Junior BEM major, Ariana Adams, attended the US Military Academy at West Point McDonald Conference for Leaders of Character. The theme of the conference, Leading Organizations Through Change, made a personal impact on Ariana as she was able to “foster individual leadership skills as well as understand how to work with teams and communities to build a sense of strength and ultimately lead through change.”’
A key takeaway for Ariana came from Dr. Robert Higgens, the Chief Academic Officer and President of Rush University in Chicago. Serving as a senior leader at the conference, he emphasized the importance of pushing yourself through change and through hard times. “It is important to have resilience and make sure that you yourself have a strong persona, and that you yourself can get through any tough challenges that you may be going through.” He also spoke about culture and strength of psychological safety within an organization.
Bob McDonald, founder of the conference, former Secretary of Veteran Affairs under the Obama administration, as well as former CEO and President of P&G, was another speaker who inspired Ariana, reminding the participants the importance of “continuously moving forward and keeping the small wins as most important.” He discussed how to continue to motivate your team when you fail at working through a challenge. “Focusing on the small wins and making sure that your team has a specific set goal that they can see and that they are trying to reach is highly important.”
“All of the speakers focused on creating that strong culture and creating trust within your team. When you’re a leader, you need to have personal resilience, and you need to have that strength emanate throughout those you are working with. That is something that I will definitely be taking away from the conference.”