Lloyd DeVaux, President and CEO at Sunstate Bank, believes firmly that people aren’t born leaders. Rather, leadership must be developed — and development is a continual process, he says. So, it’s no surprise that Lloyd himself participated in The Senior Executive Leaders Program at The Center for Leadership at FIU.
As a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Owner/President Management (OPM) program, a three-year program, Lloyd was looking for local leadership development opportunities not only to increase his own abilities but also to be used for developing the leaders in his organization.
“The Center’s Senior Executive Leaders Program was very well done,” he says with enthusiasm. “The program was diverse in terms of topics and the faculty members are excellent at staying on point, something that’s valuable in an intense program.”
Lloyd reports, “I brushed up on some important leadership skills that we tend to forget as time goes by – such as listening well – and learned valuable new insight in the leadership field, important information about what works and what doesn’t.”
Having leadership development be research-based is important to Lloyd. “Plus, I was impressed that the faculty at The Center knows so well how to put research into practical terms that leaders can use right away,” he adds.
Lloyd is pleased he discovered the Center for Leadership and will be sending a team leader at Sunstate Bank to The Women Leaders Program at the Center for Leadership in 2017.
“Leadership development is essential, I always tell my team,” he says. “Regardless of how skilled you are at doing something, if you can effectively lead 10 people to perform that activity, you will be many times more productive”.