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NWA Looks to Future with Leadership Conference

Some of the area’s most successful people were at the John Q. Hammons Center in Rogers Thursday (March 28) for the first ever Tomorrow’s Leaders of ...

Some of the area's most successful people were at the John Q. Hammons Center in Rogers Thursday (March 28) for the first ever Tomorrow's Leaders of Northwest Arkansas Conference.

”This is an annual event,” said Steve Clark, Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, president and CEO. “We’ve already got the date scheduled for next year. We are working on a speaker for next year. We really believe that in Northwest Arkansas, the more leaders we can train and develop, the more successful we will be and continue to be. Leadership is a skill-set that you really do teach. There are a lot of natural born leaders, but that natural born leadership skill still can still be made better by learning how to use/understand relationships, how to understand communication, so that’s what this is about.”

Representatives from Walmart, Tyson and other prominent local companies were at the event offering pointers on how to be a successful leader.

"From this conference we want them to take away that there is a constant source for them to come to annually to find some refreshing skills, maybe some tidbits that might help them, especially from our keynote speaker, Captain Abrashoff, a road map if you will, of how to turn their ship around if it's not selling as properly as it should," said Patti Kimbrough with the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce.

Speaker and Human Performance Expert, Andy Core, said for leadership today, the biggest problem, is not the inspiration to want to do great things, it's the strategy.

"It's having the sustained drive, the energy, the mental, physical and emotional energy to work really hard to stay focused, to stay persuasive,” Core said. “I gave them ideas on how to better structure their day so they can bring a better version of themselves to their leadership opportunities."

Core said fatigue can undercut someone's ability to succeed.

"If you're tired, you just don't want to do what you know you should,” Core said. “I think it applies in sales and leadership and being a mom or a dad or a grandmother. I really focus a lot on things like sleep that can make an immediate difference in someone's quality of life and their interactions with the people they love."

Event officials said over 400 people registered for the conference and that it sold out days in advance.

Next year's leadership conference is already in the works, it will be held at the John Q. Hammons Center on March 27, 2014.

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