Stillman Leaders Always Seeking More: Leadership Symposium at Rider University
Written by: Tamanna Desai
Stillman students: Brian Mitchell, Luciano Cundari, Geoff Thomulka, Angeli Fernandes and Tamanna Desai had the privilege to attend a Leadership Symposium at Rider University to support one of the speakers and director of LDHP, Michael Reuter. The symposium housed students from various colleges nearby such as Rutgers, TCNJ, NJIT, and The Richard Stockton College of NJ. The day was sectioned into three main parts; two keynote speakers started the day and were followed by two breakout sessions. Each breakout session included at least one speaker and a specific topic.
Keynote speakers Howard Stoekel (former CEO of Wawa) and Jon Peterson (Director at Widener) introduced the topic of the meaning of a leader. Howard Stoekel spoke about the five key values that a leader should strive for. These five values included: shaping visions for the future, building win-win situations, having transparency, connecting to the bigger whole and investing in trustworthiness. After Mr Stoekel’s presentation, Jon Peterson talked about the stereotypical qualities of a leader and why those are bad.
Junior, Brian Mitchel commented saying, “The Leadership Symposium at Rider was very well organized and run. I enjoyed hearing from business professionals about their experience and insights on servant leadership. In fact, one of the speakers, Jon Peterson, influenced me to create my own personal leadership philosophy that I can share with others and will always abide by. His talk had a profound effect on me, and changed the way I view leadership.”
Michael Reuter accompanied Mr. Stoekel in presenting the first breakout session of the day regarding leadership in the business world. Students learned about good leadership and talked about having a shared vision and always challenging themselves. The theme of the discussion was “leaders eat last” and students watched a video on how companies try to maintain a comfortable professional environment for their employees but at the same time continue to work efficiently. The company in the video, Zappos, had flexible rules but had certain values that the employees had to live up to. The discussion then ended with the topic of servant leaders and the five goals they have to meet. Those five goals are: model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act and encourage the heart.
The second breakout session focused on specific topics such as ethics and service. Freshman, Angeli Fernandes commented on the second breakout session saying, “We also learned about how to deal with different types of people we are leading and did a case study that served as practice on how to work with different personalities in order to create a comfortable working culture.” The ethics session reviewed and analyzed multiple scenarios dealing with the issue of transparency and fairness.
Sophomore Geoffery Thomulka sums up the overall experience saying, “The symposium offered an opportunity to work with students at other schools to gain insight on servant leadership. I learned that at the heart of being a servant leader is working for the betterment of the team and making sure you can help them achieve their goals.”
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