Center for Leadership Studies PhD in Organizational Leadership

Leadership training matters because we never arrive when it comes to leadership. We will never be that perfect leader. We have to always be in a position where we're willing to learn. My name is Rowlanda Cawthon, Dean of the College of Business here at Northwest University. I've worked here for almost six years, one year as a dean and five years as a professor. Prior to that, I worked for the Department of Corrections for 11 years.

So my name is Dr. J.P. Smith and I've been with the Northwest University family for the last six months. I am an adjunct professor teaching with the school, the College of Business, and I'm also in the military. I'm an army chaplain and I've been in the military for 27 years. And so pretty much everything I do centers around leadership.

The quintessential advice that I would give a leader who is navigating through difficult times would be to lean into others, seek the advice, support, and help of others. But more importantly, be willing to look inward and assess your own leadership style to make sure that you're leading in a way that the current time needs you to lead. And then, more importantly, be willing to be creative with solutions. And being able to really take a balcony view perspective to be able to look down on the situation, be able to lean in it, tap into others in order to make the change, that transformational change, that needs to occur.

One word of advice I would give leaders is never give up. My grandfather always taught me to never give up. He told me at a young age. He said, son, if you if you get knocked down, you know, while you're down there, do some push ups, maybe even some sit ups. But in all your "getting". Make sure you get back up. Life is not always going to be about things going good. You're going to face some adversity and especially in leadership, you're not always going to have the best team. You're not always going to have the best situation. However, in that adversity, if you just hang in there and continue to move forward, you can make it. Doctoral programs, you know, that's just one way that an individual can expand themselves. You know, always talk about, individuals who can expand their capacity. If a person goes towards a doctoral program, what that individual is saying is I want more opportunities to succeed in life and also to make a difference because it gives you more opportunities when you do that.

Leadership training matters because we never arrive when it comes to leadership. We will never be that perfect leader. We have to always be in a position where we're willing to learn about leadership and how we can improve our leadership capacity. So for me, that is why leadership training matters. That's why it's important to immerse yourself into educational experiences that are going to shift how you think about yourself, even how you think about yourself from the perspective of a leader, because sometimes we think that we know it all when we really don't.

You know, if you're on the fence and you're concerned about whether or not a doctoral program is for you. I can tell you that it is. You know, for me, I remember when I started out, I thought to myself, I'm not the smartest person in the world. Matter of fact, I wasn't even the smartest person in the room. However, I had grit and I had this stick-to-itiveness. I wouldn't give up. And that's really what it takes. It takes this desire and a little bit of discipline. And if you have that, a doctoral program is for you.