As Senior Leadership Development Coach for the Booth School of Business, Celia Paris develops programs, coaches students, and co-teaches courses aimed at helping MBA students identify and strengthen their leadership skills. Over the past two years, Celia launched Booth’s Leadership Development competency model, which helps MBA students develop in the areas of Collaboration, Inclusion, and Influence. Each of these competencies is vital for leading interpersonally, activating the energy of others, and building commitment towards shared goals. Having a competency model in place allowed her team to make more informed, student-centric, and strategic decisions about leadership development courses, programs, and coaching.

During the 2020-21 academic year, she also launched extensive Diversity & Inclusion programming to Booth’s MBA students, which includes sessions on systemic racism, microaggressions, and bias. This Autumn Quarter, she and Chris Collins will co-teach Booth’s Leadership Practicum, aimed at giving MBA students experience developing credibility, coaching others, and communicating a shared vision.

Q: What do you enjoy most about working at UChicago?

I love that UChicago invests in leadership development across the University. There are so many challenges facing societies today--inequality, climate change, racial injustice, polarization--and I think at their best, colleges and universities offer a beacon of hope, by holding space and building communities where we can learn together about the nature of our problems and how we might collectively work toward solving them. I see my field of leadership development as doing this on a smaller scale: holding space for reflection, experiential learning, and collective problem-solving. The Leadership Development Office (LDO) at Booth, where I work, is one of many areas on campus that support or encourage this kind of work.

Q: You recently launched a new leadership development competency model at Booth. Can you share more about this model?

This model was created by our team in the LDO to help us better understand and communicate the areas in which we help our MBA students to grow as leaders. I was so grateful to collaborate on building that model with my creative, thoughtful, and student-oriented colleagues. We also got wonderful support from others across Booth in fielding a survey to capture alumni perspectives on the core leadership competencies students should develop. I honestly don’t know if the model itself will impact the University beyond our MBA students, but I do hope that as educators, we are equipping all UChicago students to be the inclusive, collaborative, and influential leaders that the world so clearly needs.

Q: Why do you think a commitment to developing diversity and inclusion programming for students is important?

Education is far from a cure-all for systemic racism and injustice, but it is one important place to start. The kinds of self-reflection and conversations I see our students engaging in give me hope. They are serious about the challenges, and creative and committed about ways they can contribute to greater inclusion. Moreover, how can you truly succeed as a leader in today’s interconnected, multicultural, global context without being able to act inclusively and engage effectively with diversity? I don’t think you can. Inclusion is core to leadership. I’m glad we’re working to better reflect this in our courses and programming, and to better support our students in becoming genuinely inclusive leaders.

Q: Is there anything else you'd like to share about your UChicago experience?

I love being part of the Hyde Park/Kenwood community. As an anchor institution on the South Side, I think it is critical that the University be a strong partner to the communities and neighborhoods here. I’ve been glad to see many folks at UChicago and beyond working to expand, deepen, and strengthen partnerships and investments in the South Side.