Lead the People #35: Level Up Your Education with Tom Stewart
Tom Stewart has over 30 years experience in the U.S. Army. He has served in various leadership capacities including Battalion Commander while deployed in Afghanistan. Tom also served in multiple executive level staff positions including Assistant Chief of Staff, Director of Logistics, Director of Operations, and Director of the Joint Staff. He has a strong background in strategic planning and synchronizing large organizations toward a common goal.
Top 3 Takeaways
- Get Over Yourself. When done properly, leadership is a selfless practice. Focus on the mission, the culture you want to create, and the welfare of those around you.
- Round It Out. Leadership is both an art and a science. That means we need to practice and study it at the highest levels in order to realize our full potential.
- Make the Investment. Pursuing an advanced degree, executive education, or another program of intensive study boosts your learning and achievement and amplifies your impact.
From the Source
“When I teach leadership, it's about leading in the most selfless manner possible, because it’s not about you, it's about the people that have to live with the policies you create, the environment that you create. So therefore, leaders should, in fact, look for professional development, but they really need to do it for the right reasons.”
“Find what's right for you in your career and your interests and your passion, and go after it. Don't procrastinate. Don't be a wallflower standing there watching everybody else advance their education. You need to get off your own rear end and find that intrinsic motivation, and it should hopefully be for the right reasons, and that's so that you can lead better—for the people that have to follow your leadership.”
“The hesitant leader is the one that understands the weight that they carry on their shoulders with that level of responsibility where other people are depending on you. The eager leader Is the one that may not be as selfless, who may in fact want career advancement because it's where it's gonna get me my salary, my title, my parking spot out front. So the eager leader may not fully appreciate the weight of a thousand burning suns that'll be on your shoulders when you have other people that are relying on you for their welfare and their happiness and their job security and the culture in which you create where they have to work every day.”
“Nichols combines leadership theory which is the academics with practice which is the art to make for the real world educational experience we teach based on grounded research from our faculty.”
Connect with Tom
Website: http://www.nichols.edu
Email: thomas.stewart@nichols.edu
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-stewart-35957410/
Links
Master of Science in Organizational Leadership at Nichols College: https://www.nichols.edu/degrees/master-of-science-in-organizational-leadership/