Not everyone will be CEO, but anyone can be a leader. LeedsÌęfaculty and alumni share their stories.
What is a leader?
Leadership researchers say a leader is not necessarily someone with a high-level title or position in the hierarchy of a company. A leader is, however, anyone who can influence and inspire a group of people to accomplish a goal.
Leaders arenât born with this aptitudeÂâthey learn it. Leeds faculty and alumni share how they learned to lead at all stages of their careers.
Walking the Talk
Don Oest, Teaching Associate Professor in Organizational Leadership and Information Analytics
Lifelong leadership requires adaptability and a commitment to bettering yourself and others. Those traits came naturally to Don Oest, who led throughout his career at IBM and now teaches leadership to undergraduate students at Leeds.
Growing up in Long Island, New York, Oest planned to follow in his fatherâs footsteps and become an engineer. But when he realized he lacked passion for it, he switched to computer science insteadâa decision that launched a 36-year career at IBM.
Not interested in a management role, he said he was âhappy being a programmer, but the director noticed that I liked to work with people and solve problems.â Within three years he was promoted, becoming one of the youngest managers at the company.
He learned much about leadership in that role. Maintaining trust with his team while also developing his own leadership style was a difficult balance.ÌęBut more challenging than that was laying off good employees. âThere were some who were barely getting by,â he said, and there were breadwinners that I had to let go, and that was a really hard lesson.
âThereâs no book for when you become a manager,â he said. âYou can read all the organizational behavior books you want, but on-the-job training is a must. I didnât always make the right decisions, but I made the best-informed decisions at the time, and I learned and got better over time.â
What he learned for sure was that the best managers prioritize three core attributes: integrity, authenticity and empathy.
âI would never ask anyone in my organization to do something that I wasnât willing to do,â he said. âWhen people see this, they appreciate it and respond to it.â
Then one day, he transitioned from being a leader into teaching leadership.
âIBM really wanted us to give back to our communities since we were so fortunate,â he explained. âI started teaching in New York at an all-girls Catholic school and loved itâI loved teaching business.â
He got a job as an adjunct professor at Leeds, a recommendation from his IBM mentor. Soon after, he received an offer he couldnât refuse: the opportunity to teach large lecture classes. He retired from IBM the next day.
âI love being able to see students grow,â he said, ânot just memorizing theories and words but being able to apply and finally get it.â He tells them, âLove what you do and learn from others along the way. Always maintain your passion, keep an open mind, and be adaptable.â
Growing Fearless of Failure
Eyob Abai (Fin, InfoAnalyticsâ21), Senior Business Analyst at McKinsey & Company
As a student at Leeds, Eyob Abai always had a lot going on. Not only was he president of the student government, but he was also an active member of Leeds Consulting Group, the Diverse Scholars Program and Alpha Kappa Psi.
âAs a first-generation college student, I came into college not knowing how to navigate different dynamics or how to be successful,â Abai said. âIt was very important for me to fill that gap.â
Getting involved in extracurricular activities, from organizations to sports, helped him develop leadership skills and discover his passions. âI want to make sure that I am always actively engaged so I can contribute and develop as an individual,â he said.
Indeed, Abai found a cause he felt strongly about. In March 2018, he testified as a representative of CU Boulder for House Bill 21-1067, which removed the requirement for students to submit national assessment scores (SAT/ACT) on college applications. He was thrilled when the bill passed.
âLeadership comes down to what youâre passionate about and acting on it, vocally or silently,â he said.
Coming off that victory and starting his new job as an analyst at McKinsey & Company, his excitement became intertwined with challenges. He was a young professional at a large corporationâimposter syndrome and fear of failure had crept in. But he worked hard to embrace his mistakes and walk away from fear.
Soon, he became a leader on his team. He learned that, for him, the term âleaderâ meant someone willing to step forward.
âItâs scary to have the spotlight on yourself, especially when you want to be successful in everything you do,â he said. âBut getting away from that mindset of constant success and letting yourself lean into failure is so important for your development as a leader. At McKinsey, I know that if I am comfortable enough to share my thoughts and opinions, others will be too.â
Anyone can be a leader, he said. âThereâs nothing stopping them but themselves.â
Cranking up the Confidence
Stacie Loidolt (OpMgmtâ16, MBAâ21), VP of Product Management, Aqua Comms
Stacie Loidoltâs dream was to work for a Fortune 500 company, and right out of college, she did it.
She clinched a job at Level 3 Communications, which later merged withÌę CenturyLink. Working in the field opened her eyes to the potential for growth and global opportunities.
âThe international side of telecom made me fall in love with it,â Loidolt said. âI get to go to conferences and meet people from all over the world. I knew I wanted to go into international businessâso I just kind of landed in telecomâbut it ended up being even better than Iâd hoped.â
Sheâs now the VP of product management at Aqua Comms, based in Dublin, Ireland. She admits that jumping into a leadership position was a new challenge; there was no right or wrong way to approach it.
âBeing responsible for others was a big shift, and I had to navigate the nuances of leadership to make my team effective,â she said. âWhen I was first asked what my leadership style was, my answer was simply âdoing my best.ââ
She did her homework. The book The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes and Barry Posner gave her knowledge, and emulating the traits of her favorite managers and leaders gave her skills. A caring and selfless leadership style emerged.
Despite her VP title, she believes people can make an impact no matter what position theyâre in, as long as they speak up about their ideas and realize they can contribute to a team regardless of experience.Ìę
âI think one of the reasons Iâve had success in my career is because I just never shut up,â she said. âWhen I have an idea, I say it. Just because you donât have 20 years of experience doesnât mean you canât bring something valuable to the table. I hope young professionals will have the confidence to do this from the beginning of their careers.â
She recently received the Under 35 Digital Infrastructure Talent Award from the Tech Capital Global Awards. It acknowledges a young business member of the digital infrastructure community who possesses the skills and personal qualities of a successful business leader.
âI was in a pool with a lot of other incredible candidates,â she said.ÌęâItâs amazing how many young people are out there in the industry doing incredible things.â
Getting to the Heart of It
Antonio Papuzza, Teaching Associate Professor in Organizational Leadership and Information Analytics, Leeds School of Business
Itâs rare to find anyone with more international experience than Antonio Papuzza. Originally from a small town in Italy, the author, executive coach and consultant traveled and worked in more than 50 countries early in his career after earning a bachelorâs in ecology and, later, a PhD in anthropology.
He describes his leadership evolution as a lifelong commitment, and the path hasnât been linear in the least. After coming down with a serious illness, he felt he had two optionsâeither wait around without answers for a working treatment or completely change his environment and go on a journey of self-discovery.
âI wanted to really understand what the answers were to some of my fundamental questions: âWho am I? Where am I going in life? What do I want, and why?ââ he said. âI started to travel around the globe to find those answers.â
While on his quest, he realized he wanted to help others do the same. Teaching would become his path, and he started teaching leadership at Leeds.
âTeaching became this whole new leadership experience for me,â he said. âI teach my classes with an emphasis on competent leadershipâa mix of emotional intelligence, neuroscience, and quantum physicsâan approach where leadership is learned through developed experiences.â
He believes you cannot be a leader to others without being a leader to yourself first.
And he emphasizes leading from the heart.
âThereâs a scientific concept of heart intelligence: When working with people from different countries, it relates to our ability to feel our hearts and use it in any situation,â he said. âComing back to the heart is probably the most profound experience that a leader can have and can teach others to have.â