{"id":526,"date":"2016-05-09T18:37:45","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T18:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.stthom.edu\/cameron\/?p=526"},"modified":"2017-04-13T20:53:53","modified_gmt":"2017-04-13T20:53:53","slug":"becoming-a-leader-in-a-changing-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.stthom.edu\/cameron\/becoming-a-leader-in-a-changing-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Becoming a Leader in a Changing World"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Patricio Torres-Palacio, Ph.D.&#8211;<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cLeadership and learning are indispensable to each other\u201d (John F. Kennedy)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>There are so many things that have been said about leadership.\u00a0 How many times has the question been asked \u201cis a leader made or born?\u201d I believe that both cases are possible.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Perception of Leadership<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Times and environments affect leadership or, better said, the perception of leadership.\u00a0 In more than one occasion, people have wondered whether Abraham Lincoln, one of the most outstanding American leaders, would have had the same effectiveness and success these days as he had during the years of the Civil War.\u00a0 One thing seems undeniable:\u00a0 these days the image projected by technology (i.e. TV, Internet, and media) is as important as riding a horse could have been for a leader in the times of Alexander the Great.\u00a0 \u00a0It has been said that Republican candidate Richard Nixon barely lost the presidency against Democrat candidate John F. Kennedy just because of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.history.com\/topics\/us-presidents\/kennedy-nixon-debates\">personal looks<\/a>. A pale, sweaty image of Nixon contrasted with a fresh-looking face of Kennedy, which was the result, in a great deal, of a good makeup.\u00a0 Let\u2019s imagine the pale and thin face of Abraham Lincoln with a nice silk suit and a colorful tie (like the ones used today).\u00a0 Would he project the \u201cface you can trust\u201d image and be a successful leader as he was with his top hat and black outfit during the Civil War?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Beyond a person\u2019s looks, there are attributes that transcend time:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Being a proactive thinker<\/li>\n<li>Having integrity and emotional intelligence<\/li>\n<li>Demonstrating optimism to create \u201cgroup-think\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Possessing capacity to listen to different points of view<\/li>\n<li>Having the ability to learn on the job<\/li>\n<li>Sharing credit for success and sharing blame for failure<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>All of these traits appear on the list of characteristics of effective leadership.\u00a0 Lincoln had these characteristics.\u00a0 Effective CEOs and politicians of today have them, too.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>In and Out of The Classroom<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In my System Project Management class one of my favorite chapters to teach is the one about leadership.\u00a0 To carefully analyze leadership characteristics and to be trained to be a leader are no longer a great pluses in the professional profile of business students anymore\u2026they are a must.\u00a0 The always increasing challenges of a globalized world demand leadership skills to be competitive.<\/p>\n<p>As a professor who is proud and happy to belong to the UST and the CSB families, I have always tried to offer my students the opportunity to benefit from different leaders:\u00a0 from managers in other countries (Ecuador) who have successfully completed business projects, professors in Mexico participating in new exports of agricultural products to the US, aeronautical engineers preparing to become astronauts and conquer new horizons in open space, to our own leader, the President of UST, and the Mayor of the City of Houston.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stthom.edu\/About\/President_and_Leadership\/President_and_Vice_Presidents.aqf#ivany\">President Ivany<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstoncontractors.org\/general\/custom.asp?page=91\">Former Mayor Parker<\/a> were very kind to accept my invitation to be guest speakers in my System Project Management class. They responded almost immediately, a fact that impressed me a lot, and I have appreciated.\u00a0 My students enjoyed and learned a lot of useful advice by observing their different styles of leadership during their presentations. There are three things that these two leaders have in common:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0an ability to deal with people<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0the talent to make an impact on people<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0an aptitude for handling conflicts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It was certainly remarkable that President Ivany took time from his busy agenda to accept my invitation.\u00a0 Equally, several students and fellow faculty asked me how I could accomplish a visit from the Mayor of Houston, especially when her final term as mayor was coming to an end, and therefore, gaining votes was not among her priorities.\u00a0 Part of being a leader is having the capacity of \u201cpassing on\u201d one\u2019s knowledge and experience.\u00a0 That explains why President Ivany and Mayor Parker were both eager to contribute to my class when I invited them.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>From that point of view, are professors leaders?\u00a0 Should professors develop leadership skills to be successful in front of a group of students?\u00a0 I would definitely answer \u201cyes.\u201d\u00a0 And most important of all:\u00a0 leaders train other leaders.\u00a0 Abraham Lincoln had very little formal education, but my admiration goes to the star \u201cteacher\u201d who influenced his life.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Contributors\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.stthom.edu\/cameron\/contributors\/#patriciotorrespalacio\">Patricio Torres-Palacio, Ph.D.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Assistant Professor of Operations Managment, Cameron School of Business<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Patricio Torres-Palacio, Ph.D.&#8211; \u201cLeadership and learning are indispensable to each other\u201d (John F. Kennedy) There are so many things that have been said about leadership.\u00a0 How many times has the question been asked \u201cis a leader made or born?\u201d I believe that both cases are possible. Perception of Leadership Times and environments affect leadership&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":528,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,33,37,46,48],"tags":[280,277,281,279],"class_list":["post-526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-critical-thinking","category-commentary","category-csb-faculty","category-ethics","category-leadership","tag-dr-ivany","tag-leadership","tag-mayor-parker","tag-patricio-torres-palacio"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Becoming a Leader in a Changing World - Cameron School of Business Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.stthom.edu\/cameron\/becoming-a-leader-in-a-changing-world\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Becoming a Leader in a Changing World - Cameron School of Business Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Patricio Torres-Palacio, Ph.D.&#8211; \u201cLeadership and learning are indispensable to each other\u201d (John F. 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