Leadership key to character communities, Stouffville meeting hears

Yorkregion.com
June 10, 2016
By Ali Raza

Get out of your comfort zone, because whether you succeed or fail, you’ll have grown in the end.

That’s the message given at a breakfast lecture at the Community Safety Village at Bruce’s Mill on Friday organized by the Character Community Foundation of York Region.

The event featured guest speaker Dr. Gerard Seijts, professor of organizational behavior at the IVEY School of Business. Seijts delivered the lecture while promoting Developing Leadership Character, a book he co-authored with fellow IVEY professors Mary Crossan and Jeffrey Gandz.

“In the book, you see a number of words, I call them character elements,” Seijts said during his lecture. “They’re important because if I asked someone for a definition of these elements, I’d get 40 different answers. We look at examples of behaviours that are illustrative of those character dimensions.”

Seijts looked at the character traits that enhance and develop leadership skills. The specific character elements Seijts analyzed were courage, transcendence, drive, collaboration, humanity, humility, integrity, temperance, justice, accountability and judgement.

The presentation was meant to aid Character Community in their own initiatives led by people from across York Region.

York Regional Police deputy chief André Crawford  opened the lecture with a video detailing the Character Community’s work.

“Character community is one where members of the community work together to nurture positive character attributes,” Crawford said. “It requires a shift in thinking and a focus on attitudes in behavior that leads to achievement and success.”

One program featured in the video was the 2016 Slap Shot Hockey program where students from newcomer and low-income families are encouraged to play hockey. Equipment like jerseys and sticks are offered to students through outside sponsorships.

Feedback from teachers, parents and police on the hockey program has been positive, as evident by comments on Character Community’s website.

Board director Megan Thomas was the MC of the event and thanked Seijts for his presentation.

Character Community is a group of volunteers and leaders from the community, government, education and business sectors that engage individuals and organizations to develop leadership and character skills.