Why do you want to become a leader? I don’t know if I ever aspired to become a leader. Heck, I still don’t. I think maybe in some aspects, it just happened. Many times it felt natural to come up with ideas or get a group together. I never called it leadership. I remember in […]
Dr. Prabu David, Dean of the College of Communication Arts & Sciences at Michigan State University, is beginning a free Leadership Development Online Course called Catalyst Thinking in the C-Suite. No matter where you are in your journey, this free video series will challenge you to take right next steps with journaling, reflection and inspired lectures for personal and professional growth.
When a dream becomes reality, it’s a really cool thing. Especially when your dream is to build a grad program that is transformative for people.
Four years ago, Dr. Prabu David, Dean of the College of Communication Arts & Sciences, brought together both faculty and industry leaders to ask the question, “If Michigan State University could be the professional development arm of the best and brightest companies in the world, what would we need to do?”
This set off a chain of events which lead to a year of meeting with faculty and extensive market analysis and research, culminating with a listening tour of alumni leadership in Fortune 500 companies. From this season of listening, the Strategic Communication M.A. program started in January of 2017.
The program’s first full cohort graduates on Dec. 14.
The program is now about 120 students from all over the World and from many different disciplines. Current students work at NASA, the White House, Lansing State Capitol, Herman Miller, Whirlpool, Amazon, network TV and more. We’ve got bloggers, startup owners, consultants, stay-at-home moms, rock star guitarists and students wanting to pivot from their current career. They are all desiring one thing: transformation.
People ask regularly what’s the secret to the initial success of the program. I think it’s two things: heart and vulnerability.
I think the people who wade into discomfort and vulnerability and tell the truth about their stories are the real badasses in this world.
This is especially true of people who rumble with failure. These are people who choose courage over comfort, accountability over blame, and are able to embed key learnings from failures into their lives.
For early interviews about the rising strong process, I was able to meet with Andrew—a senior leader at a successful advertising agency and a total badass.
I recognized some of myself in his story, and I think you might, too.
Read the entire story from Brene’ Brown and follow Brene’ @breneebrown