Center for Leadership
Studies

Sue Smith helps give people another chance at leading vibrant, healthy lives. As Executive Director of OneMatch Stem Cell and Marrow Network for Canadian Blood Services, Smith organizes efforts to match stem cell donors with more than one thousand patients across the globe. A registered nurse who has played many roles ranging from practical nurse to organizational director within the Canadian health care system, Smith has always been highly motivated and self-searching in service of personal growth. When she first encountered MAOL and spoke with individuals responsible for the program, she knew she’d found something that could help make her professional and personal life the most effective and vibrant it could be.

“I was searching for something else and for me, the MBA was not it,” explains Smith. “I already had extensive management experience, but I had reached a place where I felt I needed something else to take me to that next level, but I couldn’t be sure just what it was. When I had my first conversation with Mel Toomey, I thought immediately, “Yes. This is where I’m meant to be.”’

Smith entered into the MAOL with the enthusiastic support of her organization—one that already boasted a number of MAOL graduates. From day one, Smith says, she was forced to reckon with new terminology and to stretch her learning and listening in ways previously unfamiliar. She says that the most direct, immediate shift in herself, and a trait clearly defined in other members of the cohort and faculty, was a deliberateness of linguistic selection that allowed for more clearly articulated conversations.

“What the MAOL environment really does is give you a space to articulate and have a language around leadership that has not been in existence before,” Smith says. “That language and articulation will allow us to help develop the folks that we work with in their leadership journey.”

Smith has transferred this clarity of articulation and purposefulness to her professional life. She says that she is also applying it to her breakthrough initiative—a bold campaign to establish Canada’s first national public umbilical cord blood bank. To gain approval, Smith must go through a dozen deputy ministers of health, navigate and appeal to their diverse viewpoints. What she has learned in the MAOL, Smith says, has eased this process for her tremendously, making her more able to step outside of herself and see from a new vantage point.

“This cause has been so passionate for me that it was hard for me, before MAOL, to be what Darryl Conner calls “passionately neutral.” I was thinking that I wasn’t being heard, but I learned to question whether that seemed so because I wasn’t listening. I’ve become more present and changed my mindset. In order to really learn from and communicate with someone you must surrender and not judge when you’re listening. I’ve learned to be less defensive, less impulsive, to really hear them and allow for progress in moving this along.”

When asked what specific MAOL teachings she applies in every day professional life, she explains that every single thing she has learned is applicable, every day. As she journeys deeper into her own exploration of leadership, Smith has been noticing other changes in the very way she views herself within her organization.

“The biggest shift has been that I have stepped out of the more management mindset to truly be in the leadership mindset—to be versus to do. To learn to be present and to listen even better, to really hear the people around me, has opened up my world and my organization for greater opportunity.”