What qualities do you expect to see in a highly effective leader?
Mostly I know a lot of different styles that are effective leaders. So to say that there were three common characteristics, I’m not sure. To be an effective leader you have to have a vision, you have to know where you are going…As well as being a visionary, you have to be able to effectively get things done…My style, maybe because I come from the volunteer sector, is much more to work with others and empower others and facilitate because I have a very good idea of how I want to achieve the objective, but usually just one person’s idea isn’t going to mean you actually achieve success, that you’ve got to somehow pull together a group of people and come up with a common understand of what the objective is and how you are going to achieve it because there are lots of different ways…And you need to empower people; you have got to pull people together. Somebody said, “Well why is it she’s here because she wants to do such and such?” I said as long as she has plotted to where we are going and how we are going to get there, the main reason to me what a reason is or what his reason is or what their reasons are, what we are trying to do is find a common ground that we all want to work toward, be our paths or several paths in which to get there.-Dudley Grove (1min.7sec.)
Dudley Grove
Community Volunteer
LSL Class of 1978-79
Dudley Roulhac Grove has been a community volunteer for over 50 years. She always balances board leadership with at least one “hands-one” volunteer job. She has been President of the Junior League of St. Louis, and chaired the Community in Partnership Family Center, the Friends of University of Missouri-St. Louis, KidsPlace St. Louis and the Women of Achievement.
Currently, she is on the board of the Harris Ecology Center, President of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church Woman’s Guild and organizes “Book Buffets” in some St. Louis Public Schools.
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