NGC Experience: David Phillips

David Phillips had a unique advantage when he enrolled in the Foundation for Effective Leadership program in the Spring of 2021. He already knew NextGen Center founder Brian Alvo. In fact, the two of them studied together at the Fuqua/Coach K Center on Leadership & Ethics (COLE) in the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

Why did you enroll in the program when this was already an area in which you were experienced?

I wanted to refresh who I was as a leader. I asked Brian if the program was for me, because I'm 41 years old, I’m not a CEO nor do I aspire to be one. But I've had leadership roles and have recently started my own consulting firm. And Brian said, yes, this is totally for you. So with that, I jumped in.

So you were already philosophically aligned. You didn't have to be ‘sold’ on the value of leadership training. What was new for you?

I had not interrogated what leadership meant to me in some time. I needed something to guide me in reconsidering those things and to ground myself again.

One thing that struck me right away was the realization that leadership is coaching and coaching is leadership. 

I believe in coaching because I believe fundamentally that people can be better. They can be better in what they can see for themselves. I learned that, tactically, coaching isn’t telling anyone how to do anything. It’s about asking questions. That was completely mind-blowing to me. Brian showed me that most people have the answers within them. And it works.

I don't want to let life pass me by. I don't want to look back and not have been intentional and present to these things. 

The program is fully remote. How was the virtual experience for you?

The session started at 6:30AM for me because I’m west coast and the program is east coast, so that was hard. But I think it went as best as it possibly could, because I would have had to find a local program otherwise. And frankly, I wouldn't have done another program because I trusted Brian. He’s a large part of why I signed up for this.

I think we had a pretty special cohort of people. Everyone was open and vulnerable with one another. I tried deliberately in the first session to just lay it out there, to be vulnerable and because I was one of the oldest people in the cohort. And I wanted to send that signal that it's okay.

How would you describe the benefit of the program to someone who doesn’t already have the vernacular about leadership?

We rarely give ourselves the time or the gift of interrogating what we actually believe and what we want for ourselves—our values and our goals—because life is busy. And maybe we dismiss those things as not as important as what might be here now. 

But for me, if I'm going to live an intentional life and to be present, I need a vision of where I want to go. This program walks you through that process, gives you the tools to do it effectively, and holds you accountable for acting on it. 

I also think that this program integrates coaching in a way that I have come to understand is about having an impact on someone else: be that person your colleague, your employee, your team member, your manager, your significant other, or even your child. And that really shifted how I approach conversations.
Leadership is not a title or management responsibility. Leadership is the way you carry yourself, 24/7. It's a higher standard that you hold for yourself as you show up, professionally and personally. And with that higher standard is a responsibility to help bring about change. You want this world to be better; you want that person to be better; you believe in that person.

Sometimes I wonder if the word ‘leader’ is actually a distraction from something a little more nuanced. And it seems cliche, but everyone is a leader. And I think that's important to realize that, because everyone should investigate their own leadership.

Overall, Brian understands his role as facilitator of that journey. He’s not there to tell you how to be a leader. He’s there to help you bring it out of yourself.