What is it like to be nominated and be part of the Sonny Lubick Leadership Seminar at Colorado State University? Tina Fox gets first-hand thoughts and in-depth insights about this program from nine of its current participants. In this roundtable discussion, she chats with Faith Dodge, Emily Ho, Rhys Travis, Arden Houck, Ally Bartels, Cameron Loew, Patrick Macholl, Ava Lee, and Rachel Turner, together with Department Chair & Associate Professor of Management Dr. Liz Karam. Together, they explain everything they have learned from the program, from leading with purpose and intention to the importance of embracing your most authentic self. They also define leadership and success in the context of today’s digital age, when nonstop tech innovation and rapid work reign supreme.

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Deep Dive Into CSU’s Leadership Seminar

My name is Liz Karam, and I’m the Department Chair in the Management Department, and I’m really grateful for all of you being here. This is a really special opportunity for us at CSU to have Tina Fox, who is the Founder of Turn Mentoring. It’s the premier college-to-career mentoring company in the country. Tina and I met several years ago when I was at James Madison University in Virginia. She’s from outside of DC, and we have remained in contact, and I have just been continuously inspired by what she has done in terms of centering the student experience and really doing research and advocacy for how we can best support students at college.

When she said she was coming out to Colorado, I said, “Let’s talk to some of our students here.” We have great students at Colorado State. Actually, I can’t take any credit. This was all Brian. I’m so grateful she had the time and we could fit this in and we can hear your voices about mentoring and leadership here at Colorado State. You were all selected because you’re part of the Sonny Lubick leadership program. Tina, do you want everyone to just quickly give a little bit of like year, major?

That would be great. We can start with you, tell us a little bit about your background and we’ll go around. That’d be great.

My name’s Arden Houck, and I’m a senior here at Colorado State University, and then I’m a Business major concentrating in Finance and Accounting. I’m almost done, it’s crazy stuff.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

I’m Patrick, and I’m a senior as well, last semester, and I’m also in Accounting.

My name’s Rhys, I’m also a senior graduating in the spring, and then I’m in Supply Chain Management.

My name’s Emily, and I’m also a senior studying Supply Chain Management.

I’m Ally, graduating in the spring, and I’m studying Marketing.

I’m Ava, and I’m graduating in the spring, and I’m actually a transfer student, and I’m concentrating in Marketing.

Where’d you transfer from?

CMC, Colorado Mountain College.

My name’s Faith, I’m a sophomore, and I am studying management and innovation in the internet.

Great, and no pressure, but I heard all these seniors and they’re graduating, so at this point, the future is like lying on you.

I’m Rachel, I’m also graduating this semester, and I’m studying Supply Chain and Management and Innovation.

I’m Cameron, I’m also a senior, and I’m also doing Supply Chain Management and Innovation.

That did not help you, so definitely, everything is going to be on your shoulders. It sounds like this is a wonderful group, and Liz was telling me a little bit about why it is that you guys do this, but I understand that this is an application process. Is that correct? You had to apply to be a part of this leadership group?

It’s a nomination process.

Who typically nominates?

Former students nominate us in theory to go into the program, and then as current students, you would nominate students forward.

Very smart, so they knew what you were going to be going through and they knew the quality and caliber of the individual. Did you seek nomination or had they already had you in mind?

For me, I didn’t even know that I was nominated until the person who nominated came up to me and told me that he was going to nominate me. I never really sought it out because I didn’t really know about it. It’s mostly like they come to you thing.

Is this like a secret society? I feel like it’s a little bit of a secret. How many of you are participating in the program at any one given time?

It’s like twenty of us, maybe? Something around there, yeah.

What is the setup of the leadership program right now? How often are you meeting? How long can you stay in? I know you’re a sophomore, everybody else is a senior, so when did you enter?

It’s semester by semester, so new people, each semester, and there’s 5 seminars, like about every 2 weeks. The third seminar is very casual, it’s like so you get to know everyone else, but the other ones are a little bit more structured and we’ll do readings from a book and then that’s the basis of the discussion.

