Jennings, the former chief executive of KCP&L who is now with the Polsinelli Shughart law firm, cites Jehle in particular when asked about the kind of commitment demonstrated by rising young leaders in the Kansas City region. A graduate of Shawnee Mission East and the University of Kansas, Jehle could have gone a lot of different directions in his career.
In 1998, he chose to live his commitment to civic responsibility by founding the Hope Center near Linwood and Prospect in Kansas City—a part of the city Jennings calls “the core of the urban core.” The faith-based center, with its charter school, health clinic and neighborhood church, provides a refuge for that area’s young residents, who quite literally may have to dodge bullets just to get there.
“Hope Center is aptly named,” said Jennings. “It gives young people in that neighborhood hope that there is a life, there is a future. Chris is a sterling example of the commitment that young people can make, show leadership, follow their passion and their dreams and do something that will have a lasting effect on the city.”
Jennings’ take on young leadership is especially relevant this year: Jeff Johnson, his son-in-law, and Katy Jennings, his daughter-in-law, are among the 2010 roll of 40 Under Forty, perhaps Ingram’s signature annual awards program. A third member, Melissa Novak, is the daughter of a longtime friends, Jennings said.
These leadership apples didn’t fall far from their family trees.
Assessing the Infrastructure
When it comes to developing its next crop of leaders, Jennings said, the Kansas City region is getting it right in many respects. “I think we do a pretty good job of it,” he said of the broad-based if informal local infrastructure for grooming new leaders. Among those are programs with various regional chambers of commerce, university and community college instructional tracks and groups that promote leadership among women and minorities.
“The place I’m not so sure about is how we link them to opportunities,” Jennings said. “We don’t follow through as well as we should. They may spend two years in Centurions, then they’re left on their own. Somebody would say that’s fine, that’s what leaders do is set out on their own to effect change.”
Absent a centralized mechanism, though, it’s largely up to the business community, he said, “to do a better job of slotting them in, giving them responsibilities, making a concerted effort to take people with leadership potential and put them into the fire with roles in business, education, government, and boards of not-for-profits.”
Christine Murray, who oversees the Centurions program for the Greater Kansas City Area Chamber of Commerce, zeroed in on what programs like that, and more, add to civic life in this region.
“I think the value to the community,” she said, “is that when you take a group of individuals and really expose them to issues in the region—education, life sciences, poverty are just a few—it takes people out of their everyday sector and exposes them to what’s really happening.…It takes you behind the headlines and puts you in candid conversations about these issues, and gives them a better understanding of them, something they can take with them and act on.”
Centurions is just one program sponsored by an area chamber, but it is among the more recognized. More than 1,000 people have come through its ranks, including 70 in the current crop. In their two-year commitment, members are exposed to issues confronting the region’s business, civic and social life, learn about resources that can be applied to address those issues, and build support networks that allow them to leverage their own civic participation.
Similar area chamber programs, such as Leadership Overland Park and Leadership Lee’s Summit, incorporate some of that regional perspective, but also steer participants to issues that may have a sharper community focus. That, noted Jennings, was perhaps one area where the talents of such people could be harnessed to apply more intellectual firepower to broader regional challenges.
“They ought to be not only exposed to, but forced to understand, the issues that confront the other sectors in the community,” Jennings said. “It’s a lot more comfortable to live in your silo, where things are familiar and it’s easier to put names and faces together.
“But by golly, the issues facing us— economic, societal, education—they transcend boundaries.”
The way the community is laid out, across multiple city, state and geographic divisions, contributes to the Kansas City region’s longstanding inability to address problems on a regional scale. Some good things stem from that, Jennings said. But some effects aren’t so good.
“The mayor of Kansas City cannot go to the Overland Park City Council and cast a vote; he can’t lobby Leawood or Independence for more money for public works, and that’s the way it should be,” Jennings said. “But the businesses in this town have no such restrictions. Businesses, civic groups, education and non-profits have the freedom, if you will, to take on bigger issues and take on leadership issues.”
The Leadership Network
Wanda Blanchett, dean of the School of Education and the Kauffman chair in teacher education at UMKC, cited the role that the educational sector plays in exposing students to the community’s need for emerging leaders.
“UMKC has leadership programs both in the Department of Education and in the Bloch School of Business, where it’s a component of their executive MBA program,” she said. “Their focus is primarily on business, and ours on leadership in K-12 and higher education settings, but both of these are also grounded in the reality of the community and its broader needs, so they have applicability across a wide range of content areas.”
That programming, she said, benefits the region by “taking individuals that have identifiable leadership potential, then helping them develop the skills that it would take to become effective leaders.”
In addition to classroom instruction in leadership, the region also offers identity programs grounded in diversity. Women’s leadership organizations and programs that target various ethnic groups help round out efforts to bring additional perspectives to the region’s leadership makeup.
Ellen D’Amato represents one of the region’s most influential tools for fostering leadership among women, as president and CEO of the Central Exchange. The group has attracted thousands of women to its leadership development and other programs in 30 years, particularly with its Emerging Leaders track, and helps provide leadership infrastructure by promoting the need for more women in corporate management and the executive suites.
She can quickly rattle off an impressive list of statistics that demonstrate the vital role women play in the workplace, in college classrooms and in decision-making about retail purchases—all, incongruously, while being under-represented at the highest levels in the regional business community. One leadership area where women have flexed their muscle, she said, was with civic affairs, particularly serving on the boards and committees of non-profits.
“I see a lot of women in those kinds of tracks,” D’Amato said. “It’s often easier to succeed there than perhaps within their own organizations.”
But does the region need a more formalized structure for lassoing the talents of leadership-program graduates? Maybe not, she said.
“Kansas City is a pretty small town,” D’Amato said. “You run into a lot of fellow Centurions or Emerging Leaders who are active here” and whose skills can be easily accessed by others seeking to address local challenges.
Go Forth and Rectify
For those aspiring to leadership positions, or perhaps looking to next year’s 40 Under Forty class for resume-burnishing credentials, Jennings offers some counsel: Start at home.
“You have to remember what your priorities are,” he said. “Carry out your own responsibilities before you get grandiose ideas about how to become a community leader. If you’re not going to your kids’ activities, if you’re not cleaning up the trash in your back yard, if you’re not being a good neighbor, how in the world can you expect to become leaders in a broader sense?”
Getting off the sofa and into civic involvement is a commitment, he said. Board service, for example, “is not a way to build your resume. If that’s why you’re doing it, fine and dandy, but it’s not leadership.”
So celebrate the moment, he urges this year’s 40 Under Forty class. Then get ready to roll up the sleeves.
“It’s great to be recognized, but this is no time to rest on your laurels. Every time you are recognized for your leadership, you have just accepted more responsibility to live up to, you’ve got to work even harder. … That’s what leadership is about: Taking on the tough jobs nobody else wants to do.” 