Associate Professor of Psychology Chris Leupold served as the keynote speaker for the Triangle Catholic Schools’ Professional Development Day on Sept. 23.
The audience of 300 was comprised of administrators, educators, and staff members from various Catholic schools in the Diocese of Raleigh. The all-day event was held at Immaculata Catholic School in Durham.
In his presentation Authentic Leadership: Enhancing Self Development Through Learning Agility, Leupold first discussed the concept of authentic leadership, a popular topic in current leadership journals. Popularized by former Medtronic CEO and 2008 Isabella Cannon Distinguished Visiting Leadership Scholar Bill George, authenticity refers to a style driven by a personal code of values and sense of purpose, quality and trusting relationships, and a sense of discipline to act genuinely in all that one does.
One of Leupold’s key messages was that developing authenticity is a life-long process that requires continual self-growth and reflection, as constantly changing environments ensure that leaders will always encounter new situations that force them to challenge their authenticity. At this point he introduced the increasingly popular topic of learning agility, or the extent to which one is able to learn from events and apply those learnings to future new situations. From the areas of succession planning and employee placement, recent research has shown that individuals who are high on learning agility tend to be more flexible in their thinking, more open to new experiences, and more aware of their and others’ behaviors and motives; research has also shown that these people are much more successful when promoted to new positions or placed in new (and especially challenging) situations.
Leupold challenged participants to enhance their own learning agility through the use of a formalized and validated system for individual development planning, so that participants would be better equipped to handle new and future job challenges (e.g., technology, curricula, parental expectations, diocesan and parish requirements, etc.) in a way that that was aligned with their own personal authenticity.
Leupold is an industrial/organizational psychologist and is currently Elon’s Leadership Faculty Fellow and Coordinator of the Leadership Studies minor. A former human resources management consultant, he is also a faculty member in the Love School of Business’ Executive Education Program. To learn more about offerings from the Executive Education Program, visit http://www.elon.edu/e-web/academics/business/executive_education/staff.xhtml.