On Thursday, November 14th, the Sam Walton College of Business hosted its biennial Walton MBA Leadership Summit. This event invigorated our community of graduates and alumni by providing the incredible opportunity to hear from distinguished industry leaders in NWA. As first-year EMBA students, it was a privilege to learn about the journey these visionaries traveled to become successful and thrive in their industries.
The breadth of knowledge present during this event and the insights we gathered made for a truly remarkable day with peers, alumni, and graduate faculty. Here a few key takeaways from this experience.
Effective Leaders Put Their Teams First
Doug McMillon (President & CEO of Walmart) and John Calipari, (Head Coach of the Arkansas Razorback Men’s Basketball team) held a fireside chat that was moderated by Dean Brent Williams. Dean Williams asked, “If you were teaching a lesson, what would you share?”
McMillon discussed being a strong listener, having empathy, and building resilient teams that can swiftly and efficiently overcome failures, but who can stay grounded through successes. These are crucial when becoming someone people look up to. He recommended Sam Walton’s Made in America, which emphasizes how building a business that prioritizes the customer and associates helped the company through transformational change and to consistently stay at the top of its field.
Coach Calipari shared, “If you care for the players, you will always love what you do.” For Calipari, the formula for success and building motivation to stay competitive is creating an environment where the team is confident in themselves to perform their best while supporting each other. By being the advocate for your organization and upholding its core values, results will follow. This means prioritizing your team's needs and focusing on their success. Whether it be basketball or retail, servant leadership is an invaluable quality for growth.
Be Passionate and Empower Others
To Shelley Simpson (President & CEO, J.B. Hunt), being a leader meant creating a space of empowerment and doing so by becoming a subject matter expert. She explained how in her tenure at J.B. Hunt, she has seen immense changes in technology and has even started completely new business lines. Through it all, a deep passion for learning and encouraging her teams to do so has driven her success. Her comments struck us both as valuable insights as we prepare to make lasting impacts on our own teams.
She also called out how J.B. Hunt still proudly carries the essential DNA of its founders. She shared stories of how J.B. Hunt and his wife, Johnelle, persevered through risk and uncertainty. Their hard work and ethos still permeate throughout the entire organization.
Simpson then shared how she integrates her work, family, and faith into her life: by taking the time to pursue hobbies for personal development, while also navigating a growing professional career in leadership. Integration, rather than trying to “balance” all these important pieces in her life, was the key to creating a life of impact.
She recommended creating a personal mission statement as a way to navigate building the reputation you want for yourself. Her three starting points were:
1. What do people think of you? Write down three words that describe your gifts/talents.
2. Who do you want to impact?
3. How do you want to do it?
Be sure to start the mission statement with a declarative statement – I will/I want. Simpson mentions that being intentional with the steps you take to fulfill your mission will keep you accountable and grow with purpose.
Balancing People, Processes and Technology
Aaron Saint (Senior Managing Director, Accenture) spoke at length about how technology is disrupting how companies do business. He went on to describe how AI and machine learning has revolutionized even legacy industries like power and utilities, with AI helping to shape and plan for the power grid of the future. In his experience, the leaders who will succeed in the future understand the value of talent and can motivate and inspire their teams to acquire new skills and adapt.
He also emphasized the impact it makes when there is buy-in on a team’s vision and direction at a senior leadership level and how important it is to have the operators of the business, not just IT, own and drive innovation. This resonated with us in our own companies, as we’ve seen many projects succeed when leaders make transformation part of their agenda. We are both motivated to be leaders who will strive to be change agents as we gain more influence in our organizations.
Resume Virtues vs. Eulogy Virtues
Bill Dillard III (Senior Vice President, Dillard’s) shared how growing up in the family business helped him understand the organization’s value proposition. Being able to articulate its niche allows the company to prioritize areas they excel in, like customer service and effective inventory management. This creates a moat that allows the team to have a competitive advantage in a highly segmented marketplace.
When asked what he looks for when recruiting top talent, he dropped an absolute gem of wisdom by stating that he focuses more on eulogy virtues rather than resume virtues. To Dillard, standout leaders are those who espouse personal virtues, such as integrity and trust, over skills that can easily be taught. No one on their death bed wishes they had attended more meetings or signed off on more projects. Instead, a life well lived is measured in impact made, whether to an organization or a community, and more importantly, in lives changed. This especially resonated with us at this point in our careers where we seek the acceleration that an EMBA brings and the impact we will have as our careers continue to grow and develop.
Making the Room Better
In his closing remarks, Dr. Adam Stoverink (Executive Director of the Walton MBA Program) weaved together all the insights and wisdom on leadership that had been shared. He concluded the event with a powerful message: “Leadership isn’t about being the smartest person in the room, it’s about making the room better.”
The Walton College is a community where students can immerse themselves in the classroom, experience networking and learning from industry experts, and pursue their own passions. Our MBA Faculty, alumni, and students will change the world because we will strive to make our “rooms” better for years to come.
Being a part of the Walton EMBA program has already opened so many doors for us. This summit was an invaluable opportunity to learn from the best of the best and to think deeply about the kind of leaders we envision ourselves becoming. It was clear from the vast experiences and distinctive backgrounds of the speakers that influential leaders come from all walks of life; but what brings them together is their strongly held values, integrity, and continuous drive to learn. We look forward to utilizing skills acquired from the classroom into the workforce by working with our teams to influence and create impact.
Tendai Dete is originally from Zimbabwe and graduated from the University of South
Africa with a BSc in Accounting. He is currently the Director of Finance Beef Operations
at Tyson Foods, where he partners with operations leadership to drive financial strategy,
improve cost efficiencies, and support operational excellence across the company's
beef processing plants.
