On Monday, April 3rd, our Priory Leadership Council had the opportunity to hear from Chapman University Professor Patrick Cecil ’03. Professor Cecil led PLC in a discussion about Horace Porter’s Ulysses S. Grant at Work and President Grant’s unique style of leadership.

In his talk, he defined “Leaders are people who are willing to do the small things well, do the hard work to accomplish something, and are great communicators. But most importantly, what separates leaders from others is that they have people who listen and take a pause.” Many people talk back and forth with one another, but when leaders do the talking, people listen rather than rebuttal; they take that pause to analyze and digest what they have just said. He used President Grant’s leadership to demonstrate the point perfectly. Grant’s orders were so cleverly written and spoken that his men would only need to listen or read them once to understand his command with no rebuttal.

In conclusion to our discussion, Professor Cecil's advice to the next generation of leaders is, “Be willing to do it on your own, find a way to cut out your distractions, and always look to Christ to find your way.”

Professor Cecil attended and graduated from Servite High School and is a proud member of the Class of 2003. After Servite, he went on to earn his B.A. in history and geography from the University of Colorado Boulder, his M.A. in history from The George Washington University, and his Ph.D. in history from the University of Alabama.

We thank you, Professor Cecil, for taking your time to teach Servite’s Priory Leadership Council what it takes to be great leaders and learn more about US President Ulysses S. Grant.
 

This post was written by Leo Eriman '24 of the Student Life Media Team for Servite High School.