Students focus on leadership strengths at conference

Kimie Bates and Patrick Caldwell, sophomores majoring in organizational leadership and supervision (OLS), attended the Hatton W. Sumners Student Leadership Conference in February.

Hosted by the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, the conference is the destination for four Purdue students every year. Two are OLS majors and two are communications majors. The OLS students are selected by faculty members.

"It was not only to hear from distinguished leaders but also to find out about yourself and your strengths," Bates said. They each took a strengths-based test, which identified the leadership strengths they can bring to a team or project. While neither had taken the test before, it reinforced their own ideas about their strengths.

Both agreed that the conference helped them understand how to utilize their strengths in relationship with others. "I have an internship with the Indiana Golf Foundation this summer," Caldwell said. "My identified strengths – responsibility, honesty, consistency and achiever -- will be useful." Bates knows that her strengths in relationships will benefit her in her second consecutive summer internship with Cummins Inc. She’ll work with the recruitment and leadership development teams. Other topics they discussed in-depth included ethics and integrity, leadership across generations, and how leaders acquire and use power.

They will also get to share their experiences with the Organizational Leadership and Supervision Industrial Advisory Board in April. Bates, from Terre Haute, Ind., works on campus as a secretary in Armstrong Hall, serves on the OLS student advisory board, and drag races in her free time. Caldwell, from Liberty, Ind., is the social committee head for Purdue’s HORIZONS Student Support Program, serves on the OLS student advisory board, and is a student manager for the men’s basketball team.