Who I Am

My father has been a successful entrepreneur since I was 7 years old, something that I admire immensely. He decided to quit his job as a successful executive in health care because he had lost his passion for work. Instead, he began a leadership development company that he dubbed The XLR8 Team. Ever since, he has been helping others reignite their passion for work. Needless to say, listening to him talk about leadership for the past 13 years has shaped much of my life. From striving to be the captain of numerous soccer and tennis teams to earning the rank of eagle scout and now being the president of my fraternity, leadership has become deeply ingrained in who I am.

I recently attended a week long leadership retreat that my father takes his clients through that includes traditional 360 feedback as well as a great amount of self-reflection to develop leaders that are self-aware and able to transform company cultures. His largest client is Wegmans Food Markets, a supermarket chain in the Northeast that has been ranked among the top 5 in Fortune Magazine's Best Places to Work including a #1 Ranking in 2005. While he certainly cannot claim credit for such a massive accomplishment, I would like to think that his role as a consultant to Wegmans' leaders has been a significant ingredient in their recipe for success.

When I return to school for my senior year in the fall, I will be taking my direct reports through the leadership process that he has all of his clients take their people through. After all, teaching others is the best way to retain what you have learned. In this blog, I plan to talk about the trials and tribulations of organizational transformation and student leadership in general. It is also intended to help me practice sharing what I know about leadership so that I can do the same with the leaders in my fraternity and others I may come across. While I certainly don't know it all, I hope to be able to share what I do know or comment on things I have read or experienced recently.