Establishing Excellent Leaders
business, chamber, the wausau region chamber of commerce,
Traditional community leadership programs make participants familiar with aspects of their community and how they work, from government to fine arts. But chamber leaders felt their community needed something more: a program created to actually grow leaders.
Enter Leadership Excellence g2, a unique chamber initiative designed to help provide the leaders who will guide the Wausau region over the coming decades. Now in its fourth year, Leadership Excellence g2 (for “second generation”) is a resounding success.
“Our old leadership program was learning about the systems of a community, and that’s good,” says Lisa Peterson, who heads up the program for The Wausau Region Chamber of Commerce.
“But what we have now is more about personal leadership development. It’s about learning to manage yourself in any situation, whether you are at your child’s PTO meeting or at a board meeting or running a staff meeting. It’s not rocket science, it’s not theory, it’s not, ‘What’s you leadership style?’ It’s much more simple than that.”
The program grew from years of professional work by Ray Mickevicius, a clinical social worker, organization learning expert and management development coach at Dynamic Foundations. In 2004, Mickevicius, Peterson and other chamber officials talked about how to update the then-15-year-old Leadership Wausau/Marathon County program.
“They felt the design of that program had run its course,” Mickevicius says. “They wanted something geared toward adult learning, addressing leadership development rather than networking and community knowledge.”
The unique program Mickevicius developed with the chamber works with annual classes of 15 to 18 members, most sponsored by their employers, who commit to a class load of one to two full days a month from September to May, extra meetings and homework.
The subjects, such as “Emotional Intelligence, Discipline and the Practices of Leadership,” are not lightweight, and neither is the personal involvement.
“It helps you peel back all the distraction of what can get in the way of truly functioning well in your day-to-day role,” says Peterson. “You spend time just critically thinking.”
Graduates report higher confidence, self-awareness and leadership ability.
“This is a very disciplined approach to leadership development,” Mickevicius says. “This is very personal, very mindful, intentionally reflective work. It’s a conversation for understanding, not a conversation for answers.”
Story by Laura Hill
Photo by J. Kyle Keener
