The reflection paper for ‘Leadership Lessons from the Edge’
This lecture on Oct 23rd was given by Christopher P. Michel, an eminent alumnus of U of I, mainly focusing on leadership lessons he gained from a decade of entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley. Mr. Michel, also had a MBA degree in Harvard, is the founder of Affinity Lab and Military.com. He runs Nautilus Venture currently as well. He shared his experience about how to become a successful entrepreneur and leader in the lecture. The main purpose that the College of Business sponsored this opportunity is to help the students to better understand what leadership is and how it works. The leadership, as one of most important characteristics for businessmen, is essential for the future success of us, the students of college business. Doubtless, the lesson from Mr. Michel, an outstanding entrepreneur, will definitely enhance the growths of our leadership. In the lecture, he introduces his experience to keep his employees passionate through his leadership. He took responsibility to interview his employees and kept in touch with every one of them. As a result, Mr. Michel’s enterprise achieved massive success because the positivity and passion his employees engaged into work. From this part of experience of him, we should have got a sense of what is leadership and how to positively affect your employees by your leadership.
Another purpose of sponsoring this lecture should be expecting business students to learn some life wisdom and experience from the predecessor in business field. From Mr. Michel’s lecture, we learnt about his life in U of I. He not only got knowledge from the college, but also achieved strong social network and accumulated a great deal of experience from other people. Thus it gives us a guidance of how we should spend our college life. What’s more, Mr. Michel rendered his early years in business.