Leadership Clinton’s Class of 2023 focused on how to turn the study of leadership into actionable steps during Modeling the Way Day last week. The day’s activities focused on learning core values of one’s self and the organizations that the class is involved with (including place of employment). The class then explored how these values relate to others around us in the community and world.

The class was afforded the opportunity to listen and interact with local leaders who either live in or are involved with Clinton County. Featured leaders included Kevin Boys, Carrie Zeigler, Natalie Youd, and Dan Buckley.

The class spent the morning focusing on analyzing their core values and getting a better understanding of how their personal values interact with their families, employers, and the community of Clinton County. Class members were given an opportunity to challenge their values and assess how they are being implemented daily. Through these opportunities, the class was able to identify areas that they value but are not focusing as much time on as they would like.

Lunch was provided by Beaugards BBQ; many called it the pre-Thanksgiving dinner!

For the remainder of the day, the class was able to listen to and interact with community leaders. Through these interactions and conversations, the class was challenged to think about what makes a good leader, what skills are necessary to thrive as a leader, and what are examples of the challenges that will be faced along the way.

Kevin Boys, former president of Southern State Community College, was able to convey his experience leading the college through times of plenty and scarcity and how his core values were able to guide him to success even in difficult times. Boys’ parting message was the importance of joy as a core value.

Despite how difficult a day it may be, choosing joy can make the difference in another’s day. We might not be able to pick the challenges we face, but we can choose how we respond to them.

During the panel on women in business, the class heard from Carrie Zeigler, who owns the local State Farm insurance agency, as well Natalie Youd, who owns Strength and Dignity. Both discussed their stories as women entering the business world. This talk focused on how they were able to switch careers from employee to business owner, manage their new responsibilities, and thrive despite some of the difficulties women may face in the workplace.

The class then had an opportunity to discuss class projects and how the Leadership Clinton Class of 2023 can make a difference in the community. Through these conversations it was identified that there are many children in our local schools who do not get to eat dinner at home, in addition to many students who are not able to pay for their lunch at school. Laurel Oaks has identified this as an issue in their school and has acted to start a free grocery for its students. While the program at Laurel Oaks is in its infancy, Leadership Clinton’s Class of 2023 was passionate about being able to pivot its class project to help these students have a meal to go home to.

Lastly, Dan Buckley, former partner with Vorys, Sater, Seymour, and Pease in Cincinnati, discussed values in leadership and challenged the class to identify who they found to be great leaders and the traits that they exhibited. The conversation between the class and Buckley allowed class members to dig deeper into the values they saw in great and bad leaders and how to implement better values into their own leadership.

The day was full of great insight from great people discussing leadership, Clinton County, and how we as a community can make an impact within the global society we share. The class thanks all of those who took time out of their busy days to share and reflect on their experience.