Management 4620 professors Laura Wolfe and Stacie Furst decided it was time their students learned the tenants of leadership from prominent people in the Baton Rouge and campus community.
So with the help of their students, the two professors organized a leadership panel Tuesday consisting of Chancellor Sean O’Keefe, Women’s Basketball Coach Pokey Chatman, Baton Rouge President of JP Morgan Chase Mark Bensabat, 10th Capital Small Business Association Founder and CEO Belinda Little-Wood, Baton Rouge Area Foundation President and CEO John Davies and Louisiana State Senator Sharon Weston Broome.
“We can teach the stuff from a book, but it’s better for the students to hear it from leaders in our community,” Furst said.
Wolfe agreed.
“One of the best ways to teach leadership is to hear leaders talk about what they do,” she said.
Management students were given the opportunity to question the panel on leadership qualities.
Chatman said she was fortunate to have good role models.
“I spent half my life with my mother, who then passed me along to Sue [Gunter] and I was privy to someone who was in the game 40 years,” she said. “I’ve been blessed in that sense.”
O’Keefe said it is especially important to have strong influences as young adults.
“The influence you have in your formative years is huge in shaping all of principles and life skills in growing up,” he said.
As to their individual leadership styles, the panelists offered their own opinions about what has worked for them. But all agreed the ability to listen and to maintain personal integrity were the most important qualities.
“I think a quality a leader should possess is integrity,” Broome said. “You always hear about political corruption, but corporate corruption is a problem as well.”
Little-Wood took that idea and expanded upon it.
“If you can’t believe in your leaders and can’t support your leaders, how are they leaders?” she said.
The chancellor even admitted to his own leadership shortcomings.
“I’m impatient,” O’Keefe said. “That’s my biggest problem. Having everybody in the same place ready to have a good dialogue, that’s the hardest thing to do.”
Some of the students expressed the panel had been beneficial.
“It kind of gave me an insight to what to expect when I become a leader one day,” said management senior Jennifer VeZain.