Leaders Come in Many Shapes and Sizes

BY SUSAN SALTER REYNOLDS

Traditional notions of leadership are changing. Colleges and universities often serve as the crucibles in which society’s time-honored precepts are challenged. New theories are born, old ones jettisoned. New models, better suited to current contexts and cultures, are forged. Today, in the wider world beyond campus, the cry for better, more ethical leaders echoes—perhaps louder than ever before.

In classrooms, clubs, cafeterias, dorms, and athletic fields, students, faculty, and staff are asking the questions, What are the ingredients of this new leadership? What does it look like? How is it different?

In previous generations, leadership was synonymous with control, vision, success. Leaders gave orders, provided direction, took the rap if things went wrong. Leaders were in charge. Leaders were successful.

If you were armed with a college education, you were expected to lead. When you walked into any room, it was obvious who the leaders were.

Not anymore. (Spoiler alert: they may be sitting in the back of the room.)

Catherine Welch ’10, associate dean of student success, keeps a poem by Marge Piercy, “To Be of Use,” on the wall in her office (the poem can be found on the inside back cover of this issue). One line, “The work of the world is common as mud,” frames many of Welch’s ideas about leader- advisor and former men’s ice hockey coach Lou DiMasi, whose modesty, humility, and willingness to help others are campus legend. She thinks of her dad, James Michael Welch ’66, a high school technical education teacher who worked with Habitat for Humanity in the summers. “His work was ‘common as mud,’ never glamorous or publicly recognized, but he showed up, day in and day out, leading volunteers who were constructing homes none of them would ever live in.” ship. “This is the kind of leader I hope to be,” she says. “Being of service, doing the work of the world, common as mud.” For Welch, leaders are everywhere, taking small steps to be of use. She thinks of student success

Todd Johnstone Wright ’95, director of the Undergraduate Professional Endorsement Program, sees leadership as a transformational process. In his class Professionalism—Theory and Practice in the Global Marketplace, students learn the core competencies of higher-level management. The most effective leaders, he believes, are people who can lead others through change. This requires a great deal of self-awareness, and it comes with all kinds of burdens and consequences.

Although her title includes the word “success,” often associated with traditional leadership, Welch sees her role at Saint Michael’s as service to the students, meeting them “where they’re at,” helping them make decisions, offering options, and helping to relieve stress whenever possible. Leadership in this context is not about taking charge or finding solutions. There is no single, common idea of success that students should achieve. In her Title IX work, Welch listens, often to emotions that can’t be “fixed.”

And, he says, everyone has the potential for leadership. There’s no such thing as born leaders. Wright was in the military from age 18 to 22, and recalls being responsible for people in complex and high-risk environments. It’s in the moments when we make decisions that our leadership is tested. We come to those moments prepared, or not. How can we help students prepare for those moments? What are the skills needed? Reflection, trust, clarity, the ability to manage conflict, the ability to process information quickly, and the ability to listen to one’s intuition. Too much for an 18-year-old?

“We underestimate young people,” Wright explains. “We like to control them. But we should treat them always with dignity and respect.” Wright has learned a lot about teaching leadership by working with students outdoors. He’s seen leadership all across campus, in Fire and Rescue, in MOVE, and on the backpacking trips he has run for years. “A few years ago, I was coleader on a backcountry ski mountaineering trip in Quebec with a group of students. We faced a go/ no-go decision before an ascent. One student was struggling physically and had blisters. The group decided not to put this student through another day of suffering. In my mind, I thought, they aren’t injured, there’s fresh snow, but this was a transformational moment. The change was from a collection of individuals to a real group. Now that’s leadership, magical stuff, initiated by a student leader who said, ‘we should go down.’”

When Brian Collier, professor of fine arts, was in college studying studio art, a student’s main job was making a work. At Saint Michael’s, he says, students have to be able to present their idea and describe the resources and collaborations they will need to complete it. This is a form of leadership—the obligation to visualize something new and open a world of possibilities for the viewer, to lead the viewer through an experience. Collier believes wholeheartedly that the artist has a responsibility to the viewer. “The arts can hit you in unexpected ways. It’s important to acknowledge the influence you have,” he says.

“Art is the ability to match concept with material and make the hard decisions about which material to use. You have to let go of worrying about failure, consider the effect, and summon inner resilience. Every decision matters. When you make art, you are presenting yourself and developing yourself.” Collier feels that college is the perfect age to do this. Students are “natural creative thinkers.” And teaching is a form of leadership. You are, he says, modeling behavior.

Dawn Ellinwood, vice president of Student Affairs and dean of students, does not have a traditional definition of leadership. “Anyone involved in an activity with a group making decisions that make a difference is in a leadership role,” she says. “My hope is that we can have broader definitions—each one of us is making change in different ways, small and large.” In her role on campus, Ellinwood is often helping others find a path forward. “Sometimes it doesn’t work!” she laughs.

“I see students in leadership roles on campus all the time, and it can be stressful and overwhelming. Leadership is work!”

Ellinwood agrees it’s all about preparation and humility. “Leadership is not about ME,” she says. It’s often about knowing what others need. “The other night I heard fire trucks heading to the residence halls. I went over, and Nick Welch ’23, one of the student leaders in Fire and Rescue, came right up to me and said ‘Dawn, it’s not a fire.’ Now that was leadership. He knew exactly what information I needed.”

Dawn sees similar scenarios all over campus: on athletic fields, in the work of student volunteers in MOVE helping people to rebuild postpandemic, and in the resident assistant on each floor of the residence halls.

“Many courses at St. Mike’s also include community engagement pieces in which students can apply what they have learned about ethical leadership. All of these students learn to see what’s needed and then do it. They lift people up and facilitate real change.

“Leadership is more than a skill set,” she says, smiling. “It’s a way of life.”