Leadership
a Matter of Style and More
by
Jill Maunder
Top executives venture into Eckerd College
’s intensive leadership institute seeking to improve
their skills. Most walk out surprised,challenged and changed.
WHEN
THEY WALK OUT of the Don CeSar Beach Resort and climb aboard
the hotel’s shuttle van at 7 a.m. on a Monday, the
20 or so executives don’t know one another or much
about what they’re facing for a week at Eckerd College
in St. Petersburg. They chat about how it’s nice to
be in Florida, the welcome change of foregoing a necktie
or high heels and how their companies arranged this managers-only
program for them. It’s almost as if they’re on
their way to a first day at camp.
 |
| LEADERSHIP
RISING Dr. James E. Deegan, vice president and dean
of special programs, and Margaret Cooley, director of
open-enrollment programs and lead trainer, oversee the
prestigious Leadership Development Institute at Eckerd
College. |
But
once the van delivers them to campus for their intensive,
five-day program, the managers discover that the college’s
Leadership Development Institute is a far cry from any camp
that they remember as kids.
It’s
a week filled with challenging and memorable leadership
exercises. This is not a business brush-up course in finance,
global marketing, the latest production processes and the
like. Instead, the program is designed to increase the participants’
self-awareness as well as making them more effective leaders
and managers.
Through
long classroom days and shared mealtimes, they’ll be
startled, humbled, encouraged and energized. They’ll
do some straight talking, have some rude awakenings, laugh
and, in some cases, cry.
Most
of them will call it the most meaningful experience in self-awareness
that they have had in their professional lives.
“I
always talk about the program as a phenomenon,” says
Margaret Cooley, director of open-enrollment programs and
lead trainer. “It’s a phenomenal process how people
soak it up.”
About
6,000 managers, half of them from Fortune 500 companies,
have enrolled in the leadership development courses (www.eckerd.edu/mdi)
since the small, private college set on Tampa Bay began
conducting them in 1981.
The
courses, which are offered on a non-degree basis, draw from
about 180 companies annually.
The
programs are “used as an organizational development
tool or a strategy for organizational development in a company,”
says Dr. James E. Deegan, vice president and dean of the
college’s Special Programs Division.
Eckerd
created the institute in 1980 under the administration of
former President Peter Armacost, who proposed it as an arm
of the college that would increase visibility, distinction
and revenues. (Its name changed in July from the original
one, Management Development Institute.)
Through
its 21 years of offering courses, the institute has raised
its profile in the specialty of leadership development,
winning praise and referrals from high-powered alumni. In
2002, it generated $3.3 million in revenues, Deegan says.
Eckerd’s
institute also has stature on the international map of leadership
development because of its early ‘network associate’
relationship with the prestigious Center For Creative Leadership.
The Greensboro, NC, center was recognized this year for
the third consecutive time as the top program in leadership
development by Business Week. Havard Business School was
ranked second and the University of Pennsylvania’s
Wharton School was third.
Armacost
approached the center to ask if the institute could deliver
the center’s programs, recalls Martha Bennett, group
director of network associates, which now number 17 worldwide.
Eckerd was the center’s third associate to join.
The
North Carolina center places nearly half of the executives
in Eckerd’s programs as it receives inquiries or referrals,
and Eckerd’s marketing efforts bring in the balance.
Deegan says 40 percent of the companies are new each year.
Participants
in the leadership programs average 42 years of age, with
27 percent female. About 70 percent of the participants
come from outside of Florida, and 8 percent live outside
of the U.S. Entrepreneurs are rarities. A requirement of
admission is that one must have been a manager for at least
10 years.
The
most frequently offered program is the five-day Leadership
Development Program, mentioned above. It is aimed at upper-
and middle-level managers and takes place 15 times a year.
Tuition is $6,000. (Some scholarships are available –
for example, for public employees.)
A three-day
Foundations of Leadership program ($3,600), targeting first-and
middle-level managers, is scheduled four times a year. An
Advanced Leadership Program ($2,600) is offered twice a
year and a Leadership, Conflict and Negotiation course ($1,800)
four times. The five-person faculty of the institute also
presents customized programs off campus – 65 of them
in 2002. These are tailored to the client companies’
needs and presented at their locations.
Nixon
Peabody, a 14-office national law firm, contracted with
the institute for a customized program for 75 of its staff
managers, says training manager Molly Kelly, who is based
in Rochester, NY. It is being presented three times this
year, to 25 managers at a time. (This relationship stems
from an Eckerd faculty member and a Nixon Peabody employee
striking up a conversation on an airline flight.)
Additionally,
the institute offers executive‘coaching’ to businesses.
Last year, it contracted for 20 such programs at 12 companies,
Deegan says.
Bradenton-based
Tropicana arranged for coaching of its top 10 executives
– from the president downward – as well as six
human resources managers, says a member of the team that
arranged it. The institute has “a great reputation
and a huge amount of experience,” says Harry Litzell,
director of human resources for Frito-Lay North America,
who previously had that position at Tropicana.
Tech
Data Corp., which has headquarters in Clearwater, also engaged
the institute.“Executive coaching is something that
can pay huge dividends and defuse any defensive postures
that take place,” says Karen Wise, the firm’s
vice president of human resources.
Before
executives start any of the leadership programs or set foot
on the Eckerd campus, they have devoted six or seven hours
to completing the required forms and assessments sent to
them by the institute. So have some of their colleagues
back at their offices. Assessments by coworkers let the
Eckerd trainers and their executive subjects see how the
managers are regarded in their workplaces.
For
the widely offered Leadership Development Program, executives
are placed in groups of five or six people who will be one
another’s ‘learning partners.’ Some activities
involve working as teams. One of these is videotaped to
be dissected later by the participants.
The
first three days of this program focus on the leader as
an individual, a member of a group and a member of an organization.
The fourth day gives each manager a one-on-one session of
three hours with a specifically chosen ‘feedback coach’
– usually a professional experienced in psychology,
counseling, business or education.
“The
aim is to give accurate valid feedback to the individual
to get a clear picture of one’s self and to see how
they are viewed by others,” Deegan says. This session
is audiotaped so a participant need not take notes, but
may refer back to it. Cooley says: “It helps them steer
toward the development of a plan – ‘what am I
going to do differently?’”
In the
one-on-one session, the manager is told to look at the ‘whole
person,’ including family and community as well as
career. Tissues always are on the table because this segment
often is emotional. “Some people are just touched to
be listened to,” Cooley says.
Friday’s
session has the managers examining their lives and plans
of action. They are told to set at least one goal that they
will announce at graduation. (There may be two or three
others, but only one will be announced.)
“When
they graduate, they stand up and say ‘here’s what
I’m going to do,’” Cooley says. Some of the
recent goals to be declared: To leave the office an hour
earlier and by 6 p.m., volunteer in the community, delegate
more, choose a coach at work to monitor the manager, spend
more time with an elderly parent, become a bone marrow donor.
“A
lot of the goals have to do with family and giving family
higher priority,” Deegan says.