What’s the book for this semester? The Go-Giver?

Yeah. It’s the same one every semester.

I read about that online and actually have that book in my office, so a very good book. Every semester, there’s a new cohort that comes through, that’s how it is. Have you all nominated the next cohort?

You can nominate them, like at the end of your semester, or if you need more time to think about who you might want to nominate, it’s open-ended. Even after you graduate, you can reach back out and say, “This person came to mind, I would like to nominate them for the following semester.”

I can nominate students if they save their nomination.

Can you only nominate one or is it multiple?

Two.

You said alumni can come back and nominate, and you all were nominated. Anybody here nominated by an alum, somebody who’s already graduated from the university? You were?

Yeah, so I met an alum during my internship, so I connected with him during one of my internship, I was like, “You’re a CSU alum, I’d love to do like a coffee chat with you,” and then he came to my final internship like presentation, and then later that semester he’s like, “I nominated you for Sonny Lubick.”

That’s great, so you did not know when you got nominated, you’re like, “What are you even talking nominate me for what?” When you found out about this leadership series, what were your thoughts?

I was like, “That sounds really cool,” because he told me about it and what it was and because this was last semester and I’m only a sophomore and I don’t really get these opportunities very often. I don’t have an internship. I have to be a junior before I start applying for an internship and all sorts of things and I’m just finishing up my general education, and I’m not in those practicum classes where we’re really diving deep into stuff that I’m passionate about. It was something that I was passionate about so it really did excite me and I really wanted to do it.

Now I’m assuming freshmen are too early, so you don’t really see a lot of freshman nominations, sophomore might be the earliest, does that make sense?

I don’t think you typically see them, but I think it’s just open to whoever gets nominated, really.

I think it’s terrific that you all got nominated. I think the process is super cool because somebody’s gone before you, so that’s high praise that they would see a reflection of themselves in you and say, “You’re worth the nomination. I’ll put my name behind you.” Congratulations for at least even getting through that part.

What Makes The Sonny Lubick Leadership Seminar Different

We’re getting ready to wind down this semester. I was reading online from a former student, so this might have been somebody who nominated you, I don’t know. He said, “The only thing I hope to gain out of this is new perspectives on life. Many times, I find myself lost in the whirlwind of life, that I forget what might be important and this always reminds me of what’s really important.” Being part of this leadership series, what have you found to be of great importance to you? How many sessions have you gone through out of the five? Three, at least?

Four.

You have one more. You’re almost done. Does anybody want to take that?

I can start. I think I’ve gone through a lot of different leadership seminars before, and so I was expecting this one to be the same and it’s like, “This is how you lead, this is how you can influence people,” and all those basic lessons that you learn through past leadership seminars. Getting into this one it was a whole new world because the first lesson was about how you shouldn’t base your value and stuff off the money you make, but your biggest reason to give should just be giving value.

You shouldn’t give more just to make more, it’s just about the value that you give to people and I was like, “That hasn’t been said before in any of my leadership seminars,” because they’re focused on moving forward, making more money and everything that, but this really ties down to the really core important values and morals that will also help you become a better leader simultaneously.

That’s brilliant and that actually leads me into another question later on, but I’m curious as to anybody else here as to your thoughts on what that quote meant from that previous student.

For me, obviously we’re all business students, but it was a nice way to just connect with people who I don’t see on a daily basis and talk about more than just business and more just about school, it was more about life and how are we contributing members of society, how do we present ourselves in a way that we’re proud of and how do we represent ourselves. It is about being a leader but it’s how we lead and I really enjoyed listening to everybody’s leadership styles because they were all so different. I think we are taught leadership is influencing people, it’s how you get to the next level, how you make money, but I learned that it’s more just about being a good person and being authentic to yourself. I think that’s the main thing I took from it.

Anybody else? I see a common theme here.

I think the keyword of our seminar was authenticity and being a genuine, authentic person in the way you carry yourself and treat others, which I think really resonates with not just the typical business leadership climbing the ladder but really getting to know people on a personal level and coming down to meeting people where they’re at.

