The CCAL Leadership Summit: Exploring Leadership Behaviours

Earlier this month, the Canadian Centre for Advanced Leadership in Business (CCAL) partnered with Haskayne’s Student Success team to offer Engineering/Commerce dual-degree students the opportunity to participate in a full-day leadership summit. Students were invited to connect with their classmates across all years of the program, through structured networking activities as well as workshop sessions focusing on exploring leadership behaviours.

Leadership changes everything

The day started with a session delivered by Dr. Cari Din. Dr. Din started as an athlete in synchronized swimming, where her athletic career culminated in a silver medal at the 1996 Olympic Games. She then went on to study Olympic medal-winning leadership behaviour to earn her PhD. As an instructor with the Faculty of Kinesiology, she studies performance-driven sport leadership and her experiences as an Olympic medallist contribute to her work as a coach and consultant.

Dr. Din’s session, titled Leadership Changes Everything, explored essential leadership actions that most effectively influence a group. She starts off the session with a simple question: why is leadership a thing and how does it apply to me and my future? She then did a deep dive into five components of transformational leadership: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation and accountability.

Dr. Din further explained each component with an example of her own, drawing from her experiences as an athlete, researcher and instructor. Participants were then asked to connect with their peers in discussions about their own examples of transformational leadership.

“The most valuable takeaway I had from Dr. Din’s session was that leadership is relational and leadership effectiveness is about creating positive relationships,” says student Cyndora Chan. “I really enjoyed the event and it was great how I was able to meet and connect with others in the Business/Engineering program.”

Leadership communications, persuasion and influence

The afternoon featured a workshop presented by Scott McNally, who currently manages Green Energy, Power and other special projects at Crescent Point Energy. Scott’s background in chemical engineering, energy and environmental policy led him to various positions with Shell, BP, as a White House intern during the first term of the Obama administration and as an energy advisor to the Governor of North Dakota.

The workshop explored the art and science of effective persuasion and the importance of utilizing these tools to become better communicators. Scott talks about how scientists and engineers typically use one principle when persuading: facts. However often times this is not enough to persuade others. He then talks about the 18 other principles that can be used, including reciprocity, repetition, authority and urgency. The final principle emphasized the importance of knowing your audience and selecting your other principles as necessary to tailor your communication.

Following the presentation, participants were then challenged to put the principles into practice with an impromptu debate. With only 30 minutes to prepare their argument, students were assigned opposite sides on various contentious topics, ranging from if we should scrap the carbon tax to debating whether or not the government should mandate vaccinations for children. Students enjoyed the interactive nature of the day, and being able to put into practice things the things learned during the sessions.