COLUMBUS, OH--There are leaders making a difference all across Ohio but in order for a community to succeed you must have the tools to help you get there. One organization in Columbus has been around since 1973 and continues to lead the way down a path of service.
Leadership Columbus is a program that gives people of all backgrounds and social status the tools they need to give back and truly make a difference.
- Program in place for over 45 years
- Caters to how adults learn best
- Ten month program
The core values are unique in that they are catered to how adults learn best. Executive Director Laurie Stein Marsh says the program uses "simulations, role plays, and all kinds of things within the community...so that people are really feeling with it is that they're learning about and it's much harder to walk away from something that you felt than from something that you've just cognitively or intellectually learned."
Marsh says this method helps to bring out traits that may not have been what made the best leaders in the past but in today's society, there are three qualities that she says make the most effective and influential leaders.
"Humility and vulnerability and empathy. I think that people don't really grasp how powerful that word can be and that sense of really walking in someone else's shoes."
And the power this program has had over the 45 years of it's existence has not only provided training for over 2500 people, for some it has opened a window to an outlet they may not have known existed.
"I really believe that as people come through the Leadership Columbus Program, many of them...what they experience through the program transforms their even mental model of what leadership is. In terms of the passions that get ignited about the community and once they learn the needs that are within the community....they can't shut pandoras box again...because they know what's out there and they know what good they can do by bringing their skills and talents to the table."
The next Leadership Columbus Program begins in September but you can apply beginning the 2nd week of January. The 10 month program costs about $5,000 and there are scholarships available.