Colegrove learned leadership style during military service

Dr. Michael Colegrove, Vice President of Student Affairs at the University of the Cumberlands, was the keynote speaker Monday night at the Leadership Tri-County "Leader of the Year" dinner. Colegrove was named the organization’s leader of the year.

As a vice-president at the University of the Cumberlands, a retired U.S. Army Reserve Colonel, a man who has authored six books, and someone who has served on numerous boards and commissions, Mike Colegrove knows a little something about leadership.

The best piece of advice he ever got about leadership didn’t come from studying a general or a president though.
Instead, it came from an old army sergeant who offered Colegrove some key advice when he was just a young recently commissioned lieutenant in the 1970s.

"He looked me straight in the eye as a young lieutenant and said, ‘Sir, let me give you a piece of advice.’ He said, ‘these soldiers out here that you are going to be leading, if they decide you are going to succeed there is no way you can fail. But, if they decide you are going to fail there is no way you are going to succeed,’" Colegrove said quoting the old sergeant.

"It’s a good piece of advice. It tells us we need to spend some time working with our followers, developing them and allowing them to develop themselves and giving them the room to do their jobs. I have always taken that one to heart," Colegrove told a crowd packed into the Corbin Center Monday night, which was there to see him honored as Leadership Tri-County’s Leader of the Year.

"This is a distinct honor that means so much to me. It means so much to me because it comes from individuals, who really know what leadership is all about. Thank you for the recognition and God bless you all," Colegrove said.

The mission of Leadership Tri-County is the identification and development of leadership resources in the area to create a better and more unified Southeastern Kentucky through trust, respect, commitment and service.

In 1985, the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce sponsored their first statewide leadership network called Leadership Kentucky. Dr. William Hacker, Tom Handy and Jim Oaks from the tri-counties were chosen to participate. From that experience, they recognized the need for a similar program in the tri-counties.

By the fall of 1987, the charter class of Leadership Tri-County was selected.

Since that time, 478 people have graduated from Leadership Tri-County in addition to 25 others currently in this year’s class.

Colegrove was introduced Monday by Eugene Siler Jr., Senior Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth District.

"Sometimes when you introduce somebody you have to make up a lot of things. Here, I’ll have to delete a lot of things because he is into everything," Siler said of Colegrove.

Siler said that one thing that always impressed him about Colegrove was his organizational skills.

"No task is too great. If you want something done you ask Mike Colegrove and he will do it and have time leftover. I don’t know how he does it," Siler noted.

During his address, Colegrove thanked his wife, Donna, whom he has been married to for over 42 years.

"I stand before you this evening a man most blessed," Colegrove said. "I am blessed for a lot of reasons. First of all I am blessed because I have the opportunity to work at the University of the Cumberlands, a place where we are encouraged every day to exercise our faith with our discipline."

During his address Colegrove quoted two leadership lessons he learned from close relatives about the importance of listening.
The first lesson came when his daughter, Kimberly, who is now grown and has two children of her own, was about three years old.

"She was talking to me and I must have been preoccupied with something else," Colegrove said. "She did what we would call in the military she squared me away. She grabbed me by the chin. She turned my head so I would look her straight in the eye and she continued to talk. That was a lesson to pay attention, listen and give people your undivided attention because they deserve it."

The second lesson came recently when his youngest grandson, William Joyce, was also three years old.

During Sunday school one morning, William made two large paper ears out of paper plates that were cut in half and connected by a pipe cleaner. He gave them to his grandfather.

"In his own three-year-old way, I think what William was trying to tell me was to listen. Here are some ears," Colegrove said. "What a powerful message. If we could only do a better job of listening, listening is a real empowering activity.

"If we could give people our undivided attention, it will work miracles especially in the realm of leadership."

Colegrove said he learned another fundamental leadership lesson from studying Dwight D. Eisenhower, who led the D-Day invasion and later became president.

"Leadership is the knack of getting somebody to do something you want done because they want to do it," Colegrove said.

During Monday’s banquet, Leadership Tri-County also honored the late Charley Greene Dixon Jr. with its luminary award. In addition to wearing many other hats, Dixon served as Knox County attorney for many years.

"What a great impact he has had in our community and on so many lives as well," said Claudia Greenwood, who presented the award to Dixon’s widow and children.

"He had more energy in one day than most of us had in a week. He was always thinking about what could make people’s lives in our community better."

In addition, a moment of silence was held in honor of Dr. Sarah Hendrix, who graduated Leadership Tri-County in 2014. She was killed at her home in Corbin earlier this month along with her husband, Kevin, and her daughter, Grace.
Sarah Hendrix was a professor at Union College.

"Leadership is being strong enough to have vision but humble enough to recognize that achieving it takes the efforts of many people," said Dana Brown, who helped lead a moment of silence in Hendrix honor along with Rich Prewitt.

"People are most fulfilled when they share their gifts and talents rather than just by their work. Leaders create that culture to serve the greater good and let others soar. Those are the words I feel describe  Sarah Hendrix, a graduate of last year’s Leadership Tri-County class."