Listening, Empathy, and Understanding | Student Leadership Seminar
As a member of an organization, cultivating the skills of active listening, empathy, and understanding is pivotal for fostering a supportive and inclusive team culture. Moreover, as an aspiring leader, the ability to connect with and comprehend the diverse perspectives within a group is essential.
In this session, aspiring student leaders will have the chance to learn, reflect, and discuss their interpersonal listening & empathic skills.
Our content is inspired by themes & concepts from Leadership Fellows 1, a second-year MBA elective course at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
The following are sources you may review if you'd like:
How to Become a Better Listener (Harvard Business Review)
The Limits of Empathy (Harvard Business Review)
Active Listening (Carl Rogers)
The Student Leadership Seminar is an initiative of the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University for undergraduate business students who want to learn the intrapersonal and interpersonal skills of leadership in order to become future campus leaders. This seminar is primarily discussion-based and students will have the opportunity to apply relevant concepts and ideas to their own leadership experiences within a group context. Each session will have supplementary readings from business journals, prominent management & leadership authors, and popular business publications. While the readings are not mandatory, their content will be heavily integrated into group discussions.
The Student Leadership Seminar is a discussion-based series that will be led by Juliano Perczek and supported by Katie Cocco & Michael Mitole.
Juliano Perczek is a student at Georgetown University majoring in Political Economy. Before transferring to Georgetown, Juliano was enrolled at the University of Maryland where he was President of the International Economics & Finance Society and a student in the QUEST Honors Program. Currently, he is involved with Bridging the Gap (BTG), the nation's leading network for diverse talent working to increase representation in the business community. His roles within BTG include identifying and connecting BIPOC talent & doing pro-bono consulting for minority businesses. Growing up, Juliano was a competitive soccer player; he played for multiple MLS youth soccer teams across four cities & attended several of the top soccer academies around the world. Outside of his work supporting the Business Scholars Institute at Georgetown, Juliano is passionate about politics, sustainable fashion, and sports.
Katie Cocco is a recent alumna of the Smeal College of Business at Penn State, where she graduated summa cum laude with honors in Supply Chain Management. Katie has received several national awards for undergraduate students studying supply chain around the U.S. and earned the Helen Eakin Eisenhower Award in her senior year, the top-prize for the most outstanding student in Smeal's Class of 2023 (~1,000 students). Outside of her work supporting the Business Scholars Institute at Georgetown, she is an analyst in the Supply Chain Leadership Development Program at Dell Technologies in Austin, Texas.
Michael Mitole is a recent alumnus of the Smeal College of Business at Penn State, where he graduated with honors in Finance. In his senior year, Michael was accepted to the MBA program at Harvard Business School through the 2+2 deferred enrollment program and will matriculate after several years of working. While an undergraduate student, Michael received several awards including a McKinsey Global Achievement Award in 2021, a nomination from Penn State for the Rhodes Scholarship Competition in 2022, and the John W. Oswald Prize for outstanding student leadership (~11,000 students). Outside of his work supporting the Business Scholars Institute at Georgetown, he is an associate consultant at Boston Consulting Group in Chicago, Illinois.