Dr. Ted Baartmans‘ Seminar

Slovakian students are tomorrow’s global leaders:
“How do we enable them to make that difference?”

In this highly interactive dialogue, I want to inspire teachers and officers to provide students to step into the light of their individual leadership and take Slovakia, Europe and the Globe to its next level.

Based on international scientific research as well as years of experience in working with global leaders shows: everyone can make a difference. The future is the hands of the next generations and we have to enable them to guide Slovakia’s future. Within the courses we offer at our universities, they have to find the answers in the fore most important question in their career: Why should anyone be led by you? What responsibilities do you take? What does it take to make that happen?

Leadership is based on personal styles and strengths. You have to get known to yourself first. Authenticity is essential: leading in a way that is natural for you. For students it doesn’t mean to be someone else, but learning from somebody else. We have to educate them in three critical elements of authentic leadership: (1) display a consistency between words and deed, (2) communicate a consistent underlying thread and (3) find comfort with self.

Young people from all over the world lead themselves through a career, in which the quick changes of the global information network seem to be reflected in their job behaviour. They stay with the same job for a short period to learn, and then they leave. The more thorough their self-awareness, the more they will know about their motivations, the expectations of others, and their ways of relating; a flexible person in adjusting new situations. “Self leadership is the basis of all leadership”.

Leaders in a changing world need to take stock of their personal attributes that embrace or resist change. It makes us more effective in working with others. It gives us insights into how our behaviour affects us positively or negatively. It affords us a better understanding of ourselves as a stimulus for influencing others.