2016–2017 Seminar Concludes with Final Leadership Session and Luncheon
On Monday, May 1st, Fellows and coordinators gathered for the final meeting of the 2016–2017 Spring Seminar. The three-hour session began with a delicious lunch of Turkish cuisine organized by Program Manager Jelena Durkovic.
BU HHHP Director and Associate Director of Organizational Behavior Jack McCarthy delivered his final lecture on leadership development. He summarized the leadership lessons of the entire year, emphasizing the changing nature of leadership, and how existing models are outdated, and underscoring why Kouzes and Posner’s MICEE Model (Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, Encourage the Process) are more relevant today than ever. He also reminded Fellows of the two core capacities of leadership in the 21st century: Adaptability (flexibility and openness to change) and Identity (self awareness and presence).
With this year’s cohort just days away from their Commencement and subsequent return to their respective countries, Prof. McCarthy concluded his lecture with a clip from the 2002 film, The Emperor’s Club in which a private school teacher edifies his students on the meaning of the Latin phrase Finis origine pendet—”the end depends on the beginning”—and presented Fellows with the final words of Robert Frost’s classic American poem, “The Road Not Taken”:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Following Prof. McCarthy’s lecture, Fellows and coordinators made declarative statements about their personal and/or professional goals going forward.