ILead: Grad recently welcomed new co-chairs for the 2016-2017 school year! Meet the new co-chairs here. Let’s celebrate the outgoing co-chairs, Aric Pahnke (Year 4 PhD candidate Chemical Engineering) and Naz Orang (Year 2 PhD candidate Chemical Engineering), with the interview below!
“Leadership is influencing others towards a positive outcome” says Aric. “Leadership is taking initiative and seeing it through” says Naz.
Over the past year, Aric and Naz have been leading ILead: Grad – an organization designed to give graduate students essential skills for life and future careers. This group strives “to empower individuals as leaders in order to improve the graduate student community and beyond”. They host a series of workshops and events throughout the year that teach students new knowledge and skills not addressed in engineering curriculum.
From Perfect Your Pitch: Learn How to Pitch and Sell Your Ideas to Life to Success Stories from PhD Engineers and Scientists: Conversations About Career and Lessons from the Workplace, both Aric and Naz find it difficult to choose their favourite event. Aric enjoyed The Joy of Reading – And Why Reading Matters to Your Success where Doug Reeve (Director, ILead) spoke about why reading is important. Naz enjoyed Authentic Leadership: Dealing with Difficult People and Situations because it opened her eyes to the importance of recognizing emotional triggers when in conflict.
Both Aric and Naz have further explored leadership by taking ILead courses. After hearing David Colcleugh (Faculty Leadership Development Professor, ILead) speak at the Lectures at the Leading Edge Series, Aric took his course Leadership and Leading in Groups and Organizations (APS1501). From this course “I was able to understand the philosophy “everyone a leader”. Leadership is not a position; anyone can have power” say Aric. Recognizing that leadership is rooted in self-awareness, Naz took The Happy Engineer – Positive Psychology for Engineers (APS1026) taught by Robin Sacks (Instructor, ILead). “This course was unexpected. I was surprised by the value of self-reflection. Whether doing a presentation or course work you should always sit back and think what worked and what did not work” says Naz.
Through these experience Aric and Naz have learned that leadership skills are important for engineers. “If engineers developed their leadership capability the world would look completely different” says Aric. “Engineers have the tools to look at problems but need to start from the inside and zoom out. Engineers use their technical skills to zoom into a problem and their leadership skills to zoom out of a problem” says Naz.
Through their tenure at ILead: Grad, Naz and Aric have experienced some powerful learnings. For Naz “things are possible”, while for Aric “people watch you and people react according to how you react. The influence you can have is big.”