CCAL’s Leader Week

When it comes to leadership, most of us have good intentions. Although a key ingredient in any leadership journey, good intentions are simply not enough. Skill development is the “muscle” of leadership and strong muscles require training.

CCAL’s first annual Leader Week dedicated each day of an entire week to different program areas. In addition to raising awareness of CCAL’s numerous student-focused opportunities, Leader Week’s thematic approach gave students the opportunity to explore different facets of leadership development.

Events included:

• The Community for Advanced Leadership kick-off breakfast (celebrating 15 years of the Haskayne Professional Mentorship Program)
• Haskayne Adventure Leadership programs showcase (the leadership expedition, wilderness retreat, leadership dojo, drumming circle and leadership challenge weekend)
• A “real-time” Haskayne GPS™
• Speed-mentoring event connecting recent alumni with first year BComm students
• A luncheon talk with Rachel Miller, CEO of CPA Alberta in partnership with the Centre for Public Accounting
• Ethics at Work MBA breakfast discussion
• CCAL’s first-ever mini-case competition.  

Tuesday’s focus was CCAL’s Adventure Leadership Education. These programs aim to use “non-traditional” settings to develop leadership skills such as teamwork, listening, decision-making, communication and reflection - skills that are transferrable to any situation or role. Lucas Ocampo, a fourth year BComm student and repeat participant of the Leadership Challenge Weekend was says his experience helped him gain important insights into his own character. “When you’re cold, wet and hungry, that’s when you learn about yourself, and how you deal with others”.

On Wednesday, the BMO Forum was transformed in to a “live Haskayne GPS^TM” complete with eight stations ranging from student club opportunities, Lunch with Leaders and student wellness. The Haskayne Guided Path System^TM is an online tool that enables students to take charge of their leadership development. Haskayne GPS^TM invites students to grow in self-knowledge through a series of self-assessments. From there, Haskayne GPS^TM prompts students to set a leadership development plan that leverages what students are already doing (e.g. course work, part-time jobs, club involvement, volunteering) and additional opportunities (e.g. time-management workshops, mentorship programs, public speaking training) to fuel their leadership journeys.

During Thursday’s “Leadership in Accounting” luncheon, Jay Schmidt, CPA and CA with Johnston Morrison Hunter & Co. gave a presentation on Leadership and Ethics in the Accounting Profession. “Accounting,” Mr. Schmidt shared, “has a governing body sanctioned by law with regulating the profession. Self-regulation is a privilege illustrating the Government’s trust the professionals to put aside self-interest in the favour of promoting the public interest. CPA Alberta’s rules for professional conduct,” continue Mr. Schmidt, “are derived from five fundamental principles of ethics: professional behaviour, integrity and due care, professional competence, confidentiality and objectivity.”

Rachael Miller, CEO of CPA Alberta, shared her reflections on ethical leadership. Among her many “leadership” nuggets, her advice around authenticity was particularly pithy: “Being authentic is more important than being perfect.”

A clear theme coming out of Leader Week is that leadership shows up in many forms. Often, leadership manifests itself as the ability to inspire action in others. Leadership also includes personal development.

Ready to act on your good intentions? Log onto D2L and select Haskayne Guided Path System^TM to discover how you can transform your Haskayne experience – including the CCAL’s multiple leadership development opportunities – into a leadership training program!