Jeremy Sappington on the NWPHLI

In November 2009, Candace Tkachuck interviewed the two past directors of the Northwest Public Health Leadership Institute.

Jeremy Sappington, Director of the NWPHLI for the 2004-05, 2005-06, and 2006-07 cohorts

How do you think the Leadership Scholars benefited from the Institute?

The thing they got the most out of was the opportunity to talk about their challenges with peers. Of course, as a director and faculty member, I knew that it was important to provide people with information about leadership and give them opportunities to apply it. But more importantly, the scholars needed time to talk to colleagues. That dialog between the participants around their contemporary issues and leadership challenges was certainly what appealed to me and to the participants.

What do you remember about the scholars?

I was struck by how incredibly creative these people are in their daily jobs, how creative they have to be to solve problems. The scholars were not able to set aside their other work. For a year they did their regular job and participated in a pretty intensive learning experience.

Do you have any other comments about your time as Director?

One of the things I thought going in which was confirmed during my time with the Leadership Institute is how interested public health practitioners are in complex systems issues. People want a substantially broader perspective that they can use in their agencies. They are working in such complex systems it is difficult for them to ferret out which part of that system they have enough influence over to make a change. I guess my bias was that the most important thing that needs to be done is to increase the scholars’ ability to work with these complex systems and to know where they can make the most difference.