Leadership program celebrates 10 years

Throughout the last decade, the LeaderShape Institute at the University of Wisconsin–Madison has given nearly 600 undergraduates the tools to turn their passion into action and to become leaders with integrity.

“I am still pursuing my vision developed at LeaderShape,” says Anand Chhatpar, a 2005 computer engineering graduate who co-founded BrainReactions, a Madison-based creative brainstorming company whose clients have included Procter & Gamble, Bank of America and the United Nations. “In doing so, I was named by Business Week online as one of the 2005 best young entrepreneurs in the country.”

UW–Madison marks the 10th anniversary of its LeaderShape Institute when it hosts a session Sunday-Friday, Jan. 7-12, at the Bishop O’Connor Center on Madison’s west side.

A national program, LeaderShape is an outgrowth of a leadership-focused course the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity developed for its members. Now a nonprofit corporation headquartered in Champaign, Ill., since 1986, LeaderShape Inc. offers its six-day leadership sessions at campuses and other locations around the country.

The first UW–Madison participants were engineering students who attended LeaderShape at the Allerton Conference Center outside Champaign in 1996. When they returned, they lobbied College of Engineering and School of Business administrators to sponsor a campus session. Held in 1997, that first UW–Madison LeaderShape drew 42 engineering and business students.

Centered around the idea that effective leaders live in a state of possibility and that positive leadership takes place in the context of a supportive community, LeaderShape sessions explore such topics as building community, establishing a personal vision, and living and leading with integrity.

“LeaderShape helped me to develop my vision for what I wanted to do in life,” says Chhatpar, who participated in the program in 2004. “More than that, it helped me create a set of ‘smart’ goals and ‘stretch’ goals, and gave me all the tools and connections I needed to get started implementing my vision. The biggest learning experience was to know the importance of integrity as the core foundation of leadership.”

Day one of the program is all about breaking the ice. “The idea is that before we can talk big-picture issues about leadership, we need to make sure that all the participants meet each other and become comfortable with each other,” says Mark Mastalski, director of the College of Engineering Student Leadership Center who has coordinated the UW–Madison LeaderShape since 2003.

Students eventually form “clusters,” or groups of about a dozen participants with whom they will spend most of the next five days. For their first exercise in relationship-building, students in each cluster create a name, logo and cheer for their group.

Subsequent activities strengthen friendships initiated that first day, yet also test students’ trust in each other and challenge or reinforce their own values. They learn about real-life leadership experiences from guests that have included Madison Fire Chief Debra Amesqua, Madison Police Chief Noble Wray and, in 2007, UW–Madison Provost Patrick Farrell. They participate in an Adventure Learning Programs team-challenge course, through which they develop trust, teamwork and problem-solving skills.

With help from her fellow participants, industrial and systems engineering student Talia Esser’s vision came to fruition only a few weeks after the 2006 LeaderShape session ended. She organized a successful two-day event during which faculty, staff and student volunteers distributed more than 1,500 “Pay it Forward” cards on campus to encourage recipients to perform good deeds for strangers. “The event was a week before I left to study abroad in Budapest, Hungary, for a semester — and I would not have been able to fulfill my goals without the whole LeaderShape team,” she says.

Stories of lasting friendships or successful events abound, says Mastalski. LeaderShape alumni have gone on to form meaningful student organizations, they have excelled in the workplace or, like Chhatpar, have founded businesses. After organizing several UW–Madison LeaderShape sessions and participating in the program on a national level, Mastalski now is looking for support for his vision: taking the UW–Madison LeaderShape on the road to South Africa and sharing the experience among 30 Wisconsin and 30 University of Cape Town students.

“These 60 students from our two institutions would get to meet each other and create these incredible bonds and relationships during the course of LeaderShape,” says Mastalski. “But then once LeaderShape ends, it’s not over. They’ll go out into the community and make a difference. We’re going to make sure that it is something that makes sense for that community and that the 60 students can really see a change once they’re finished with that second week.”

Mastalski’s proposal mirrors the overall LeaderShape goal of developing young leaders from diverse ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds.

It’s one of the nuggets Esser took away with her as well. “To be able to see the impact of a nonjudgmental, secure, trusting environment on a group of strangers made me realize how to approach teamwork and leadership challenges,” says Esser, who will earn her bachelor’s degree in May and join the GE Healthcare operations management leadership program. “LeaderShape taught me how to challenge and celebrate everyone’s differences — including my own. I was able to find a new family on campus in only five days that I hope to keep in touch with long after graduation.”