I think what’s also really cool about the nomination system is a lot of those nominations are anonymous too, a lot of people choose to be anonymous, so sometimes you’ll get nominated by someone who really surprises you that you’re like, “I barely interacted with this person,” or, “I have no idea who nominated me. Why? What about me and my character stood out to be nominated?” I think that authentic part of just being you is really the highlight of the seminar.

Authenticity is my word of the year, so this is the right group to be talking to. I think about this at the end of the previous year and as I think about it throughout the year, it’s amazing how often I find myself in a situation where this becomes the topic of conversation. I don’t do New Year’s resolutions anymore because I typically blow them by January 2nd, but the authenticity thing I love how it’s popping up.

How Culture is Being Overlooked In The Current Generation

It’s still only March. Yeah, we’re still early on in this. Speaking of Coach Lubick, I have not met him yet, I’m hoping to maybe bump into him tomorrow, but I understand that he’s known for transforming a football team that wasn’t doing so great here way back in the day into a championship culture. He’s known for discipline, culture, and belief.

You all have had a chance because this program is run by both Coach Lubick and Professor Schuster, is that correct? I wanted to ask a question about Coach Lubick and how he believes in culture first. You all talked about this whole idea of leadership being more of a transactional thing towards success and building more money, and then all of a sudden, you end up in this leadership class and you’re like, “Wait a minute, somebody’s delivering the information to me about leadership very differently.” As it pertains to culture, where do you think culture is being overlooked in the current generation as far as being an essential component to leadership?

I think it’s being overlooked in a lot of team aspects these days. On my background, I run track here at CSU and we have a very strong culture, I feel like, but we’re seeing a lot with sports and everything very much being pushed into a me-first mentality go in there, get as much money as you can and we forget all the valuable lessons that we can learn by having a strong team and a bond that.

I think we’re lacking that in then team aspects and I think it’s trickling down into maybe more school stuff where it’s like you’re not forced onto a team you choose to be on it but you’re also going to be working with other people so I’d say it really starts with these team sports right now where we’re really losing the team aspect of it.

What do you think can be done about that? Where should it start?

I think it starts back up to the people that set the rules for these types of things. I think people that are setting rules for all these teams and stuff, they have their own personal interests in mind and not the interest of everyone as a whole. I think that’s driving it down so if we get the right people setting the rules and making sure that the competitions and committees are fair then that’s going to trickle down into the teams themselves.

How does that play out? If you feel like in today’s culture, particularly in the sports side of things, in the collegiate market, if the focus is more on a me-first, how do you cut through all of that so that you do build a team if the leaders aren’t already doing that for you? How have you done that with track, for instance?

We just doubled down on what we stand on as a culture. Our head coach is we’re not going to take any BS from you, so if you’re not cheering your teammates on, we’re not going to bring you to meet, if you’re not being a team-first guy, if you’re all about yourself, he’s like, “We’ll just cut you and get rid of you.” In the midst of all this, we’ve doubled down and I think we have a very tight team and that’s a reason why.

That’s fair, I love that, so you have a coach who believes in culture first. Anybody else on the comment of how culture might be missing in today’s society?

I think to add on to what he was saying to fix the problem of it being all about yourself is to just bring back caring being cool, because that brings it back onto other people so that they can be stronger individually rather than just caring about themselves. Everybody caring about each other makes each person stronger and the culture stronger.

How did the book The Go-Giver reflect that? What have you learned out of that book? Have they talked about culture? Have they talked about team? Have they talked about ways in which you give back? What’s been your reflection on that book?

The book is all about basically helping others and how important that is and how to be authentic and I think that there are a lot of valuable lessons in there being a business seminar and how it’s so about helping other people.

What Does Authenticity Mean Today

What do you all think it means to be authentic? What does that mean now? In a world where social media is all about putting your best self forward, it is about look at me, me-first, look at my visibility. What do you think authenticity means now for you?

