is to grow leaders from within, to build leadership capacity throughout the company. Over the past severalyears, I’ve been pondering how best to deliver on this third foundational requirement in a way that is purposeful, organized, disciplined, impactful, and sustainable. In early 2010, I had my ideas and thoughts around content,
desired outcomes, student selection, and other key aspects suf- ficiently developed to seriously begin the planning of a leader- ship program within SmithBucklin. The SmithBucklin Leader- ship Learning Forum, which was launched in March of last year, is an intensive, high-impact 12-month program that exposes 15 to 20 selected top-performing employees to leadership concepts, principles, and guidelines while stimulating and inspiring their individual self-discovery, learning, and personal growth. The program is a gift of great value and life- long impact to the students. I’m enor- mously proud of the program’s accom- plishments and the depth of the students’ engagement during its inauguralyear. As importantly, I’m confident in the pro- gram’s far-reaching and long-term impact on the individual students, on SmithBucklin, and on our client organ- izations. I’m highly vested and commit sig-
nificant time, energy, and heart to the three foundational requirements, be- cause it goes back to this: If I aspire to be a CEO who is also a true leader, there are not many more important things that I could be doing or work- ing on. You can’t just delegate these activities. That doesn’tmean that others aren’t
responsible for doing their part, espe- cially other executives, but it starts with me, as I’m the one who needs to set the tone on what’s important as well as cre- ate the conditions for success.
What can PCMA Education Conference participants expect to get out of your talk? I will introduce a working framework for defining, understanding and meas- uring leadership capacity and perform- ance. This framework and its underlying principles and concepts are drawn frommy personal life-long jour- ney of learning, growing, and discov- ering. I will also share a few practical ideas and principles that participants can put into everyday use at work and in their personal lives. Perhaps most importantly, my hope is that my thoughts, reflections, and ideas will res- onate with participants and that I would, in a small way, contribute to their enthusiasm and commitment to
continuous leadership learning, self-discovery, and personal growth. All of us have an opportunity to make a meaningful dif-
ference in the lives of the people and in the success of the organ- izations we serve [regardless of] your field or profession. I would argue that for meeting professionals, the bar is
pretty high because meetings—which embody education, net- working, and other crucial activities—[at least] for associa- tions are core to both the creation and delivery of value to members and other stakeholders.