Published: May 25, 2007 12:57 pm            

COMMUNITIES: What makes a good leader?

What makes a good leader? That’s a question that Rich Laskowski thinks about a all the time.

His job is to scout the Niagara region to find potential leaders. Once he finds them, he does everything in his power to make them stronger and smarter. Then he sends them back into their communities empowered by new experiences and a network of support. And then, he begins again.

Laskowski is executive director of Leadership Niagara, a 20-year-old organization created in response to a Niagara Gazette study which found a lack of focused leadership in the region. There are more than 650 graduates of the training, and they fill some of the highest positions in all areas of government, business and community service.

The whole point is to find locate leaders and potential leaders and “engage them in a whole new way,” Laskowski said.

Graduates go through a year-long leadership training that includes encountering people and experiences they might not have ever had. They report feeling far more connected to their communities and inspired to reach out to help create positive change.

“It’s amazing the transformation that occurs,” Laskowski said. Classes are held in small and large businesses in the area. The participants meet with area politicians in Albany, hold mock trials in area courtrooms, and even visit the Niagara County jail, where they eat the same lunch as the prisoners.

In short, they are immersed into their communities, and meet face-to-face with the challenges and opportunities that lie within.

“The ultimate leader is a collaborative one,” said Laskowski, and the program is designed to bring potential community leaders together, to help them create and understand the network of support that can lead to success in their businesses and in their neighborhoods, cities and towns.

“The primary function of any leadership program is to recruit, develop, and maintain a network of concerned, informed citizens to promote and guide the future growth of our community,” he said.

Samika Sullivan started her class this year as a community leader, but the experience has opened her eyes to the great promise of this region. Sullivan, once a social worker, is now special projects coordinator at the Niagara Arts and Cultural Center which fills the classrooms and hallways of the former Niagara Falls High School.

Even before her leadership classes, she was intimately involved in working to create change among the children in her community, teaching theater production at the center’s after-school program. Now, she has a greater awareness of what she can teach.

“I had this fantasy about scooping kids up and taking them all over the world to see things, but this (leadership) program has taught me that there’s so many things to learn about and see right here in our own backyard,” she said.

While some Leadership Niagara participants get grants or industry support to pay for their participation, Sullivan is paying for most of the $1,800 tuition on her own, because the experience is so important to her. Now, she also teaches a leadership class in the after-school program, modeled after her own classes, where she shares her more hopeful view of her community.

“The more I learn, the prouder I become,” she said.

William Jakobi offers another example of the way the leadership program expands into the community. Jakobi, who works as a labor union liaison for the United Way in the Niagara region, has been inspired by his leadership training to create a speakers bureau of tradesmen to reach out to young people. The result would be more young people seeking training as plumbers, electricians and other industrial fields.

“I have kids of my own, and I would love to see them stay in this area, and I would love to do whatever I can to make that happen,” Jakobi said.

Jakobi, a varsity football coach at Niagara-Wheatfield High School, said the Leadership Niagara training has “truly given me the opportunity to look at things from a different perspective. I wish more people could get involved.”

It appears that those that do get involved, stay involved. Frank Maietta, an ’01 graduate of Leadership Niagara, is now its board chairman.

“You’d be hard-pressed to find an organization in the Niagara region that doesn’t have one of our graduates on it,” Maietta said.

To list only some of the 650 graduates is to risk leaving out so many other empowered new leaders. It does, however, demonstrate the program’s reach, and a sampling includes: Dan Stapleton, commissioner of health in Niagara County, Mark Laurrie, chief education administrator of Niagara Falls High School, Cary Pogorzelski, superintendent of the Newfane School District, Raeanne Argy-Tyler, president of Niagara Coach Lines, Stephanie Cowart, chief of the Niagara Falls Housing Authority and Richard Peers, plant manager of Covanta Energy.

Rob Albert, board member and graduate, recently hosted a Leadership Niagara class at his Impressive Imprints business in North Tonawanda, where among other tips, he told the current class that he had learned to “be very focused. The more you stay focused in small business, in any business, the more successful you will be.”

Focus is also vital in the business of leadership training, and a visit with Laskowski concentrating on expanding the leadership programs to include more diversity, engage more young people in the Leadership Niagara youth program, and planning a new program for senior citizens.

Laskowski is already scanning the region for his next batch of potential leaders. The hopeful and committed are encouraged to apply.

Contact editor Michele DeLuca at 693-1000, ext. 157.

        

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