The Leadership UNK Board of Graduates strives to offer leadership opportunities across campus to our alums and fellow staff members. Below are opportunities we have done in the past. Each year we hope to provide one event, one volunteer opportunity and one brown bag lunch session.
Leadercast is broadcast live from Atlanta to over 100,000 leaders from organizations around the world. Leadercast wants to equip you with the tools and knowledge you need to be the best possible leader to your followers. But before you can lead others well, you must first learn how to lead yourself. Join some of the world’s top leadership experts as they take the stage at Leadercast Live, the largest one-day leadership event held live in Atlanta and broadcast to locations around the globe.
Speakers range from leadership authors to fighter pilots to astronauts. Known for their work in coaching fellow leaders or leading large organizations, speakers will bring a wealth of knowledge to the stage. Take charge of your leadership journey with the practical lessons and tools you’ll learn from these speakers and from the thousands of fellow leaders also attending. How do you lead yourself effectively? How do you develop your core principles and values so that your leadership is an outpouring of your innermost self? And how much more will those who follow you benefit from your leadership when you lead yourself well?
The FISH! Philosophy is a powerful training tool that can help create a culture where people choose to bring their best to the workplace. It began when documentary film maker John Christensen stumbled upon the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle. Selling fish could be a cold, miserable job. Yet, these fishmongers had turned it into something special. The shop was filled with a positive energy. Customers crowded into the store applauded like fans at a rock concert while the workers flung fish. In the midst of all this craziness, the store was selling a lot of fish. Christensen came back with a film crew and spent several days with the fish market guys. When he reviewed his footage, he was able to distill out four simple practices that anyone could use to bring more joy and success to their work. Thus was born the FISH! Philosophy.
These four practices are:
Be There: Be physically and emotionally present for people, especially when they need you.
Play: This is the spirit that fuels creativity and turns work from drudgery to delight.
Make Their Day: Celebrate others. Find ways to let them know how much you value them.
Choose Your Attitude: No matter what life throws at you, you are responsible for how you react to it.
Leadership UNK has purchased a video series entitled FISH! For Leaders. This series includes 6 short videos that illustrate the principles of the FISH! Philosophy and how it can be applied to the workplace. These videos are each approximately 10 minutes in length and are accompanied by supporting materials.
International trainer and author MK Mueller began her professional life as a high school teacher when she hit rock bottom and found herself in a domestic violence shelter. From the depths of despair, she experienced life-changing insights as she discovered that we are not victims because the power to effect change is always within us.
From this bold foundation, she began a support group with five neighbors which quickly grew to hundreds coming to hear her message each week.
Now she trains over 100,000 people each year – from homeless shelter residents to Fortune 500 executives—and is dedicated to the empowerment of our youth, sharing her 8 to Great success curriculum with elementary, middle and high schools.
8 to Great began in 1988 as “The Self-Esteem Education Association,” a non-profit organization dedicated to helping students and adults reach this potential.
In 1994 the name was officially changed to F.R.E.: The Full Responsibility Education Corporation. While it was under this name, MK Mueller published her first book, Taking Care of Me: The Habits of Happiness, and put out her first original music CD, Light-Hearted.
During this time MK would share her powerful message with the homeless at a shelter in Omaha each week she was in town. It was this kind of “giving back” effort that won her the Heartland Hero Award.
By 1998 Taking Care of Me was published in Spanish and French and MK began speaking internationally.
In 2000 MK began working on her second book, 8 to Great: The Powerful Process for Positive Change, which took the concepts from her first book and turned those “ingredients” into a “recipe for success.” The eight high-ways are:
1.) Get the Picture
2.) Risk
3.) Full Responsibility
4.) Feel All Your Feelings
5.) Honest Communication
6.) Forgiveness of the Past
7.) Gratitude for the Present
8.) Hope for the Future
MK tested and published the Middle and High School Curriculum over a 7-year period, training 500 teachers in the process and taking it to over 100 schools in Nebraska and Iowa.
The 8 to Great book was published in 2009 and immediately won two national “Best Self-Help Book of the Year” awards. Over the next three years, MK and her Master Trainers would train over a thousand more trainers who would take the material to schools, businesses, churches and health care organizations.
Today, MK has two original music CD’s, three books and a curriculum that spans from Kindergarten through college. 8 to Great is being taught in 18 states. Their headquarters is in the Kansas City area.
Life can be puzzling. People can be puzzling. But above all, your relationships can be most puzzling. Let's face it: All life is about relationships: personally, professionally, and socially.
Do you wonder why some people are so easy to love, work for, and befriend, while constant effort is required to build and maintain a healthy relationship with others? What part do you play in making the relationships in your life work?
Every relationship begins with YOU. Who are you? Do you really understand why you think and behave as you do? Imagine the power of truly knowing yourself, what motivates you, and how you impact the relationships in your life.
The Color Code is the most revolutionary and ACCURATE measurement of your personality available on the market today. Once you have learned the Color Code you will never see yourself or others the same again! The Color Code is your best bet for understanding how to make sense out of life's relationship puzzles.
In this workshop, you will discover your strengths and learn how to leverage them. We will also discuss the importance of honing your talents instead of trying to fix your deficits. We all have deficits – and that’s okay! – but the key is to manage them while spending time focusing on what we are naturally talented in. This will be the main focus of this 90 minute workshop. We will send out more information and an assessment closer to the workshop date to those that have registered. We hope to see you there!
"Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade?"
-- Benjamin Franklin
“Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day? Chances are, you don't. All too often, our natural talents go untapped. From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more time to fixing our shortcomings than to developing our strengths.”
Source – https://www.gallupstrengthscenter.com/Home/en-US/StrengthsFinder
These resources are housed in the Calvin T. Ryan Library on the UNK campus. Please ask the Reference Desk for assistance.
The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Success By Jim Dethmer and Diana Chapman
The Carpenter: A Story About the Greatest Success Strategies of All By Jon Gordon and Ken Blanchard
Attitude 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know By John Maxwell
Attitude is Everything: 10 Rules for Staying Positive By Vicki Hitzges
Dare To Lead: Brave Work, Tough Conversations, Whole Hearts By Brené Brown
Gallup’s Strengths Finder 2.0 By Tom Rath
Good Leaders Ask Great Questions By John Maxwell, 2 Copies
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don’t By Jim Collins
Leadership 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know By Jon Maxwell
Lessons from the Mouse: A Guide for Applying Disney World’s Secrets of Success By Dennis Snow
Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...and Maybe the World By Admiral William H. McRaven
One Word That Will Change Your Life By Jon Gordon, Dan Britton, and Jimmy Page
Success 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know By Jon Maxwell
Teamwork 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know By Jon Maxwell
Dead Poets Society (1989)
The Emperor’s Club (2002)
Everyone Communicates Few Connections with John C. Maxwell (2010), DVD series
FISH!: Catch the Energy, Release the Potential By Charthouse Learning
Sometimes You WIN, Sometimes you LEARN: Life’s Greatest Lessons Are Gained from Our Losses By John Maxwell (2014), DVD Series
Leadership UNK Board of Graduates will be serving the meal for Habitat for Humanity on Saturday July 23rd, 2022. Please contact Suzette Eppler epplers2@unk.edu if you would like to involved with this event.