Leadership styles and approaches were discussed by a diverse group of panelists at UTPB’s Shepperd Leadership Institute and Career Services Public Leadership Forum Thursday.
About 80 people attended the event in the library event space.
Panelists included state Rep. Brooks Landgraf, R-Odessa, Ector County Judge Dustin Fawcett, Midland Mayor Lori Blong, Christopher Stanley, UTPB associate professor of art and president of the Ector County ISD Board of Trustees, and Chidubem Njoku, UTPB Student Body President.
UTPB Chief of Staff Tatum Hubbard was the moderator.
Monica Tschauner, executive director of the Shepperd Leadership Institute at UTPB, said the mission and purpose of UTPB is student success.
Part of that success is talking about leadership, so they brought several leaders from Odessa and Midland together to offer their words of advice to inspire the students, Tschauner said.
“I think everyone in attendance gained something from it, not just the students, but the focus was the students of UTPB,” she added.
As leaders, there will be people against them and people for them. Hubbard asked if they react or respond when “your red button is pushed.”
Landgraf said it happens all the time when you serve the public.
“I think we all have plenty of examples of doing this. And don’t get me wrong, I think one reason why the question is being asked is because it’s absolutely in our nature as humans to want to respond viscerally when that red button is pushed, but when you are in a position to lead others, and when you are in a position where you want to lead by example, sometimes having that very natural and very human response is the worst thing that you can do,” Landgraf said.
“While there is every temptation in the world to want to respond, even if it’s just to make yourself feel better about the perceived attack or whatever, sometimes it’s kind of like Mayor Blong said, there’s the functional equivalent of just drafting that email and not sending it. It’s been amazing how many times I’ve made a conscious decision while angry to just sleep on it and realize that I either feel better about it the next day, or realize that there’s something that’s a heck of a lot more important that deserves my time and attention than some sort of personal attack,” Landgraf added.
Hubbard asked about communication in a time when the volume seems to be turned way up. She was referencing a news conference held last Friday where Fawcett and Ector County Sheriff Mike Griffis called for civility at the polls.
The call for civility was partly due to local GOP political tensions during the March primary where two candidates accused the other of assault during early voting at the County Annex.
Neither candidate faced charges as the cases were rejected for insufficient evidence. An Odessa Police Department report details officers were dispatched to a disturbance at the annex on Feb. 22.
“We called a press conference then. Rep. Landgraf joined us at that time. I was on the way back from a conference at (Texas) A&M and I hit a dead space, and so all I was left with was my thoughts for about an hour, and I was fired up. I called him on fire, saying we’re not going to allow this in Ector County. We already have voting apathy. We already see a low voter turnout. We’ve already seen that these elections have gotten too spicy, for lack of a better term, and we’re not focusing on the issues,” Fawcett said.
“We have real issues. We … have water issues; we have road issues; we have mortality rate issues; we have educational issues. Seventy-one percent (71%) of Ector County adults don’t read above a sixth-grade reading level; massive issue, but you’re going to fight because someone called you a member of the other party …,” he added.
On Oct. 18, they felt it necessary to have a news conference “to communicate with the public and bring it back home, because it’s easy to get lost in social media,” Fawcett said.
“We’re flooded with information … and then you throw all of us in a line for 45 minutes outside and and we act silly. And so we wanted to make sure we brought it back to Earth. Hey, we’re all in this together, even if you don’t want that other (candidate) … to win … understand they’re putting their name on the ballot to run for office,” Fawcett said.
Landgraf talked about teamwork and whether he felt the legislature was a team.
He said there are 150 state representatives in Texas. They all serve and represent 200,000 of their fellow Texans. He serves four counties — Ector, Winkler, Ward and Loving.
“Then we all go down and are kind of thrown together in a room in the Capitol every other year to try to save the state’s problems. In some cases, depending on what the issue is, we do form a very unified team. But in other cases, we’re forming other teams to try to thwart one of the other teams that’s formed in that process. That’s by design. It’s supposed to work that way. It’s messy. Some people describe us as 150 feral cats who are just kind of thrown together and we cross our fingers and hope for the best,” Landgraf said.
But he said the larger issue with team building is making sure that you value every team member and recognize their unique contributions based on the reality that they’re bringing to the situation.
Njoku, UTPB Student Body President, said he tries to focus on understanding the perspective of every individual on the student government association.
He cited the importance of communicating whether by email or text to let people know what’s going on with you so “you don’t have assumptions.”
