The Minimum and Maximum Growth of Institute Students

Current Lockheed Martin Leadership Institute member Chloe Gessner talks about her experience with the institute and how it has impacted her and her career.

Guess what? For those of you listening, you are the lucky ones. And, why do you ask? Why am I lucky? Is it because you’re no longer struggling with your career path or struggling to grow up in a changing world? Or is it because you’re a Gen X or a Boomer and not the dreaded Millennial? Is it because you actually got… *pause*... Is it because you had a cinnamon roll for breakfast? NO! It is because you, somewhere in your life, became passionate enough about your career to not only devote time to listening to a TED talk about the Lockheed Martin Leadership Institute, but to generally care about the next generation of STEM professionals. Somewhere along the line, you managed to not fall into the trap that so many adults fall into. That trap, is not finding their passion. It is having a career they hate. No, not even a career, a job, just a job. Just a daily event that sucks 8 hours of the day into nothingness.

I’m going to tell you the world’s worst kept secret: the best leaders aren’t the richest, they’re not loudest, they’re not most charismatic, they’re not most talented or even not the most intelligent. They’re the most passionate. I’m sure in your long careers, you’ve worked for someone that, while they oozed authority, they well also oozed, apathy. Take about 5 seconds and remember what it felt like to work with them. Now, take another 5 seconds and think of what it was like to work for someone who was truly passionate. Who loved whatever they did, and umm even if you hated it, their attitude made you like it too. Or their mannerisms made you respect them enough that you, that you still did your best, even if you didn’t necessarily like or agree with the project.

These skills are can be taught. Think about your typical college freshman. Slightly self-centered, easily distracted, and fundamentally wanting to try everything at once. Without training, some of them will find their passion. Some of them will become Emotionally Intelligent enough to figure out their path. Most others will spit ball and hope. So why does that matter? These students are the next generation of CEO’s, Engineers, Managers, project leaders. And soon, their leadership styles will actually start to matter. This is the where the Lockheed Martin Leadership Institute comes in.

So what is this institute that promises to promote transformational leadership? How can you teach leadership? In a nutshell, it is 3 years, 6 semesters and 12 credit hours, broken down roughly into Personal Leadership, People Leadership and Strategic leadership. Each class is broken down into a cohort of 18 to 25 people. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

But, this is more than your typical leadership retreat or quick semester long class. We do not define terms and study the great leaders. Instead, the focus is on you. Yourself. Your strengths. Your weaknesses. Your communication styles. And then it moves and it changes to the focus on being on the people around you. Umm, your impact on them. Their impact on you. Reaching a common goal. Operating as a team. Developing a shared vision. And finally, the focus shifts again and lands on the world around you. Cultural intelligence. Risk mitigation and calculation. Strategy. Investing. How you can make your way in the long term.

The outline of the program follows the Hierarchy of needs. It is focused on bringing your awareness from the bottom of the pyramid, yourself your grades etc, to the top which is empathy and globally minded focus. Another way to phrase this is the shift from extrinsic to intrinsic motivations, and the ability to balance the two. The goal of this program, after all is Transformational leadership.

In the basest definition this transformation is turning a self-centered college student into a highly functioning adult prepared to operate in industry. In the fullest sense, it is about creating a group of globally minded and self-aware individuals who are ready to impact their desired fields to the best of their abilities.

Let’s take two students. Betty, and Jane. Betty joined in the hope that it will look good on her resume and she needed a credit hour boost and that her parents told her to. Jane joined because she genuinely wants to eventually be a manager and to do great things in her field. These original motivations will influence their work ethics throughout their 3 years. Both will walk out of the institute with a set plan for their future. For example, our cohort we started a process with Vision Boards and the leadership development plan, where we outlined our passions, goals, and dreams in both a personal and professional light and work to fully understand where in the world you are drawn to. This year as seniors we completed the True North workshops, where we refined our original passion in the context of their first jobs and based on how they’ve changed in our three years. Both girls will also learn how to operate in an industry like setting and in ambiguous situations. From day one, we are bombarded with assignments due randomly, no grades, and a lot of group projects designed to have different types of people work together. Junior year you work starting on your own company, such as listen4insite, which is a podcasting website focused on creativity and innovation. It is also living proof that a group of 18 people with no previous web design, development or audio experience can teach themselves, umm, how to create a professional LLC website. Even if a student gets nothing else out of the organization beyond these aspects, they will still be better off than they were.

For those who go through the full transformation, like Jane will, it is very internal, instead of external. There are a lot of aspects to the Leadership Institute where you get the sense that years down the road, it will help. In my experience, I left for a co-op during one of the most intense semesters. When I came back, it was like everything shifted to the left a few inches. Nothing apparent, but you could still feel that there was a difference. Somehow, in the time that I had left, everyone had matured, grown up and suddenly had both feet on the ground. We were collectively are so far from the freshman who started and joined because their parents told them to. Jane will leave the institute passionate and Mature. Betty, who had no desire to fully transform, will still leave the program with invaluable skills and a better understanding of herself and the world around her.

To be perfectly honest, I will tell you that this program is like pulling teeth. The vast majority of engineering students that I know do not like dealing with the touchy feely stuff. But the vast majority of students are also floating aimlessly hoping that their lives will work out the way that they want them too. Lockheed forces you to stop floating and start planning. Finding your passion becomes an assignment. Not some abstract slogan that the university puts on the wall.

So why is the Lockheed Martin Leadership Institute important? Well, I want you to decide for yourself. Because yet again, I could preach to you the merits. Or you could come to your own conclusions. And when you do, think on which method is more meaningful in the end. Thank you.

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