My colleague, Yiting Zhang, recently wrote about her thoughts on leadership.

“What is leadership? Can I be a leader of a team? Yes, I can.”

Exactly two months ago, Paul asked us to define the term “change-maker”. Similar to Yiting’s idea of how a leader cannot simply work alone, I imagine it is crucial to understand that change-makers and leaders are alike in the sense that, to fulfill their duties, they require support from stakeholders.

This brings me to reminisce the concept, business ethics leadership, and the belief that no matter where you are in an organization, you can make it better than it would be without you.

People, like businesses, will never be perfect; however, we can always usually plan our next course of action.

From engine2diet.com

Accordingly, this brings me to redefine what a “leader” is; an individual supported by stakeholders with the common goal of ethically improving an organization. By practicing value based management and not exploiting the vulnerable one can become a true leader.

Throughout COMM101, Jeff and Paul have guided us through what could be the “renaissance“ of business education; from business ethics, to tech-based activities, to the heavily encouraged class participation, the skills and experiences garnered are invaluable. As the first term of my university career comes to a close, I am now confident that I have what it takes to survive the rest of this multi-year journey.

Best friend, peer, and colleague of mine, Angel Guo recently wrote a post on her takeaways from Class 18: Sauder Alumni.

Her two main ideas revolve around the importance of being open minded and taking note of the organizational structure pertaining to one’s company of choice.

In this post, however, I want to emphasize another key idea I assume is crucial in the life of an entrepreneur: the ability to follow one’s heart.

I took the liberty to ask jovial superstar Ian Crosby, CEO of Bench Accounting, how his charisma had (or had not) guided and supported him in his rather serious career. His response? He deems it a “necessity” formulated over time; both him and Nolan Watson (CEO of Sandstorm Gold) admit to throwing on their sweatpants and ripping out their contacts after work. Crosby also confesses he’s a hardcore gamer, something I admittedly rushed to tell my mother, whoops.

As for my takeaways? Follow your heart: you can be an accountant by day and gamer by night, you can become Canada’s #1 CPA accountant and still dive into the mining industry.

This lovely image, retrieved from a teenage girl’s romance Tumblr (whoops again) effectively recaps the emotion and notions experienced by entrepreneurs worldwide; ultimately, the pursuit of innovation can be defined impossible, risky, or pointless depending on who you ask –

but give it a try or you’ll never know how far you’ll go.