Dr. James Lang

When we decided to start this journey of telling the stories of great leaders around Pamplin, the natural place to start was with James R. Lang, one of the founding members and the first Director of the Business Leadership Center (BLC).

He worked with Dean Sorenson, Dr. John Shepard and Dr. Bob Madigan to launch the BLC in 1999 and went on to lead as its director for ten years. Their goal: to develop a leadership focused curriculum to share with the university that was not exclusive to any major or college. At the time, there was no structured leadership education available outside of the Corp of Cadets or the major-restricted management department courses. They wanted to make great leadership skills accessible to everyone.

“Our philosophy in founding the Business Leadership Center was that one does not have to have a label on their head that says ‘CEO’ or ‘Captain’ to be a leader. You can lead from anywhere in an organization. It’s a matter of finding the right position for the skill sets that you have, and then taking the opportunity to lead when it comes along.”

He recalled the sense of pride and accomplishment he and the other founders felt when the business leadership minor began to take off. “We were happy to have 40 or 50 majors represented in the business leadership minor at one point,” he said.

To Professor Lang, “leadership means having the ability to fulfill one’s own potential and to enable people within your organization to fulfill their own potential.” He believes that leadership is attainable to anyone who is willing to find the right place for their skill sets to shine, so long as they maintan a sense of integrity and humility.

He had some advice to share with anyone entering into any of the BLC’s programming: “Take it seriously. [This is] not just another collection of courses and it’s not just another thing to put onto your resume…develop those skills so that when you find yourself in a situation where you can step forward and lead, you have a toolkit of leadership skills that were provided by the leadership minor.”

Post written by Mary Callihan, President Pamplin Leadership Development Team