Community Outreach

The Ukleja Center for Ethical Leadership serves the business and professional communities through three major outreach initiatives: The William Dickson Leader-in-Residence Program, Faculty Follows Program, and ethical leadership training for organizations.

William Dickson Leader-in-Residence Program

Thanks to a generous donation from the Dickson family, the annual William Dickson Leader-in-Residence program was launched in 2007. Through this program, the Ukleja Center invites prominent business executives, government officials, and leaders of nonprofit organizations to spend a week in residence at the University.

Leaders-in-residence engage with CSULB students, faculty, and alumni with the aim of fostering an interdisciplinary leadership community at the University. They interact in a variety of settings, including formal classroom instruction, informal topical discussions with small groups of students and/or faculty, presentations to community leaders, and scheduled or informal meetings with individuals. Through these interactions, members of the University community can test their understanding of ethical leadership concepts, discover how these concepts are used in practice, and learn how to evaluate the relevance of research and theory in relation to the realities of responsible leadership.

The Ukleja Center is delighted to announce its 2009 William Dickson Leader-in-Residence, Richard Strozzi-Heckler, Ph.D. Dr. Strozzi-Heckler will be offering workshops, making classroom presentations, and interacting with faculty and community leaders during his residency on campus from November 16-20, 2009.

Richard Strozzi-Heckler has a Ph.D. in Psychology and a sixth degree black belt in Aikido. He is a nationally known speaker, coach, and consultant on leadership and mastery. He is the President of Strozzi Institute, which offers consulting and coaching services to individuals and companies on five continents. Over the past forty years Dr. Strozzi-Heckler has coached thousands of executives from Fortune 500 companies, NGOs, technology start-ups, nonprofits, the U.S. government and military.

Dr. Strozzi-Heckler was featured on the front page of the October 9, 2000 issue of The Wall Street Journal for the leadership program he designed and implemented for the U.S. Marine Corps. He was named one of the Top 50 Executive Coaches in The Art and Practice of Leadership Coaching, Jossey-Bass, 2004 and Profiles in Coaching, Linkage Publications, 2003. He is also the Honorary President of the Peruvian Coaching Association. He is the co-founder of the Mideast Aikido Project, which brings together Palestinians and Israelis through the practice of Aikido.

From 2002 to 2007 he was an advisor to NATO and the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe General Jim Jones, who is now the National Security Advisor. In addition, he consults with the U.S. Special Operations Command in a Somatic Approach to Counter-Terrorism.

Dr. Strozzi-Heckler is the author of 7 books including the nationally acclaimed The Leadership Dojo, In Search of the Warrior Spirit, and The Anatomy of Change.

LBUSD Principals' Leadership Training Program

The Ukleja Center is partnering with the Long Beach Unified School District to provide ethical leadership training for LBUSD administrative leaders. Funded by a grant from The Boeing Company, a four-part series was created by leaders from the school district, Ukleja Center, and CSULB Department of Education. The committee reviewed prior LBUSD leadership training to create meaningful ethical leadership program content that would add value to the leaders’ knowledge, self-leadership practices, and influence with followers. The training modules consist of theoretical and practical applications that will add meaning to what district leaders are already doing and challenge their assumptions about the role of ethics in their professional lives.

The first module was offered in conjunction with the LeadershipTraQ breakfast featuring Jim Kilts on January 16, 2007. In his role as CEO, Jim Kilts has been credited with turnarounds at Kraft, Nabisco, and Gillette. At the breakfast, Mr. Kilts spoke about the leadership actions that matter most. Forty LBUSD administrators attended the breakfast and a debriefing session held on the CSULB campus. Debriefing discussion topics were designed to deepen administrators’ insight into Kilts’ four-point message about integrity, enthusiasm, action, and understanding. LBUSD leaders shared specific ethical challenges faced within their respective leadership roles and related implications for their work.

The second module focused on ethical leadership challenges within the human resources arena. Dr. Pat Lynch, a consultant and former CSULB professor in this field, shared practical approaches to difficult conversations during a breakfast meeting on May 31, 2007. Eighty LBUSD leaders attended. They also received a copy of Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High for summer reading and to link this module with upcoming sessions. The next two modules (in October and December 2007) will be highly interactive, including role-playing of various real-life ethical scenarios for education leaders.