"Polish leaders heading eastwards" - The Warsaw Voice

Polish leaders heading eastwards

Grzegorz Nawrocki; "The Warsaw Voice", 4 czerwca 2000.

More than 50 people came to the annual meeting of Warsaw's School for Leaders Association (SLA) May 25 to celebrate the sixth year of its existence in Poland. The school's alumni and friends discussed the changes it has gone through lately. After years of focusing its activities in Warsaw, the school is now also delivering training to local communities in remote parts of the country. SLA is also expanding its activity abroad. Since 1999 it has been running leadership programs in Ukrainę. Now it is about to launch new programs helping the Baltic countries face their social and political changes. SLA's managing director, Przemysław Radwan-Rohrenschef, believes that transfer of know-how can help these countries. "There arm potential leaders out there, and we know how to find and support them," he says.

The school has earned its reputation as a breeding ground for young leaders in Poland. Its founder, Prof. Zbigniew Pełczyński, came to Poland in 1989 after a long career as professor of political science at Oxford University. Hę noticed a huge difference between Polish and British universities. In his opinion, Polish universities did not motivate students to develop leadership skills. "Leaders are the driving force of political and social changes," says Pełczyński. "The development of a society depends on the quality of its leaders and their vision." So he inaugurated his training programs, which later turned into an institution, now offering dozens of various practical courses for politicians and public activists.

So far, more than 800 leaders have graduated from SLA programs, including the main one, Summer School for Leaders. Many of its alumni now hold important posts in public administration or government. One of these is Krzysztof Kwiatkowski, an adviser to Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek.

Mirela Panek is one of the first graduates and now works as a political assistant to the minister of justice. "The school taught me a lot of useful things which still inspire me in my work," she says. The most important idea the school tries to communicate to students is that politics is a form of social service. That is why it is also running programs and organizing conferences devoted to social problems, such as Youth Against Violence, Tolerance, or Corruption.