I think of a funny quote from Professor Schuster who says, “Always be the person your dog wants you to be,” because the dog doesn’t have the judgment that another human’s going to have, but they just think you’re the best person in the world, they always you always feed the dog. I think it’s a really good way to be your authentic self. You want to be the person your dog thinks you really are and just when moving forward that and just that way, where it’s just the integrity behind, not everybody’s watching you but you’re still going to hold the door for a person or something that. I think that’s what authenticity builds for me, at least.

That’s beautiful. Now I’m thinking about my two dogs and I wonder what my dogs think about me. I hope I’ve been a good leader to my dogs. Anybody else on authenticity? That’s great, I love that. I have to thank Bill for bringing that up to them.

I think it’s about upholding your values and morals both in front of people but also behind closed doors doing the right thing when no one’s watching, which is something that I feel like we’ve heard ever since a little age but it often gets missed. I think it’s really important to be yourself and love others in front of people and behind closed doors.

What do you want to say because I have a follow-up to her?

I was just going to say getting out of the mindset of having to act a certain way and fit into this cookie-cutter personality or way of acting, and I feel like in our day and age everything is so competitive so we think we have to be a certain way to achieve something and I think just being your true self and showing you said, showing that to everyone even behind closed doors, it’ll get you so much farther than being fake.

That is easier said than done, always doing the right thing despite what social pressures are maybe screaming at you. Where have you found in your life that it’s been the most difficult to be authentic?

I think social media is hard because we all want the world to see the most positive aspects of our lives, it’s really hard to be vulnerable and share our struggles online because it’s out there forever once we post it. I think there is freedom in not caring what other people think about you, and for me that’s come with age because I think in high school especially, it was really hard.

I was focused on fitting in and dressing the same way as my friends and all of that, but once you get to college there’s a whole new level of self-expression and I think that that really helped me with social media and I’m a Marketing major too, so I think it’s been good for me to embrace my own style and just go with that and I’m so much happier because I what I post and it’s for me and that’s the most important thing, I think.

Now thinking of social media, who do you would you say on any of your feeds is the most authentic person that you see? Do you feel as though even your own feed is more authentic or have you chosen to just not be on the feed as much because it is hard to put out a level of vulnerability? It’s like, “I’m just going to take down or I’m not going to post as much or I’m going to post something that’s really inspiring.” Either way, what do you have to say about your own feed? It could be a celebrity but it could also be somebody that you know well.

This is a silly answer but it’s what came first to my mind. I have my normal Instagram account that’s public to everyone and then I have a spam Instagram account which is only my friends and closer people to me can see it. On my normal Instagram, it’s the best pictures of me, aesthetic, has a color scheme, everything like that, and it’s true. On my spam, it’s pictures of me crying and then long paragraphs as my captions are almost like diary entries sometimes or just random photos of me and my friends. I’d say that’s way more authentic than my personal main public one that’s really not.

Yeah, and I can see that because you all are seniors, you’re gunning for jobs, and human resources is staying in line. You’re like, “I don’t know if I want human resources to see every aspect of who I am out of context.” Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Anybody else on their own feed or who they think is the most authentic?

For my feed, I’ve had to curate it over the years to be something that reflects me and my identity. Something I talked about during my semester with my seminar was representation was really important for me so as a minority, following people who look me who have style me who have features me, even just learning how to do my makeup for my eye shape and for Asian features was something I had to curate into my feed of social media so I can see myself in other different ways, different professionalisms and styles that I didn’t get before.

I think that’s helped me become a lot more authentic and not feeling I had to conform to my peers or being at a PWI. Different than maybe what I would put out on social media but I had to really curate my feed to be personal to me to help me build confidence and be authentic and say there are other people who are me look me that I can also be like, I guess.

How has that helped as far as your mental health? Do you feel better having curated your feed?

Definitely a lot more confident, whether it’s seeing even representation, not even just for race but you know body types or your hair type or whatever and how to care for yourself in different ways.

