This coming weekend is full of leadership-type conferences around the area. On Bryant’s own campus, the BUNEEC hosted by Bryant University CEO will be taking place. Here, students will have the opportunity to sit in on discussions with the co-founder of Keurig and for two days really get an understanding of being a leader in a business-world through entrepreneurship. On Providence College’s campus, The Rhode Island Collegiate Conference is hosting their second annual leadership conference. This conference is called Leading With Values. It’s hosted and presented by the Providence College School of Business with a valuable opportunity for college students across Rhode Island to come together to “explore the choices and challenges that are inherent to effective values-based leadership”.
Specific administration, professors, and staff from surrounding colleges were reached out to and asked to nominate a student of their choice from their university to apply to be invited to this conference. Only a few students from Bryant were chosen to attend. Dr. Matthew Eriksen, Chair and Professor in the Department of Management at Providence’s School of Business, is very enthusiastic about what this conference is focused on:
“It is our second year hosting this conference. This conference was created to move beyond most leadership conferences’ focus on developing participants’ knowledge of leadership (the knowing of leadership) and leadership skills (the doing of leadership) to create a space for contemplating and developing who they want to become as leaders (the human being of leadership). The conference is based on the premise that regardless of one’s level of leadership knowledge and skills, effective leadership requires that a leader be conscious of his/her values and live out these values in his/her day-to-day interactions and decision-making with integrity. In other words, values-based leadership is the foundation of effective leadership.
It is clear this conference has involved a lot of planning, collaborating, and strategizing. However, the conference will not be valid without students walking away with more than they walked in with. Dr. Eriksen truly believes students will benefit from this conference in more than one way. A problem was recognized where student leaders were very often found to not be effective. Anybody can be a leader but it takes a very well-rounded individual to become a great leader. This conference is working to turn Rhode Island student leaders into the best business leaders of the world. Dr. Eriksen said, “the conference will be a forum to facilitate the interaction among student leaders across student groups, teams, and organizations, as well as across Rhode Island colleges and universities. Most often student leaders struggle to be effective leaders operating under the belief that to be leaders they must figure out how to lead and what actions to take on their own. This causes them to be isolated and creates difficulty when making sense of their leadership challenges and thus, thwarts their leadership effectiveness and development. Through the establishment of this supportive and enabling collegiate student-leader network in Rhode Island, we hope to strengthen the effectiveness and pool of collegiate student leadership in Rhode Island.”
How does that sound? To stress values learned through this leadership conference, a group of well-experienced, and succesful, speakers have been booked to present their expertise and hold discussions with the students. Below is a schedule of exactly what students will be doing, as well as the speakers which will be in attendance. If you were given the opportunity to attend this conference, it is definitely reccomended that you do attend. Throughout the day on Saturday, you can join the conversation by tweeting with #LeadingWithValues with your favorite quotes from speakers, the best things you have learned, and maybe even your favorite aspects of the conference! Until then? Tweet #LeadingWithValues and tweet what you are most excited for.
http://www.providence.edu/busi…