Related Site
Other Speakers and Events
Guest speakers and Center events provide interactive opportunities for students to explore leadership from multiple viewpoints. The Center brings leadership experts and practitioners from all walks of life to discuss issues that managers at any level should consider as they develop leadership capabilities throughout their careers.
Events sponsored by the Corporate Governance Research Program can be found here.
Past Events and Speakers
- Leadership Challenges: Managing Difficult Conversations" with Professor Charles O'Reilly, June 2007
Leaders are often defined by how well they inspire others to follow them, which means many leadership challenges boil down to having difficult conversations. Using short video clips of real leaders describing difficult challenges they have confronted, this interactive session focused on increasing skills and awareness to help participants decide on their own style and approach to these leadership challenges. This sold out program was the kick-off event for the Center’s Leadership In Focus video case initiative. Co-sponsored by Lifelong Learning and the Center for Leadership Development and Research.
- Finding Your True North: Bill George & Peter Sims, April 2007
How can you become an authentic leader? Are there definitive characteristics or personality traits for leaders in the 21st century? The Center for Leadership Development & Research and the Stanford Center on Ethics hosted authors Professor Bill George and Peter Sims, GSB MBA ’05. Bill and Peter recently co-authored True North: Discovering Your Authentic Leadership. The authors interviewed 125 of today’s leaders from a variety of sectors to discover what makes someone an authentic leader. They had some surprising results from their research to share, and tips to begin one's own leadership development plan. Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic, teaches at Harvard and sits on boards for Goldman Sachs, Novartis, and ExxonMobil.
- Finding Your Corporate Voice: A WIM Event, January 2007
Being “heard” in male-dominated situations, such as Corporate America is still a big issue for women and contributes to the fact that women are still underrepresented in positions of power. This workshop addressed a wide range of challenges, including being uncomfortable speaking in large groups, learning why women's ideas may not being taken as seriously as men’s, finding it difficult to defend opinions and recognizing the need to support other women in their communication skills. In this interactive workshop, students learned specific strategies on how to increase communication effectiveness. Co-sponsored with the WIM Club.
- From Prominence to Prison: A Personal Study in White Collar Crime,
January 2007
How are smart and educated leaders capable of making poor ethical decisions? How do you insulate yourself from the ethical slippery slope? After spending four years in prison Patrick Kuhse talks openly about his experience with white-collar crime. In this session, Patrick shared his story and the details of how seemingly unimportant decisions changed his life forever. - True to Yourself: A Discussion with Mark Albion, November 2006
The Center and the student-led Social Venture Club, sponsored Mark Albion, co-founder of Net Impact, to speak on values-based leadership during an insightful, lunch hour presentation. Albion discussed his second book in the Social Venture Network series, True to Yourself: Leading a Values Based Business, and provided students with practical tips and encouragement to hold onto their values as they take their next steps in business. -
Leading Creative Talent: Robert Kapilow and the St. Lawrence String
Quartet, October 2006
Leaders like great musicians create, inspire and direct. Students and staff spent an entertaining hour with the internationally renowned conductor, Rob Kapilow, and the St. Lawrence String Quartet. The interactive program explored leadership and the importance of listening while leading and working in teams. Read more about the event in the Stanford Business Magazine.
Ongoing Events
- Personal Side of Leadership Dinner Series
Leadership involves making difficult decisions, not only in your work, but in the rest of your life as well. It involves difficult decisions about how and what you want to lead, and how to integrate your professional aspirations with other aspirations in your life. This small-group dinner series provides students with valuable opportunities to learn how interesting alumni and friends of the GSB community have made important leadership decisions in their lives—decisions which have ultimately propelled them along unique and fulfilling paths. Students explore these issues in intimate small-group settings to ensure rich, relevant dialogue with each leader.
- Living Case Study: Exploring Leadership Real Time
The CLDR hosts living case studies with local leaders at their company sites. Similar to a typical case study, students are given background information on a problem the company confronted, and students may have to make recommendations using partial or incomplete data. But unique to this forum, the leader engages students on his/her perspectives at the time of the issue and discusses how the company navigated through the problem. Students also have the opportunity to explore how leadership style and decision-making can affect the outcome and the company. These events provide students with a glimpse into real-time decision-making from the CEO's perspectives.
Past speakers included: Chuck Gershman, Bay Microsystems, Celeste Ford, Founder and CEO of Stellar Solutions, and Chris Mottern, former President and CEO of Peet's Coffee and Tea.
Interested in getting involved? Email leadership@gsb.stanford.edu.
To view past events sponsored by the CLDR, please view our Events Archive page.