Leading Edge Consortium: Let's Meet in St. Louis

SIOP members, along with other human resource and leadership professionals, will meet Oct. 28-29 at the Westin Hotel in St. Louis to take part in a seminal event that promises to provide an in-depth look at one of the key issues facing organizations and businessestop-level executive leadership.

Call it thinking out of the box or looking at the future.

For the first time, SIOP is hosting a leading edge Consortium designed to focus on a single topic. This event will be quite different than the annual SIOP Conferences held each spring, said Leaetta Hough, SIOP president and general chair of the Consortium, which is entitled Leadership at the Top: The Selection, Globalization and Ethics of Executive Talent.

The Consortium will give participants an opportunity to examine a subject in much greater depth than is possible at the spring conference. Another difference, the organizers say, will be increased opportunities for discussion and interaction with speakers and other attendees.

An impressive list of speakers, including some who are not SIOP members, has been assembled. There will be three keynote presentations and six modules, each concentrating on different leadership aspects, such as selection and ethics. Each module will feature several speakers, who will also take part in a panel discussion following each set of presentations.

Participants will be able to hear and take part in all presentations, which will be given sequentially and not simultaneously.

A special feature of the day and a half program will enable participants to have lunches and dinner according to their interests. Dinner, which will be held at various St. Louis restaurants, will be topically based to enable continued discussions.

The Consortiums practice chair Rob Silzer (the science chair is David Campbell) said the proceedings will appeal to seasoned SIOP members. The Consortium is a response to members who have expressed a desire to have an opportunity to deal with a current topic at an advanced level.

Silzer said the Consortium is also designed to help market I-O psychology. We are making a concerted effort to appeal to other practitioners and HR professionals outside of SIOP in order to help them better understand our skills and expertise and what we can offer their organizations.

Frankly, he added, we need greater visibility among HR and leadership professionals and  this Consortium is an opportunity to further establish our credentials and contributions to organizations.

Silzer urged SIOP members to invite professional colleagues and organizational clients who may be interested in executive leadership issues to attend the Consortium. In addition to hearing leading edge thinking and hot off the press research on executives, the events format will enable participants to feel more engaged and involved in the leadership field.

To register, make hotel reservations and access further Consortium information, simply go to the Fall Consortium Web page at http://www.siop.org/lec/default.aspx.

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