I have found that with authenticity, I look at Jennifer Garner, for instance. Do you know who she is? From West Virginia, she doesn’t hide that about herself, although there are probably a lot of jokes that could be made about her in West Virginia, but she just seems like a very real person. Now I know that she’s got a PR team and all of this, but I feel she leaks out certain aspects of who she is. I know Lady Gaga had a huge following because she was owning herself and so this whole concept of authenticity is really interesting to me because it is my word of the year.

I feel like people who are able to be comfortable in their own authentic self attract a frequency that then allows them to continue that level of comfort. What I’ve also found in all these words of the year that I choose, as wonderful as the word sounds, how bad can authenticity sound right? It sounds like a real uplifting word. There is always a double-edged sword to whatever word I pick. When I think of authentic, I think of you’re putting yourself out there, you’re being your authentic self and what that also does is it also starts to separate people away from you.

They’re like, “I don’t like what you’re showing. That’s not as identified with me.” There is this culling that naturally starts to happen when you show up as your authentic self. Have you seen that in your journey to being more authentic leader? Have you seen people start to maybe even like, “I’m just not feeling your vibe anymore,” and that’s good for you but they’ve all still stayed there so you had the right group in the first place? You had people who were attracted to you before and now you becoming more your authentic self they’re still there.

Definitely, when I transferred here, I feel like it took me a little bit to become my most authentic self here and as that happened, I definitely had friends that I started out with and then moved along into different friend groups. I think that staying true to myself and my authenticity has put me on the right path in general.

I think that’s great. Being a transfer student, I bet. You’re leaving people behind. Proximity matters. When you leave people behind who’s going to stay with you even though you’re chasing your own self into your new space? Yeah, that’s a really great example. Anybody else?

I feel as a freshman, I only hung out with only Asian students because I had a lot of really bad experiences my first few times on campus with just microaggressions and I felt really out of place on campus. I was like in a bubble of we only hung out with each other and we’re just like, “No one else understands us.”

I had a really big struggle making friends outside of that small bubble and community and try to be authentic and so for me, it was whether conforming to be more white with my peers or to be really Asian and hate on everything else in the university. However, as I grew into College of Business and started finding my friends and being able to be myself and share my cultures with others, I feel I finally feel comfortable in my own skin as a senior.

I’ll invite friends and be like, “I’ll cook you pho,” and they don’t judge you know any of my culture and those have been some of my closest friendships regardless of everyone’s backgrounds and just being able to be myself in that space. I think seeing that growth from my freshman year of being very feeling like I had to conform to something to now has been a really cool progression.

Sounds a freeing experience. I got to say congratulations on not staying in the echo chamber. When you’re talking about microaggressions and being we’re just going to we’re going to get together, we look the same, we talk the same, we eat the same. A lot of us are the same. We’re going to then be in this echo chamber.

Brene Brown is one of my favorite authors and researchers and she’s down in Texas and she’s a professor researcher just Dr. Karam and one of her famous quotes that I love is hate is hard to do close up. Move in. The fact that you decided to move in and to explore different perspectives and now you’re like, “I feel comfortable in myself and so therefore, I can be comfortable around others.” That is massive growth on campus. I love hearing that. No wonder you were nominated for this leadership, that’s a big deal.

Defining And Understanding The Different Aspects Of Success

I’m going to switch gears here and talk a little bit about success. This is something that up until even recently for me, I don’t think I ever had the proper definition of success. We’re talking about the conformities, just the world, social media. Being in this leadership series, how did you see success and how maybe has that changed since you’ve been in this leadership series or has it at all? Maybe you had the same vision, I don’t know.

I think before, I thought of success especially in the business world as getting to the top of the ladder, making the salary that you want to make but I think there’s so many different aspects of success that I had never thought about. For me, success is finding the right friends. I think it can even be something as simple as that. If you’re happy with yourself, I think that’s the greatest success you can have.

Obviously, we’re all in school to hopefully get jobs and to move forward in our careers and that’s success too but I just think looking at it from a more broad perspective really gave me the confidence to say, “I’m succeeding in life. I have these friends, I love school, I love where I am.” Taking small steps to success is a lot better than shooting for a goal that seems so far in the future but that’s just how I look at it.

