Get to know Mike Klassen, ILead’s Leadership Programming Consultant!
What are you doing at ILead?
I am developing new co-curricular (outside of the classroom) programs, and playing an integrative role connecting the academic, research and co-curricular elements of ILead’s work. This year, that means having fun designing and facilitating experiences for The Game which we launched in September, and is picking up steam this week. I am also supporting the design of a Community of Practice for companies who have a keen interest in engineering leadership, as well as doing some in-depth interviews with other engineering schools globally who have stand-out leadership programs to learn from.
W
hat is your coolest leadership experience since graduating as a student?
From 2011-2013 I was a Venture Leader for Engineers Without Borders (EWB) in Ghana, leading a team of my peers to influence the way aid organizations designed and delivered agriculture projects. A big scope, with a tiny budget, but amazing people, in a foreign context. In that role I took the biggest risk of my professional career, the strategic decision to shift our team’s work across the continent, from Ghana in West Africa to Uganda and Kenya in East Africa. I was directly supporting a team of 5-7 volunteer consultants who had taken a major leap of faith to come and volunteer for 1-2 years with EWB, and they were being asked to lead organizational change in large ($1-30 million budget) aid programs. I learned an immense amount about the challenge of providing good management support, and how long it really takes for large-scale systemic change to actually take root.
Why does leadership matter to you?
Two reasons stand out. The first is contextual: our increasingly complex world is facing new and previously unseen challenges that require us to think, act and of course, lead differently. The second reason leadership matters is that we are being systemically undermined by our educational system (at all levels), which trains us to be passive learners and recipients of knowledge. People have incredible unrealized potential, and at the end of the day we are only going to succeed in co-creating a more resilient world if we reignite in ourselves a sense of our own of possibility (and leadership).
What is one thing you would take with you on a desert island?
A library. I love to read, and would want to keep the mind active without anyone to talk to (assuming I’m alone)!
Mike was recently interviewed for a podcast hosted by Mark Franklin. Find out more about Mike’s career path and leadership journey by listening to the podcast.
You can reach Mike at mike.klassen@utoronto.ca.