools to prepare the next generation to shoulder the challenges facing us today. The year-old Emerging Leaders program at the Center for Collaborative Leadership at UMass/Boston is designed to do just that.

The UMass program calls upon senior executives at corporations and nonprofits to nominate young professionals with five to 10 years of experience in Greater Boston who have demonstrated potential and want to enhance their leadership skills and opportunities.

I know from personal experience that this program will work. I went through such training as a young businessman in Detroit. Leadership Detroit taught us that leadership is not finding out where the crowd is headed and then catching up to get in front. We met every month, working on education, health, criminal justice, and other important issues. We ended up socializing and came to understand perspectives other than our own. In the process we came to know ourselves better, too.

Former Leadership Detroit participants have made their marks on virtually every sector of the Detroit community. So, too, can Greater Boston benefit from the UMass/Boston Emerging Leaders program.

The UMass program is diverse by race, gender, and profession. It reflects the face of the city and changing makeup of our population, to tap the potential of all groups to make our region a better place to work and live. It also reflects the voice of the city – of labor and management, for-profit and nonprofit, government and corporate. The point is to move people out of their natural comfort zone and provide opportunities for interaction and friendships outside their traditional circles.

National or international crises aren’t the only situations that call for leadership. Steering a corporation, government, or community organization requires skills that should not be left to chance.

The nine-month program starts each January with a weeklong seminar examining critical issues facing the region. Fellows learn about resources, networks, and ways to identify and achieve common goals. They meet monthly from February through September and work in teams to produce and present to the mayor action plans to address particular Boston-area problems. With teamwork there is buy-in, and people stay involved.

An effective business leader doesn’t enter a meeting possessing the answers; he or she engages in the process and helps solutions evolve, knowing the importance of an outcome that responds to the needs of all. The collaborative model assumes issues can best be addressed by leadership that is diverse and collaborative. This has not been the operating style in Boston. Collaboration is not necessarily easy, but it is the best way to get things done. Power-driven solutions are imposed on people; collaboratively developed solutions are embraced by people.

This program isn’t about getting on the fast track to corporate or government achievement, though it certainly can’t hurt a person’s opportunity for professional advancement. Rather, it is about community betterment. It understands that business leaders have an obligation beyond their companies. It recognizes that connecting rising corporate stars with young professionals from government and nonprofit entities and getting them to work together on problem solving can result only in the improvement of the community.

At UMass/Boston, the Emerging Leaders selection committee is about to choose its second class of fellows. Among that group of ”emerging leaders” may well be Massachusetts’ new leaders for a new century. They will probably have a lot to say about the kind of community we are and the way we live.

William Van Faasen is chairman, president, and CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts.

This story ran on page H6 of the Boston Globe on 11/24/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/328/business/Cultivating_tomorrow_s_leaders_in_our_backyard+.shtml

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