On October 9th, MAX convened our Leadership MAX Class of 2025 members for Managing Organizations Day, presented by Amazon, our 7th learning day of the year. The day began with greetings from John Helton, founder and principal of Bright Idea Collab, LLC. Helton along with Breezy Straton, Vice President of Economic Development, Elevate Douglas, have served as program chairs for our inaugural cohort of Leadership MAX. MAX board leads for the day were Dana Inman, president & CEO with the Atlanta Center for Self Sufficiency, Dr. Victoria Seals, president of Atlanta Technical College, and Amelia Nickerson, CEO, First Step Staffing. Nickerson led the first session on building strong teams drawing from her experience of expanding First Step’s footprint from Atlanta to five other cities across the country. “A strong team is characterized by effective communication, mutual respect, shared goals, and a commitment to collaboration, leading to enhanced performance and innovation,” said Nickerson.
Following Nickerson’s talk, Atlanta Technical College’s Dr. Joni Williams, chief of staff, and Georgina Dumay, director of human resources, led a discussion on the importance of doing HR right, emphasizing the importance of a human-centered approach in building a a healthy, caring community within the workplace. Dr. Williams and Dumay emphasized best practices such as transparency, role models/mentors/shadows, succession planning, retreats, authenticity, and demonstrated appreciation. The third session of the day was led by Inman who, drawing upon her 20-plus years at the leadership helm of Atlanta Center for Self Sufficiency, who provided tips and strategies for building the culture you in the midst of organizational transformations. Shared Inman: “Every organization has a culture by design or default.”
As our keynote speaker during lunch, Dr. Seals treated class members to her personal leadership story, a story of passion, resilience, and everyday excellence. She shared how she went from a small town in rural Georgia to become a first generation college graduate and eventually president of a urban-based technical college that can boast a 100 percent job placement rate amongst its graduates, many of whom are the first in their families to graduate from college. The former basketball coach led a dynamic interactive case study exercise later in the day where class members had an opportunity to consider how best to exercise organizational leadership by discussed scenarios based on real life situations.
Joining the Leadership MAX Class of 2025 for a fireside chat was Matt Pieper, CEO of Open Hand Atlanta, who discussed with Helton the “food as medicine” approach his organization takes as they work to provide medically-tailored meals to our neighbors. Pieper discussed how important it is to serve others where they are and according to their unique needs. Is Open Hand Atlanta a food service or health care organization? Pieper’s answer: both.
Closing out the day was a talk by Mark Sunderland whose day job is to serve as managing partner of STANDARD Capital Partners and life’s passion is to, in his words, “nerd out” on leadership development and share his leadership insights with others. Drawing from the U.S. Army’s definition, Sunderland pointed out how leadership is the process of influencing people by providing three things – purpose, direction, and motivation – to accomplish the mission and improve the organization. All three are required and must work in tandem to move meaningfully, achieve energy with alignment, and have clarity with conviction, he explained.
Special thanks to our program chairs, board leads, and all the speakers who joined us to deliver this inspirational day for our Leadership MAX Class of 2025. Our sincere gratitude also to Atlanta Technical College for wonderfully hosting our group.
And last but not least, special thanks to Amazon for serving as our Presenting Sponsor, to Goodwill of North Georgia for serving as our Silver Sponsor, and to program sponsors Georgia Power and Select Fulton for their amazing support for our inaugural cohort of Leadership MAX.
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