Learning to lead through service

From waking up at dawn with the cadets and participating in physical training, to attend conferences with international leaders in the afternoon. This is how the week went for Susana Domingo, a student of the Degrees in Business Administration and Management and Marketing, and Jaime Sanciñena, a student of Economics + Governance. Both were selected to represent the University of Navarra at the McDonald Conference for Leaders of Character (MCLC), held at the West Point Military Academy in March.

Each year, two students from the School of Economics are invited to these conferences, a space created in 2012 with the goal of empowering young emerging leaders and fostering their interaction with professionals, favoring the creation of international networks.

Susana and Jaime's profiles were recognized for their commitment, initiative and level of English. She has actively participated in programs such as Sapiens -where students help others in their programs of study to broaden their knowledge, and has been a collaborator in institutional academic and social events. He has developed several social projects in the subjects of his degree program, such as blood donation campaigns and the organization of charitable activities.

For several days, they shared experiences with leaders from different sectors, cadets from the military academy and students from renowned universities such as Oxford, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Harvard, Dartmouth and Duke.

Leadership from shared experiences

Their arrival in the United States was somewhat peculiar. Several hours late on their international flight and after eight hours in the air, Susana and Jaime were met by a black vehicle with tinted windows that took them to the shore of the Hudson River, north of New York. Inside the car, they met eight young people from different nationalities and universities: "There were people from South Africa, Switzerland, the UK.... That first meeting was a good representation of what the rest of our stay there would be like: people from incredible universities, with brilliant backgrounds, but very genuine," says Jaime.

Susana, who was not previously familiar with the program, confesses that she was attracted by the possibility of sharing with students from more than 30 educational institutions around the world: "I wanted to see how universities in so many countries approach leadership in different contexts.

Leadership as service

The conferences were not limited to lectures, but included real and close experiences, spaces of coexistence with the invited students. This experience reinforced a vision that both students share: leadership as service. For Susana, the idea of leadership as a value that goes beyond a hierarchy was cultivated thanks to her programs of study in the double Degree with Marketing. "In the Marketing degree program I had a subject called development staff and leadership with Javier Bringué, and I really liked it. I got into the world of leadership. The subject gave me a perspective that perhaps I didn't have: that a good leader also takes care of his team, has an attitude of service," she says.

Jaime, for his part, has oriented much of his university experience to projects with a real impact on his environment, connecting leadership with one of the values cultivated by the University, service: "They teach us to work in this way, being available to others. Leadership properly understood is the vocation to service."

That vision of leadership as service is precisely the bequest that Bob McDonald and his wife, Diane, sought to sow when they began their participation in the conferences in 2021. A West Point graduate , McDonald not only coordinates this initiative, but also participates and shares with the students. As Susana recalls, "his dream is to sow in our generation the seed of good leadership."

Beyond the classrooms and seminars, the students reflected on leadership through real experiences. In one of them, Jaime recounts, they were taken to the back of the building where the Military Academy orchestra was rehearsing. They sat next to the musicians as they played and watched as the melody changed according to the director's directions. Then a question arose: what would happen if the director stopped conducting? The musicians would probably be able to continue playing. So why is the director important? It was a tangible lesson, built through the music. "We learned about leadership by observing the director . Like instruments, people are guided by someone who, at heart, must do nothing but serve the group," Jaime says.

Susana sums up the experience with a phrase that sums up the spirit of the MCLC:"Leadership is not individual. You are not a good leader if you do not know your team and do not help them, understanding the needs of each one, to rise. Good leaders are those who create leaders.