Anybody else?

Jumping off of that, the small wins and stuff just meeting new people joining the seminar meeting new people like you is successful and could help you out in the future but just viewing it as meeting those new people and just taking the small wins and taking the small progress steps towards just being happy and being your authentic self. Building yourself and growing as a person, I think, is just really a mindset that I’ve started to take a little bit more. Reading the book The Go-Giver, he learns that not everything that looks or is successful looks successful and I think that’s just was something that I took away from the book really well.

Yeah, is it a shell game a movie set or is there any depth to it? Were you going to say?

I was going to say I’ve moved farther away from defining success by reaching a certain number getting a certain percentage on something and more towards how I feel. It’s like going to a class now, I’m not like, “I’m here to get an A.” It’s like am I actually coming in here and learn something and it’s weird because I’ve started doing that, I’ve focused less on the numeric results but even though they still been there or they’ve increased. I’ve just felt a lot more satisfaction in a lot of things that I’m doing. I think in today’s world, we’re so data and number driven it’s been interesting that I’ve flipped my definition of success away from everything else and I’ve felt a lot more fulfilled whenever I’m doing anything.

Do you find that to be the same with your contemporaries? I mean there’s three of you here that offered up very similar your definition has definitely changed from this numeric, number oriented thing from the past. Now it’s more about joy within. Do you think your contemporaries are like that or do you think because you’re part of this leadership series, you talk about these things a little bit more openly in conversation that you’ve just developed this mindset through those conversations? Where did that come from?

I think for me, it was when we were sharing experiences so much because how that seminar really works is we read a portion of the book and then talk about some of those key themes and how they apply to our lives. I think hearing the different perspectives from different people really opened my mind and perspective of it all up a little bit. Sharing those things helped me understand I’m struggling on this side of things but I’m hearing how they are handling and how they’re overcoming some of these different problems and then trying it and just trying to experience it maybe in their point of view a little bit more helped me out quite a bit with it all.

Yeah, for our audience, let’s just clarify, when you’re talking about them, are we talking about the two leaders, the adult leaders, the professor and the coach, or even people within the class?

Everybody within the class.

Impact Of Cross-Generational Conversations

I’m curious, what about the professor and the coach? You have an opportunity to get this cross-generational conversation of leadership going and you’ve got it from two very different perspectives. Rhys, you were talking about your being a part of track and so you’ve got that athletic background and you’ve got a coach who’s coming in and he’s talking to you about his decades long experiences and how he turned success around for CSU. You have a professor who might be coming at it from a more pragmatic, practical business standpoint. How has that cross-generational conversation with this group and your professor and your coach has affected you?

I would say it’s the values don’t change, no matter what profession you’re in. He comes from coaching, he comes from teaching, the values still align. The right things still matter in both scenarios. I think that’s just been very validating, at least for me. I don’t know about anyone else. It’s like doing the right thing here probably equates to doing the right thing here and your values don’t change.

What’s being taught in the book doesn’t change depend on what class you’re in what role you’re in what club you’re in. I don’t want to say it’s eye-opening but it’s just been very cool to see that it’s across the board. If you build a strong culture, you do the right things here you can carry that over to another part of your life and it all grows together.

Doing good even if very few people are doing good is still good and doing bad even if the majority are doing bad is still bad. What about anybody else as far as you having a chance to sit down in not necessarily classroom style but you’re in a unique position in this leadership series. You only meeting five times in the semester, you’re doing almost a book club around The Go-Giver. What do you think about the cross-generational conversation? Has it led to you all having more conversations with people who perhaps are not students? I know you’re here now, so thank you for being here.

I think it’s really cool to see that although they have such different professions that they really hold the same values but also it’s cool because they’ve lived their lives and lived through so many experiences. They’re able to share that with all of us so it’s like we’re a younger generation and we’re able to hear these stories throughout two other generations too and it’s just cool to see how those values are really consistent and just the different examples that they give is really interesting.

