leadershipNEXT

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The long-term success of an organization, institution or community often depends upon how successfully the values of each have been passed on to its next generation of leaders.

A young 40’s and under group of existing and emerging leaders in our County approached some of the senior leadership, a little more than three years ago, with the concept of developing a leadership recognition/enrichment program.  It was their feeling that in order for a committed cadre of their peers to emerge, as potential future “replacements” to existing senior leadership, our community needed to develop a means of “tapping” them into service; applauding their efforts to date—utilizing their recognition, as a means to encourage the involvement of others on the “sidelines”; to invest in their future leadership “development” by offering them exposure to a corps of mentors in this area, as well as leadership enrichment opportunities with regional, state and national figures.

Purpose and Belief Statement

“Great” leaders are sometimes defined as possessing skills that most would describe as executive core qualifications, such as: vision, communication skills, decisiveness and flexibility.  Yet, if you look a little deeper into the leadership literature of our times (and, that of the past) you will find that what people are really looking for in a leader falls into a different category called Character.  More often than not, people trust and follow leaders that exhibit humility, courage (moral and personal), caring, integrity and perseverance.

leadershipNEXT wants to develop the next generation of community leaders, by advancing the idea that good/great leadership has less to do with a skills set or area of expertise and more to do with who you are, what your values say you want for yourself and others and where you want to take your life.

Members of the 2010 leadershipNEXT class are: