Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 8, 1992 TAG: 9203060124
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-6 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
Bonnie Moreno and Revonda Breeding of Christiansburg wanted to improve their skills.
John Sankey of Blacksburg thought it would help him meet people and get to know the New River Valley better.
Although people's reasons for signing up were varied, a leadership training seminar offered by chambers of commerce in the valley received good marks from participants.
The course, which ended in November, left some who took part craving more. Perhaps, they said, the next step should be a follow-up program aimed at developing specialized leadership skills or showing people how to get involved in their communities as volunteer leaders.
Chambers of commerce across the country offer leadership courses, said Edwin Luther III, president of the Virginia State Chamber of Commerce. Chambers in roughly a dozen Virginia communities offer such training.
Courses in leadership have been around for a long time but they really began to blossom in the late '70s and early '80s, said Paul Baker, executive vice president of the Virginia Association of Chambers of Commerce Executives.
Baker attributes the growing interest in such programs partly to a need to fill a community leadership void that developed during the "Me Decade" of the 1970s.
"We're seeing a trend of people becoming more community-oriented than they have been in the recent past," he said.
Participants in local programs tend to be emerging leaders rather than established ones, and the setting is generally similar to that of a classroom.
Programs can stress development of leadership skills or the major issues facing a community. But skill development tends to be their main thrust, Baker said.
Leaders can be made, but they have to be born with a certain personality that makes them want to lead, said Baker, who helped develop student leaders at Virginia Commonwealth University before coming to work for the state chamber. People who are community-oriented make better leaders than those who are self-oriented, he said.
The New River Valley program last year ran weekly from Nov. 11 through a graduation banquet on Nov. 20. Twenty-eight people were enrolled. They either paid their own way or their employers paid their $150 tuition.
The New River program's emphasis was on discussing local issues and solving local problems.
The chambers assumed that participants already possessed the leadership skills they needed, said Sandra Stanwitz, acting executive for the Greater Blacksburg Chamber of Commerce. The program's goal, she said, was for participants to discuss and help solve the valley's problems.
The program also provided up-and-coming leaders a chance to meet and talk with those already in leadership roles. Participants said this was one of the course's important benefits.
In the future, Stanwitz said, she would like to see the training more intense and the participants more closely involved with community organizations in problem-solving. The chambers have considered requiring each participant to join a volunteer organization in the community after graduation as some other leadership programs do.
Although minority issues are always discussed, Stanwitz said, there was little minority representation in last year's leadership class. She suggested a scholarship program might help minority attendance.
Stanwitz characterized last year's session as the most successful of the half-dozen the chambers have sponsored so far. The reason, she said, was that alumni of previous sessions were the people who planned it.
Participants generally were complimentary of the program.
Sankey, president of the Warm Hearth Village retirement community near Blacksburg, said he signed up to learn the area and its leaders. Sankey moved to the valley in February from Richmond.
The fact that classes were held at several sites around the valley helped him learn his way around, Sankey said.
"I met a number of people I've had business dealings with since, and it's good to know them on a first-name basis," he said.
Moreno, an artist who operates a small jewelry manufacturing business, MBDesign, in Christiansburg, said she got to know relatively well 10 people who took the course. Participants were divided into three working groups who looked at resource conservation, the economy and the court systems in the valley.
Moreno thinks the $150 price tag was worth it and calls the course an "eye opener." It gave her a lot of food for thought, she said.
She signed up for the program because there have been times when she needed better leadership skills, Moreno said. For instance, she has worked with volunteers and was interested in how to assign them without burning them out.
Talented, insightful and thoughtful people took part in the leadership class and that talent shouldn't be wasted, Moreno said.
Breeding, clerk of the Montgomery County School Board, said she learned things she hadn't known about the area. But she had thought the course would focus more on leadership skills and suggested that planners of future courses might want to do that.
While the New River Valley chambers are planning for next year's leadership program, the state chamber is developing plans for a statewide program that would be aimed more at established community leaders with the idea of getting them more involved in statewide issues.
The more state government is pressed to provide services, the more it's going to be dependent on the private sector for volunteer leadership, Baker said. The state chamber wants to put together a network of leadership, he said.
"We are looking to people to make an impact on the development of public policy."
by CNB