Dr. Susan Phillips has spent much of her career in leadership positions. Yet standing before a room of Citadel MBA candidates and professors, she was candid in stating that leadership isn’t always about preparedness. “You find yourself thrust into a leadership position,” she said. “Sometimes, there is nothing in your tool kit that can help you prepare for that leadership position.
“Sometimes the only things you have are your own powers of personal persuasion,” she said.
Dr. Phillips, the second speaker in the fall Leadership Forum series presented by The Citadel School of Business Administration and underwritten by South Carolina Bank and Trust, gave students a glimpse into the challenges she has faced as a leader, a role she with which she is all too familiar. She joined The George Washington University School of Business as Dean and Professor of Finance in July 1998. Previously, she was a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from December 1991 through June 1998. Before her Federal Reserve appointment, Dr. Phillips served as Vice President for Finance and University Services and Professor of Finance at the University of Iowa (1987 to 1991).
Over the course of her 30 minute talk, Dr. Phillips highlighted some of the traits that make a good leader. She said leaders must have an edge, an attribute that can be lost if a leader becomes too confident. Leaders must have people to follow them – not everyone, but people who will go with them. “You may find that if you don’t have very good ideas,” she added, “people will stop following you.”
Dr. Phillips also recognized that all leaders will make mistakes, but what people remember is “not the mistake, it is how you pick yourself up and move on.”
While her talk featured examples and anecdotes from the many facets of her career, from the federal government to academia, the consistent theme centered on the difficulties of leadership. “Leadership takes a lot of work,” she said. “If it were easy, it probably wouldn’t be worth doing.”
“Sometimes the only things you have are your own powers of personal persuasion,” she said.
Dr. Phillips, the second speaker in the fall Leadership Forum series presented by The Citadel School of Business Administration and underwritten by South Carolina Bank and Trust, gave students a glimpse into the challenges she has faced as a leader, a role she with which she is all too familiar. She joined The George Washington University School of Business as Dean and Professor of Finance in July 1998. Previously, she was a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from December 1991 through June 1998. Before her Federal Reserve appointment, Dr. Phillips served as Vice President for Finance and University Services and Professor of Finance at the University of Iowa (1987 to 1991).
Over the course of her 30 minute talk, Dr. Phillips highlighted some of the traits that make a good leader. She said leaders must have an edge, an attribute that can be lost if a leader becomes too confident. Leaders must have people to follow them – not everyone, but people who will go with them. “You may find that if you don’t have very good ideas,” she added, “people will stop following you.”
Dr. Phillips also recognized that all leaders will make mistakes, but what people remember is “not the mistake, it is how you pick yourself up and move on.”
While her talk featured examples and anecdotes from the many facets of her career, from the federal government to academia, the consistent theme centered on the difficulties of leadership. “Leadership takes a lot of work,” she said. “If it were easy, it probably wouldn’t be worth doing.”
