By Rick Weinberg, Editor, California Business Journal
WHENEVER PAUL CALLAN SPOKE ABOUT LEADERSHIP AND THE QUALITIES IT TOOK TO BE A GREAT LEADER, his captivated audience would hang onto every word he conveyed. His unique and evocative style actually “lit a fire” under everyone in the crowd, providing them with an insurmountable feeling of empowerment and confidence to tackle the world.
For years, Callan’s family, friends and business associates encouraged him to create an educational program to teach and talk about leadership through his compelling experiences, which includes 30 years in the Marines and the private sector as well as playing college football.
“Everyone told me, ‘The way you talk about leadership and describe it is so impactful – you have a great message and you should do something with it,’” Callan says. “Soon, I started getting this overwhelming calling inside of me of wanting to impart to people what I’ve learned and know about leadership and what I believe it is.”
So after more than two years of research and development, Callan developed The Callan Course, a dynamic new educational program that takes the study and philosophy of leadership to a new level never before experienced by the public. The diversity of the Callan Course team, from retired officers to emerging millennial leaders, is also what makes the program so dazzling, effective and informative.
“It is the most insightful and impactful course on leadership that I’ve ever been through – and the brilliance behind it all is Paul. Everyone on the Callan Course team share an amazing passion for leadership and excellence that is so inspirational.” — Kim Knoble of the Orange County Fire Authority
The manner in which Callan and his team expresses the program is so compelling: it is a classic leadership paradigm, yet Callan “reorients it to the modern world,” he says.
Born Leader
Talk to anyone who knows Callan and they’ll say he is a “born leader” with impeccable leadership skills and the unique talent to instill others with critical leadership characteristics to help them flourish in their work and life. The Callan Course is the first of its kind and the results it provides are staggering.
“Our program is designed to apply both the art and science of transformational leadership in a cohesive, integrated, and logical model,” says Callan, who retired from the Marines as a Colonel in 2010.
Knoble is one of the many people Callan has transformed into a passionate, powerful and responsible leader – with a mindset to match. Since her metamorphosis, Knoble has interviewed for two promotions and now carries herself as an authoritative leader at work and beyond.
That comes as no surprise to Richard Coleman, who served with Callan in the Marines for 28 years.
“Paul is the finest leader I’ve ever had the opportunity to observe — and I’ve been around a lot of great ones,” Coleman says. “He is the most inspiring leader I’ve even known. The job of a leader is to create an atmosphere of confidence and assuredness – it’s the essence of your responsibility as a leader. Leaders generate, create and define a culture and an environment of trust. No one does that better than Paul Callan.”
The Callan Course operationalizes Callan’s leadership philosophy within a system that guides people along a proven path of leadership development.
“I decided to teach leadership in the only way it can be effectively taught – and that is as an experience. You have to experience what it feels like to lead and be a leader so all of our material is done through the use of very evocative and powerful imagery.” — Paul Callen
With the aid of state of art imagery, The Callan Course conveys immersive leadership stories that pull the audience into a state where they can experience what it precisely feels like to be in that moment.
“It’s quite magical to say the least,” Knoble says. “It’s not only changed my life but also the lives of many others.”
Read the magazine article here.
