The confidence to lead

Ohio University has a way of bringing Bobcats back home.

Samantha Roberts has been teaching at her alma mater for five years now, and this year she is joining the Walter Center for Strategic Leadership as the director of foundational leadership programs.

Roberts, who earned a degree in organizational communications from the Scripps College of Communication, has been a marketing professor in the College of Business since 2021 and has been teaching at the collegiate level for eight years. Outside of the classroom, Roberts is a member at large for the Ohio Communication Association, an organization of communication scholars who work to advance academic development in the field. Members get together at the annual conference to present Great Ideas for Teaching, or GIFTS, sharing ideas for engaging students.

Roberts developed one of her GIFTS for her BA 1500 course. The project is 30% of the students’ grades and forces them to practice their presentation skills and written deliverables. Roberts said the goal is to build her students’ confidence and prepare them for their cluster experience later in their academic career.

“It is really exciting to collaborate with people from other universities and hear about what has sparked in their classroom and what they have used to engage students,” Roberts said. “Technology is always evolving, and that's such a big part of communication too. I've especially enjoyed learning how to incorporate that to engage students.”

Roberts’ role in the Walter Center was sparked by her love of teaching first-year students. The Leadership Launchpad, one of the programs she now directs, is designed for students who may already feel busy or overwhelmed. The program consists of two workshops, a signature event and a reflection — a structure Roberts said may feel more manageable for a shy student than joining a club that meets weekly.

“I do love working with students right when they're starting college because I think it is so important to help them understand their strengths and their areas that they want to work on, and especially with the Walter Center and the Leadership Launchpad that I'm taking on this fall, it helps students build their confidence,” Roberts said. “(Leadership Launchpad) is something that truly everybody can decide to do. You can go to those workshops. You can build your confidence. You can build your leadership skills.”

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Roberts is also leading the Leadership Accelerator in the spring; a new program geared more toward upperclassmen. Through the Launchpad and the Accelerator, students in all stages of their academic journeys can easily get engaged and attend constructive workshops that will prepare them for their professional careers.

An important aspect of leadership, according to Roberts, is understanding the distinction between leadership and management. 

Management can carry a connotation of control and delegation, while true leadership is about “serving and getting on the level of those that you’re working with,” she said. By learning to identify and practice genuine leadership, students can also become better equipped to recognize toxic workplace cultures.

The leadership development programs are only one facet of Roberts’ main hope for students: that they try something new. Roberts stressed the importance of getting out of one’s comfort zone in college and brought up her own study abroad as an example. The opportunity to study business in a completely new cultural environment opened her eyes to a different side of business.

“Hearing new perspectives and being a lifelong learner is such an important heart posture to have when you're in the business world because you never get to a place where you're executing everything perfectly,” Roberts said. “It’s important to challenge yourself: ‘Where can I grow? Who can I learn from? And what can I give?’”

Roberts said she is very excited to start working with the Walter Center. The transition to college can be a jarring one for a lot of students, and directing the leadership programs will give her another opportunity to interact with students and help them work towards their dream careers.

“I can meet students and help them understand that it's okay to fail, that that's part of learning, and what matters is that you do get back up,” Roberts said.

College is often the first time that students experience what it means to recover from failure, Roberts said. Her favorite part of the role is “being in this position where I get to help students understand the value that they bring and make that transition as smooth as possible.”