He said, she said. This week's guest bloggers are Matt Clayson and Rose Giffen. Matt works as a Promotion Manager with ePrize, serves the Chair of Leadership Next and is active on Detroit Renaissance's "Road to Renaissance" initiative. Rose is the Director of Fund Development for the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity & Inclusion. She also serves as Vice-Chair of Leadership Next. Rose and Matt will be writing about developing strong leadership in SE Michigan and engaging new talent.
Post No. 3
Posted By: Matt Clayson and Rose Giffen
Posted: 3/31/2008
MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON
Rose: In Leadership Next, we're taking a model of connecting people to meaningful engagement through a skills based approach. We seek to connect people to opportunities for community development and engagement based on their skills and passion.
Of course, for us to assist in making these connections, we need to enable our membership to identify their skills and passions, refine those skills and passions and get connected to opportunities that enable them to share and utilize those skills and passions. Skills building seminars, community partnerships, learning communities: all are tools that help us build this model.
Matt: Through empowering young talent to take ownership of their communities, of their jobs and of their future, we want to help create the next generation of leaders. Leaders that recognize and appreciate differences, but strive for consensus and the common good of all in the region, not petty political, geographic or corporate interests. Leadership that unites, not divides. Leadership that presents, accepts and implements long term solutions to systemic problems; and leadership that has the guts to build bridges across communities, races, special interests and generations.
Rose: And we're very fortunate to have the support and infrastructure of the United Way to help us execute this work and connect young talent in a solution-based discussion about financial stability, educational preparedness and basic needs – regional issues that detracted from our collective quality of life for far too long.