building relationships While a knack for ingenuity is important, the abilities to communicate that vision and to relate to others are equally valuable qualities in a leader. Because so much of leadership today is focused on collaboration, leaders must be able to gain trust and form sincere relationships. Leaders must also serve as mentors, empowering those around them and helping others to accomplish their own goals. “Some define leadership simply as a relationship building process,” says Ina Purvanova, assistant professor of management and international business. “If you can’t build a positive relationship with someone, how are you supposed to do your job as a leader, which is to influence others and motivate them to do a good job?” She adds that these behaviors are important because they get to the heart of what the majority of people desire from life. “If you really look at these behaviors, each one satisfies a primal need that humans tend to have: the need for relationships, to grow and to learn, and the need to know why. Once those needs are satisfied, people are more able and willing to go above and beyond and really contribute to their organization.”
learning to lead Purvanova is quick to dispel the notion that leaders are born and instead says anyone can develop the characteristics necessary to lead in the 21st century. “One of the things that research continues to uncover is that our personalities are quite malleable,” says Purvanova. “What that means is that we can learn to acquire traits we may not have initially possessed, and conversely, we can put aside some of the traits that are not our best. We can get rid of bad habits, essentially, because we evolve. We learn all the time.”
18
DRAKE
BLUE
spring 2012
At Drake, the emphasis on liberal arts is central to leadership development. In addition to the ability to build relationships and communicate a vision, leaders today must navigate ambiguous situations and make ethical decisions when answers aren’t clear-cut. They must be flexible enough to thrive in a time of great uncertainty. Numerous courses in the Drake Curriculum are focused on helping students grow these capabilities. “The whole notion of a liberal arts education is that it prompts us to think critically and analytically, to be able to solve problems, to be able to express ourselves and write coherently — those are crucial elements of leadership,” says Westbrook. While the knowledge and skills gained through coursework are important, learning to apply these lessons is equally so. Students practice leadership skills during internships, through volunteer activities and by participating in campus organizations. Drake’s Donald V. Adams Leadership Institute helps students connect the theory they’ve learned in classes to their experiences outside of the classroom. In the past few years, Drake has expanded its leadership offerings for students. The Athletics Strategic Plan calls for enhanced leadership-based experiences for student-athletes, and a new leadership concentration emphasizes experiential learning combined with self-reflection to help students better understand their talents. Self-reflection is also a focus in the graduate and undergraduate courses Purvanova teaches on leadership in the College of Business and Public Administration. In both courses, she stresses self-awareness through a series of personality surveys that allow her students to understand how they and others see themselves. Both Purvanova and Westbrook agree that self-awareness is a necessary first step in learning to lead with emotional intelligence — a determinant in a leader’s ability to relate to others.