ALEF - Leadership Conference

I belong to an organization called ALEF (Appalachian Leadership Education Foundation), and I attended an event hosted by ALEF at Concord University. The event had speakers ranging from high ranking air force generals to employees with some pretty impressive job titles at some pretty impressive companies. They came to discuss leadership, our state, our country, and where we (the United States) are headed in the future.

One of the presenters gave some extremely good advice for being involved in leadership in a work environment. While discussing business relationships, he told us that "People quit people before people quit jobs." One thing that more than one presenter really stressed was the importance of trust, honesty, integrity, and good character.

One of the other presenters gave us some very insightful information about defense and how our country and other countries operate. He couldn't, of course, divulge any information that civilians and people outside of the government are allowed to know, but what he did present was very interesting.

This was a very important lecture to attend, and I took away a lot of great lessons from it. It is very important to learn from people who have lived longer than ourselves, and to listen to the advice, stories, and mistakes of successful people. It can be an integral part of success in life, to avoid situations and gravitate towards others, based on advice from people older than ourselves, without making the same mistakes yourself.



[Above] Picture of our group with four star general, Robert Foglesong. [Below] Notes from the presentations.