Chain reactions in leadership

The Canadian Centre for Advanced Leadership in Business (CCAL) has engaged students in a variety of ways and activities since its inception. Hiring students as team members through short-term employment creates a powerful connection between the centre and the students. Students share insights, perspectives and approaches that help CCAL stay attuned to the student community.

Engaging ambassadors

In Winter 2016, Alejo Stump, an MBA Internship Student worked diligently with CCAL to develop a framework for an MBA Leadership Ambassador program. Stump went on to become the president of the MBA Society in Fall 2016.

CCAL partnered with the MBA Office and MBA Society during the summer of 2016 and together we developed an ambassador program; now MBA Ambassadors are engaged in all centers at Haskayne.

Building leadership

Anna Skripets, also a past MBA Internship Student with CCAL, participated in the Leadership Challenge Weekend (LCW), a key program within Haskayne Adventure Leadership Education. This weekend provides up to 80 undergraduate students the opportunity to reflect on their characteristics and skills, learn about team work, and grow in their overall understanding of the importance and application of leadership principles.

Following Skripets’ lead, five additional MBA students participated in the weekend.  Each one made important contributions by supporting undergraduate student learning by leading debrief conversations, sharing their own knowledge and experience of team-based skills and leadership, and building relationships with undergraduate students. The weekend afforded an opportunity for these MBA students to continue learning about their own leadership while gaining valuable new skills. 

The students were particularly pleased with the relationships that grew out of their weekend – both with undergraduate students and with other MBA’s – from long-term friendships to connecting in between classes.

Facilitating learning

Brooke Ramsay and Spence Young, MBA students, have both held roles as facilitators and as MBA Leadership Ambassadors.

Following the positive experience of facilitating groups of undergraduate students at CCAL’s LCW last fall, Ramsay and three other MBA students connected with Tom Holloway, finance professor at Haskayne who is also a member of CCAL’s Academic Advisory Group and the Director of the Calgary Portfolio Management Trust (CPMT), with an interest in supporting the CPMT’s student retreat.

These MBA students volunteered because they had gained the skills at the LCW with CCAL and saw the value of their participation firsthand. The students hosted icebreaker activities both days and helped to facilitate conversation among undergraduates at the over-night retreat. As these students grow in skills, knowledge, and confidence, they contribute to their communities as enablers of other students’ individual growth while forming stronger relationships.

This is an example of CCAL’s WHY statement in “chain reactions” starting at Haskayne:  educating leaders in advanced leadership principles will transform the future of business and its role in society.