By Mayi Carles

 

From January 27-31, 2009 a diverse group of 24 entrepreneurial business, government and non-profit leaders between the ages of 30 and 45, self-named CALI-dad (a Spanish play on words meaning both quality and giving), gathered at INCAE, Central America’s leading business school, in Alajuela, Costa Rica, for The Challenge of Leadership seminar, their first in the series of four leadership seminars the comprise the Fellowship. 

 

Guided by Aspen Institute senior moderator – Stace Lindsay along with moderators in training Sylvia Gereda and Margarita Herdocia– Fellows explored the attributes of effective leaders and what effective leaders do and don’t do, examined challenges they are facing as leaders, and identified specific aspects of the their leadership to work on over the coming year.

 

Fellows engaged in discussions on leadership prompted by the writings of Lee Kwan Yew, Jean Monnet, Margaret Thatcher, Martin Luther King Jr., Niccolo Machiavelli, Jack Stack, Ricardo Semler, and Ursula LuGuin, among others. 

 

A high note of the experience were a series of team building exercises, which helped Fellows break the ice and begin forming the bonds of trust that were crucial for the group’s cohesiveness throughout the week. 

 

Another highlight of the week was an exercise on leadership with the former President of Honduras, Ricardo Maduro (January 2002 – January 2006). The activity was designed to push Fellows to think creatively about complex and ambiguous problems in unfamiliar scenarios, and to motivate them to reach sensible conclusions with the available facts in a short time span. Moderated by Harry Strachan (CALI moderator and former CALI Council Member), Fellows were given a privileged insight into one of Ricardo Maduro’s most critical points in his public service career. 

 

CALI Fellows are also members of the Aspen Global Leadership Network (AGLN), a network of nearly 900 Fellows from 44 countries, all of whom have taken an Aspen Institute inspired leadership initiative modeled after the Henry crown Fellowship Program and commit to a project that gives back to their community.  

 

The CALI-dad class will meet again in July for the Aspen Seminar, which they will take with other Fellows from the Aspen Global Leadership Network.