NB Leadership Roundtable

On Tuesday, I attended a roundtable on leadership development in NB. About 30 people from various backgrounds were brought together in an attempt to understand the state of leadership in our province.

We were divided into groups to tackle the task of determining the barriers and facilitators of leadership development in NB. We considered awareness of best practices, interconnectedness, power and control culture, the number of programs available to young people, to name a few. It was interesting to see the difference in opinion between people's perception of these topics. Take interconnectedness. I felt that it was a barrier while most of the others at my table viewed it as a facilitator. One gentleman was amazed with the number of people he was able to meet when he first arrived in NB. For him, the interconnectedness of people connected to his sector amazed him. From my perspective, I feel that the interconnectedness occurs within small groups that are siloed from each other, and creates an almost false sense of connection with a greater number of people.

Could NB ever be a hot house for leadership development? I think that a few things need to happen:
1. our culture needs to allow for risk taking and failure
2. the programs offered to develop leaders have to fit people's demands
3. for the province to benefit from leadership development, people need to be able to stay here. this means that they need access to employment opportunities
4. role models need to be showcased from various sectors

We left the meeting with a commitment to get together again. Instead of waiting a year to reassemble, we'll pick up where we left off in 2 months. Talking about leadership and having it become a common household term will be one of the first steps toward building that hot house.