Number One Lesson Of The Sonny Lubick Leadership Seminar

What would you say has been the number one thing that you’ve learned out of this leadership series? Everybody’s going to be different, I’m sure.

I just think that kindness will take you farther than competition.

Anybody else?

I think for me, it never hurts to fall back on just being a good person and sticking to your guns and always being that person you want to be in everything.

That can be hard sometimes but if you can go to sleep at night knowing that your head’s hitting that pillow and you’re like, “It was hard but I did the right thing,” is that enough?

Exactly, I think so. Being able to look back at a situation maybe it didn’t go perfectly but you did the right things you had the right mindset and you tried to be the best person you could be that day towards other people and towards yourself.

I think it offered a new starting point. We brought up the word authenticity a million times but I think it really showed the starting point should be authenticity and then build from there and you’ll probably be successful.

Anybody else want to share? If I do get to meet coach and I did get to meet Bill, I’m definitely going to be sharing this with them.

I think for me it was judging myself based, like Rhys was saying earlier, less off of results and more my effort and what I did and even if my efforts to be a good person don’t result in anything good happening it’s still that makes me feel good I tried.

Message To The Person Who Nominated Them

You all were nominated. What would you to say to the person who nominated you now that you’re almost done?

Thank you.

That’s always great. Thank you is a good thing.

I would have loved to talk to her a little bit more because I didn’t know the person very well.

Do you have that opportunity? Do you know the person’s name or are they still anonymous?

I knew the person’s name so I reached out to them a little bit, but she graduated right after she nominated me in so she’s out in Pittsburgh right now and haven’t really been able to talk to her too much.

Don’t give up on her because we do come back up for air at some point in time and one of the nicest things about being an alumni, I can share, is that when we do get a chance to go back and talk to a reflection of our younger self, it’s very freeing because we have this common space. We all bleed green here and we have this common space to which it’s like, “We can talk openly. You’ve now gone before. I just want to say thank you.” Don’t give up on her. She’s going to want to hear from you. Does anybody else want to say anything to their nominator?

I still don’t know who nominated me because my semester it was still anonymous so I think it’s refreshing to know that I had made an impact on someone and they saw like, we’ve said a million times, authenticity, and I don’t know who I made an impact on but it is reassuring to know that someone out there saw it.

That goes back full circle to doing the right things when you don’t think anybody’s looking because you don’t know what impact you’re going to have. That probably double-downs for you. You are now nominating somebody, so you’re paying it forward?

Yes.

Plans After The Leadership Seminar And After Graduation

You all are getting ready to leave CSU, you’re going to go to parts unknown. How many are staying in the great state of Colorado? Professor Karam said they love Colorado, they’re not leaving Colorado and you all just proved her right. Is anyone going outside of Colorado?

I’m going back to California.

You’re a California gal. All right, what part of California?

Carlsbad.

Do you have a position out there yet?

No, I’m going to travel for a few months so I’m figuring it out later.

There’s a mini-sabbatical in your future, how lovely. You deserve it, well done. Fast forward ten years and we were just talking about somebody who is now in Pittsburgh. She did leave the state and she went to Pittsburgh. How will this program show up in your life when no one is necessarily connecting the dots to have you back to CSU? You’re going to get busy when you leave here. Hopefully, you’ll come back for homecoming, but how will this program in particular connect you back to CSU?

I think it’ll be a lot of memory recall where you have an experience and then we’ll end up connecting it back to the seminar or a decision that we make we’re thinking about it later on and we’ll think was that what the book was about? Is that how it connects to us in real life? There are obviously so many ways to apply what the book is teaching us. I think that in the future, before we make a decision, we might go back and think how would Joe in The Go-Giver do it or how would someone else do it?

That’s beautiful. Anyone else?

I think for me, I might forget the book contents or whatever we talked about in the seminar in ten years from now but I don’t think I’ll ever forget how I was treated by my peers and my professor and Sonny. I think everyone met you where you’re at in that seminar, there’s no judgment, everyone’s so supportive. Sonny and Bill, even though they are so much older than us, maybe a lot wiser than us, they were always coming down.

