Industry experts gathered to support Ivey’s commitment to developing leaders with strength of character for a panel discussion during the 2024 MBA Leadership Day.
The panel kicked off the annual event hosted by the Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership, offering MBA students an exclusive opportunity to gain insights into the process of becoming a leader.
Panellists included Rashid Wasti, EMBA ’03, Executive Vice President and Chief Talent Officer at the Weston Group of Companies and Chair of Ivey’s EDI Advisory Council; Jeannine Pereira, HBA ’95, Director of Talent Development at EY Canada; and Jon Hantho, MBA ’89, President and CEO of CBI Health Group.
Dusya Vera, PhD ’02, Executive Director of the Ihnatowycz Institute, guided the discussion with an important observation: leadership is a continuous journey.
“We develop as leaders every day, whether we are conscious of it or not,” she said.
The future of work
One topic of discussion was how the evolution of work – one of Ivey’s critical issues – might have an impact on leadership and organizational culture, particularly when striving for inclusivity.
Pereira shared how she discovered and addressed her bias when choosing project partners. She said she realized she was most often selecting in-office employees and forgetting about those working remotely.
“With remote working, we need to look at the entire list and think about the people who aren’t there in-person,” she said.
Though remote work has become prominent since the COVID-19 pandemic, Wasti emphasized the importance of going into the office to build relationships.
“The mentorship you need to receive and the learning by osmosis that you need to do will not happen virtually,” he said. “In-person interaction will remain a critical part of the future of work.”
Find your purpose
As a health-care executive, Hantho added to the conversation by outlining how purpose and organizational values informed his leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. He discussed how having a strong sense of purpose will foster belonging and a greater work ethic.
“Purpose begins with how it connects with people. There needs to be some level of resonance for you between the organization and what it does,” he said. “Only you can make that decision about whether it’s the right fit.”
While acknowledging that purpose-driven leadership is key to personal fulfillment and organizational success, the panellists also stressed that finding purpose is a journey and that your purpose can evolve over time.
“As a student, I didn’t know my purpose right away,” said Pereira. “But you should start to consider what fills your cup, even if it isn’t perfect, and you will discover it along the way.”
Building resilience and learning from failure
Self-awareness is a component of character that is critical for leadership development, a concept that can be underestimated in the business environment. It calls for identifying and addressing your areas of discomfort to create growth, build resilience, and cultivate confidence.
Pereira revealed her personal formula for building resilience, one she calls SELF – an acronym for sleep, exercise, lifestyle, and food. She said this care-based approach involves a tricky process of getting the right amount of each component consistently and finding the right mix.
For Hantho, becoming a resilient leader involves enacting the discipline of choice during a process of trial and error.
“It’s about how you show up every day and the attitude you choose to bring to your environment,” he said. “But it’s also about learning from your mistakes and the challenges you’ve faced.”
Wasti reinforced the importance of introspection when it comes to learning from failure.
“The thing about mistakes is that you don’t know when you’re making them,” he said. “It’s important to work past the disappointment and ask yourself why you thought your decision was a good idea.”
He added that building resilience can happen in multiple ways, but harnessing your inner strength is key.
“There are times that you will have to dig deep and get through whatever you’re dealing with and that’s the final piece of resilience,” he said.
Leadership in an uncertain world
There are never perfect conditions for leadership. Leaders must embrace change, foster innovation, and cultivate a culture of continuous learning in a world that some say is increasingly VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous).
“We live in a world that will always be full of challenges,” said Wasti. “But it will also always be full of opportunity. The world is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, and it always has been, but the characteristics that are embodied by successful leaders have remained the same.”
And Pereira pointed out that dealing with challenges is an important part of the leadership journey and, while difficult, will always pass.
“I used to have difficulty in dealing with failure, but I’ve learned to enjoy the ride,” she said. “There will be bumps in the road but try to take advantage of them and find the positives in each one.”
Ivey's MBA Leadership Day is dedicated to students’ leadership development and included mini-case classes and a fireside chat with entrepreneur and philanthropist Isaac Olowolafe Jr.
