Strength in Leadership Winning through Inspiration By John Szczesniak

Leadership for Tomorrow Today’s workplace offers a wide variety of changes and challenges that can make leadership, decision making, and inspiring others seem like and overwhelming task By having a sound plan in place to deal with challenges and applying the lessons that we learn in our daily routine, we can navigate the environment and operate on a level that sets us apart from the leaders of yesterday, making way for us, the leaders of tomorrow.

Integrity Challenge Purpose Charisma

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6wRkzCW5qI “The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” - Jim Rohn

Leader Interview: Dave Schwei Regional Sales Director Decolav

About Dave Schwei Dave Schwei attended Edgewood College in Madison, WI graduating with a Bachelor's Degree in History. Dave played high school and college baseball. After his career he started out as a General Manager for a small town baseball team. Finding the enjoyment in management and the sales/marketing aspect, Dave joined Kohler Company where he was in sales and account management for nine years before joining up with Decolav in 2011. Dave has one son, Aaron, who is three years old. He and his wife Michelle live in Woodstock GA.

What is your definition of leadership? A leader has a vision, a purpose, and a focus on the way things are going to play out. A leader has the flexibility, adaptability to work with different personalities A leader doesn’t tell people what to do, shows people his/her vision and how things should be and is open to constructive criticism or thoughts

In your opinion, what does a leader do to distinguish themselves from others? A leader inspires someone to do something instead of telling them to do it. Leaders surround themselves with talented people and experts to gain their opinions

Is there a difference between leading and managing? Absolutely, dictating versus inspiring…. Leading is walking down the road with people following. Managing is driving them there, this is what you will do today, this is what you will do tomorrow

What is your personal philosophy in leadership? Trust Integrity Honesty Moral & Ethical Balance Listening Aspire for a common goal, entrench people in the success and failure of reaching the goals.

Concepts of Leadership from Interview TRUST Trust is a cornerstone of establishing your ability to work with others and have them place their faith in you. If you are trusted, people will follow you. If you are able to establish a strong bond of trust, you will be able to lead people through the toughest of challenges

Integrity Having integrity will go a long way in setting the tone for the people you work with. If employees see you exercising perks and advantages of the position, they too will push the envelope. Set the tone that integrity in every situation no matter how small will pay dividends in the long term.

Honesty Honesty is hard, especially when you have to admit to your mistakes. Honesty teaches, honesty earns, honesty pays.

Listening You can learn the most by simply listening. People will know if you are thinking of what you will say next. Practice listening by repeating back what the person is saying to show that you are hearing them and understand what they are saying.

Conclusion of Interview Dave has practiced what he has learned through years of experience. His ability to learn from his leaders good and bad and used his experience to take his leadership to the next level. Dave has a deep understanding of what it takes to be a great leader and emphasizes the need to constantly learn. One of his favorite quotes is “If you aren’t working on getting better, you are getting worse.”

Presented by: John Szczesniak Leadership MSD 103 Dr. Tucker