They’re saying, “We learn so much from you. This isn’t about us preaching to you or telling you what to be as a leader but how we can continuously learn from you every semester with new students.” I think it’s really cool to see them humble themselves and come to our level as students and so I’ll always remember treating people that and I think that’s a really good quality of a leader is to come down to where your peers are at.

Why Join The Sonny Lubick Leadership Seminar

That reminds me of the late great Dr. Maya Angelou, that’s exactly what she said. She said, “You might not remember what they say or what they do but you’ll remember how they made you feel.” That’s great. I’ll end on this because you all are part of the secret society here at CSU, but it sounds like the impact of this was tremendous in a very positive way for all of you. What do you think needs to be done with this program so that it hits more as opposed to fewer? This is going to the nation, so you’ll be telling other institutions about this impact and why it’s important. What would you say to them? Do it, don’t do it, how should they do it?

It’s an interesting question because I think part of the charm of it is how small it is.

Scarcity has that effect, yeah.

For me, I didn’t know actually what this was until I received the email from Bill that I had been nominated for it. I think that aspect of it, it’s more exclusive, which I think is good and bad because we learned so many great lessons in here that I think should be spread to more people in the community. I think maybe a way to get it out there would be to advertise it more because I hadn’t seen it advertised anywhere before I found out about it. I think maybe that would be a good way on LinkedIn or even just around the school but yeah, I think some part of the charm is how exclusive it is so it’s hard.

I know for sure, you all are part of different groups. Whether they’re academic groups, they’re social fraternities, sororities, athletics. Are you all bringing these conversations forward to those other groups?

I think every once in a while, you try to bring it up, but I think something with me, to bounce back to your previous question, I don’t want to bring it up to too many people where people start becoming fake authentic and try to be a version of them so I want to pick them. I want to pick somebody just because of who they are without them thinking I’m trying to pick them for it. I want to pick someone just because of who they are. It’s a balance of everything.

You’re a secret shopper. You’re going out there and you’re like, “I’m not telling you anything about this but you might have promise.”

I definitely tell people who I trust and I know won’t change who they are with it, but it’s just that balance of it all. I definitely am a secret shopper, I guess.

Discussion Wrap-up And Closing Words

There is something about scarcity, about secret shopper, about doing the right things when nobody’s looking, because you might get an opportunity that’s going to rise to meet you and when you do, you’re going to be the right person for it because you’ve always been operating that way. I think that it’s wonderful that you all are participating in this program and this series. Please tell your professor and your coach I said thank you as an alumni of my own institution.

I’m very bullish on Gen Z and I know you guys are doing great things. You think faster than us, you operate better than us, and you’ve got this big wide world that we are desperately relying on you to change and make better. We always have a way of messing it up. Every generation has a way of messing it up a little bit, hopefully we did some good things too, but you guys are doing great work in leadership. I hope you all become leaders of whatever you choose to be in the future. I can’t thank you enough for being here. I hope we stay connected through this. Thank you.

Important Links

• Liz Karam
• Arden Houck on LinkedIn
• Patrick Macholl
• Rhys Travis
• Emily Ho on LinkedIn
• Ally Bartels
• Ava Lee on LinkedIn
• Faith Dodge on LinkedIn
• Rachel Turner on LinkedIn
• Cameron Loew on LinkedIn
• The Go-Giver

About Dr. Elizabeth P. Karam

Dr. Elizabeth (Liz) Karam’s research focuses on how leaders positively impact individuals, teams, and organizations. She has published in top academic journals including the Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Organizational Behavior, The Leadership Quarterly, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Her Journal of Management publication on team leadership won the 2015 JOM Best Paper Award. She has received numerous college and university awards for excellence in teaching, research, and service and in recognition of impactful, innovative, and engaging contributions to sustaining a learning community.

Liz earned her BA in Sociology from the University of Michigan, and her MBA and PhD from Michigan State University. Prior to her career in academia, she worked in banking, human resource management, and organizational development.