Conceiving the Executive Leadership Seminar 2024

Toastmasters is a programme that boldly states this is where leaders are made.  This is a programme to make good on that promise.  Inspirational leadership is a skill that may be acquired.  Leadership itself is an active, continual process of incremental improvement and striving.  Leadership does not merely happen.  It is a culmination of a lot of work and experience.  It is the sum of applied experiential knowledge.  Leadership is the art of providing direction, giving people a vision, and inspiring them to work towards that vision.  The best of leaders develop other leaders, nurture talent, and inspire them.  The best teams are teams of such inspiring leaders.  To that end, our group of Toastmasters organised the Executive Leadership Seminar 2024, on the 21^st June 2024, at One Farrer Hotel’s Grand Ballroom. 

There is no one type of leader, or leadership style.  What we have are broad definitions of leadership, and even then, they have little relation to what actual leadership actually is, since these ideas are theoretical interpretations of reality without nuance.  Every single person is different, with their own historical baggage, own talents, and own prejudices.  Leadership is developed by taking it all down to the common denominator of humanity, and developing something within what each person is.  Leadership begins with values. 

The theme was “Scaling New Heights”.  This is about leadership in a new era, post-pandemic, when we have just exited an unprecedented high-inflationary period, and grappling with the onset of the climate crisis.  The sub-theme of the programme was sustainability, which was addressed, in part, at every panel.  There were four panel sessions, with an overall theme for the session, covering an aspect of leadership we want to cover, congruent with the programme title.  For each session, there was one moderator, with up to four speakers.  Each panel session is sixty minutes.