Leadership QC Cohort Creates Path Forward for Our Region Through Collaboration

For the past nine months, members of the second Leadership QC cohort have been refining their leadership skills and working towards a common goal of creating positive community change in the Quad Cities. Through purposeful conversations, panel discussions and collaborative projects, the rising leaders gained a greater perspective on and investigated meaningful solutions to our region’s most important issues. 

Through the program, the cohort connected with experienced Quad Citizens representing leadership roles in local businesses, nonprofit and government organizations. These leaders served as guest speakers and panelists and offered valuable insights into how to become more effective and collaborative leaders in our region. 

“It’s been amazing to meet and network with the leaders who have already done so much in the community,” said Riane Leib, COO at Huiskamp Collins Investments, LLC. “This opportunity to listen and learn from these leaders has been a really unique opportunity.”

Building collaboration so that leaders can work together cooperatively to find solutions to our communities’ biggest challenges is a core value of Leadership QC. Hearing from guest speakers and panelists about how various organizations work with one another to achieve regional goals was a key takeaway for Nevada Lemke, City Administrator at the City of Eldridge. 

“Absorbing how each organization collaborates with one another to pursue their mission gave me a much broader understanding of what the Quad Cities has to offer,” said Lemke. “It’s truly a group effort to determine how we can work together and address larger community issues.” 

With the QC’s diversity of organizations, each pursuing different goals, a need for greater empathy for each distinct mission became evident to Randall Goblirsch, Senior Director of Enrollment Communications and Marketing at St. Ambrose University. “Listening to leaders and cohort members with different backgrounds, working in different cities and industries revealed how everybody possesses different priorities. It was meaningful to reflect on how we can collaborate and bring these priorities together to make progress in the QC region,” said Goblirsch.

Our regional thinking and collaboration serve as the glue that binds our bi-state community together and supports the advancement of the greater Quad Cities region. “It’s not just about the cities that make up the Quad Cities metro, but about our entire region. Thinking more regionally opens the doors for greater perspectives and opportunities that can help push the Quad Cities forward,” said Abbie Bruns, Enhancements, Outreach & Resource Manager, Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Mississippi Valley.

Throughout the program, cohort members were placed into groups and tasked with developing potential solutions to issues currently facing the region, such as housing, civic engagement and overall health and wellness, the groups used their enriched perspectives to present their solutions to their cohort at the program’s final gathering.

“The group projects gave us a better understanding of community issues and how we can take steps towards becoming a part of the solution,” said Alexi Locata, Assessments Lead, John Deere. “The project has made me more confident in how to go about creating a solution. It’s crucial to reach out to those who are impacted and not assume we know what they need. We need to ask populations facing certain issues what they need so that our solutions actually help them.” 

There’s immense potential in the relationships formed during Leadership QC to continue long into the future and to bring about lasting community change. Tilford Flowers, Manager of Insider Risk and Investigations, John Deere, plans to continue building upon the network he gained during Leadership QC throughout his professional journey. 

“Leadership QC has provided me with a more energetic network focused on community involvement,” said Flowers. “I look forward to continuing relationships with my fellow Leadership QC graduates and working with them to leave our mark on the region.”

Interested in enhancing your leadership skills during the next Leadership QC cohort? You can apply now!