1. Kansas State University
  2. »K-State Research and Extension
  3. »KSRE Tuesday Letter
  4. »Leadership Development

KSRE Tuesday Letter

Other publications

K-State Research and Extension
123 Umberger Hall
Manhattan, KS 66506-3401
785-532-5820
extadmin@ksu.edu

April 25, 2017

Leadership Development

Submitted by Daryl Buchholz

Daryl Buchholz

Are you one who looks at leadership development opportunities, and says "no way am I going into administration, so I sure don't need that!"? Let me persuade you to think differently about leadership development opportunities. When I listen to others talk about a leadership development experience, it's most often talking about who they came to know through that experience, and seldom do I hear about how they plan to make use of the experience to gain a position or move into a new role. Leadership development is about becoming familiar with yourself, your personal values, strengths, goals, capacities, and desires in your professional and personal life. It's about understanding others, and how to use proven process in organization, facilitation, and motivation of others around you.

But, most of all, it's connecting with others who have similar professional interests and a desire to improve themselves to be better equipped to work with people. In an organization where "knowledge for life" is our motto, working with people is critically important. As professionals, seeking opportunity to improve ourselves in our abilities to work with others should be a very high priority. When opportunity presents itself to consider a leadership development experience, I hope you will always give it serious consideration. It will never come at the most opportune moment, but then again a person needs to be ready whenever the opportunity happens.