In a Continuing Education seminar, Fred Jacques pairs students with horses to learn that leadership success requires effective communication, gaining trust and being consistent. (Photo by Candice Ward)
For 20 years, the promise of “the ripple effect” has motivated Fred Jacques to focus his teaching career on leadership development. Jacques, who has a master’s degree and a PhD in the field of leadership, is an adjunct associate professor in executive education at the Haskayne School of Business and a popular Continuing Education instructor. “Every time I help one leader be more effective, there is the ripple effect that touches everyone that person deals with,” he says.
How do you define leadership?
Leadership is the ability to clearly define a set of values and sense of purpose and direction for oneself as a leader, and to engage others in striving to achieve their personal goals in alignment with the collective goals of the organization: creating collective success in an intentional, focused and values-based way.
It’s easy to confuse leadership with management. How are they different?
Most organizations need both; many see management as effectively maintaining the quality and continuity of what we are currently doing, and leadership as the quest for constantly refining and improving those goals and how we achieve them. It is really a continuum between the two.
What are the key attributes of a good leader?
From my perspective, a key attribute is self-awareness: who am I, what do I stand for and what do I hope to accomplish and contribute in my role as a leader? In the absence of that reflection and clarity, it is difficult to provide leadership to others.
Why is leadership important for students?
For students, learning about leadership involves learning about themselves and how they want to “show up” in their personal and professional lives.
One of your Continuing Education seminars teams students with horses. Tell us about this unique approach.
The course is called From Horse Sense to People Smarts, and is a collaboration with Nancy Lowery of The Natural Leader. Nancy has both a horsemanship and business background. The seminar is based on the realization that interactions with these gentle, intelligent and powerful four-legged creatures often mirror daily interactions with our fellow two-legged creatures. We structure the course around one-on-one interactions between the student and their assigned horse. Students quickly find that leadership success requires establishing effective communication with the horse, gaining trust, being consistent in their intentions and managing their emotional reactions when things go well—and especially when they don’t. The real value is that this is not a classroom simulation; it is a real interaction with another being, which often leads to profound insights and deep learning.
How important is continuous learning in honing one’s leadership skills?
It is absolutely critical to stay engaged in continuous learning; the leader’s journey is never done. We need to continuously learn about ourselves and how best to keep pace with a complex and changing environment. The only constant need for a leader is the need to constantly learn.
