SAN GABRIEL VALLEYWIDE NEWS
By Mitch Lehman

"If you asked the boys, they might want to call this ‘Boots In the Backside,’ or ‘Stilleto to the Sacroiliac,” keynote speaker Jim Ellis began last Saturday morning at the annual ‘Wind Under Their Wings’ Women of Eagle Scouts brunch.
“Because we all know that behind every good Eagle Scout is a swift kick in the pants.”
The huge roar of laughter meant one thing: Ellis had them at ‘hello.’
The Dean of USC’s Marshall School of Business and Professor of Marketing, Ellis needed only imagine himself at the helm of one of his popular lectures – and just let it flow, which he did.
“We’re talking about boys,” Ellis said to the crowd, 95% of whom were mothers of boys. “Let’s really talk about boys.”
He then played the role of an adolescent boy being asked a series of questions and responded with a mock litany of one-word answers, to the delight of the audience assembled at the Langham, Huntington Hotel and Spa.
“I see them when they get to college,” said Ellis. “I am in contact with four thousand of them. You should see there wardrobe. I swear they just reach over the side of the bed, grab the first dirty shirt they get their hands on and shake it off.”
Ellis mentioned that college admissions directors claim that achieving the rank of Eagle Scout is “the most important entry on a young man’s resumé.”
“First and foremost, an Eagle Scout is disciplined and well-versed in time management,” Ellis said. “He also learns the value of finishing something. He is a finisher, and that is very important in life. He also knows how to work on a task in pieces and knows that a task is not that daunting if you break it into pieces. And an Eagle Scout has good self esteem, and that is highly critical.”
That last point serves as the launching pad for Ellis’s main conceit of the presentation: A primer on leadership.
“Boy Scouts are given the tools to be leaders, but those are just the tools,” Ellis said. “Eagle Scouts learn that to be a leader, you must first learn how to lead yourself. My job is to train leaders. There is actually a school in town that trains followers...”
Fill in your own answer for that one.
Noting that only .3% of America’s population has attained the rank of Eagle Scout, Ellis stated that the country is suffering from “a dearth in leadership.”
“We need leaders, decision-makers,” he thundered.
If the audience needed any more instruction, Ellis listed characteristics of great leaders.
“A leader has a great knowledge of self,” he said. “A leader knows it is OK not to be good at something. A leader believes in the notion of ‘do unto others’ and the importance of doing the little things well. A leader understands and respects the standards of morality and ethics and practices great self-discipline. A leader values the quality of his work and pays attention to his physical and mental well-being.”
Ellis also mentioned the importance of being able to operate “out of one’s comfort zone.” He said that the Marshall School of Business believes in sending students overseas for a semester or two.
“How do they adjust and adapt,” Ellis pondered. “Globalization is upon us in the business world. When a young person goes to another country where they are uncomfortable, self esteem grows.”
Ellis also mentioned that great leaders are curious and also great listeners. He recalled a class he took in graduate school where the professor accused his students of being bad listeners. For an exam, the teacher made each student enlist an acquaintance and meet that person in a neutral setting. Ellis and his classmates were charged with listening to that person for forty-five minutes.
“Do you know how hard that was?” Ellis said as the audience guffawed. “But everyone, think about the people you like to spend time with. They are all great listeners, aren’t they?’
Nods of assent.
“A great leader does not have the word ‘impossible’ in their vocabulary,” Ellis continued. “A great leader will smile through adversity. A great leader will get involved.”
“It doesn’t matter what group a student gets involved in,” Ellis explained. “They are getting valuable opportunities to exercise leadership skills.”
He stated that great leaders provide hope and used Troop 355 Eagle Scout Michael Bertch, who was in attendance to lead younger scouts in executing the flag salute that opened the festivities, as a example.
“Did you see how the younger scouts looked at Michael when he got up here?” Ellis asked. “He provided hope for them. They were all saying to themselves, ‘I want to get up there and lead the flag salute some day.’”
Leaders are creative – “they go right when everyone else goes left,” Ellis said. They are passionate – “they don’t look at it as work. Leaders are passionate about what they do.”
“We need leaders who can help solve society’s issues,” Ellis declared. Entrepreneurs will lead us out of this morass.”
Ellis was then presented with an eagle statuette by event chair Valerie Gumbiner Weiss, herself the mother of four Eagle Scouts.
Also on the program were Phyllis Crandon, who delivered an optimistic “State of the San Gabriel Valley Council, Boy Scouts of America’ and Eagle Scout Andrew Standley of Troop 403 in Claremont, who provided Eagle reflections.
“I learned to always pack my own bag,” Standley said. “The first time I let my mom pack, it was so full I couldn’t carry it. I learned to fly through the mess and soar with the eagles.”