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Jessica has been promoted since the publication of this post, and is now the Vice President of Development at Midland University.

Hi, Jessica. Tell us about your background.

I graduated from the University of Nebraska—Lincoln with a degree in business administration and have been in philanthropic roles most of my career. Most recently, I was Executive Director of the Fremont Area Community Foundation from 2010-2013, until I took a leap into the finance world with a job at First National Bank in Fremont.

Earlier this year, a little-known, long out-of-print book with the title Business Adventures made the news.

So, what exactly is noteworthy about this book, which originally carried the ungainly title Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street? The book was brought back into print in July 2014 through the efforts of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.

Making good decisions is the hallmark of being a great leader. But it's not always enough to make “good” decisions—a manager also has to be decisive and quick with responses.

In his book Servant as Leader, Robert K. Greenleaf said, “On an important decision one rarely has 100% of the information needed for a good decision no matter how much one spends or how long one waits. And, if one waits too long, he has a different problem and has to start all over. This is the terrible dilemma of the hesitant decision maker.” 

Have you ever heard the terms manager and leader used interchangeably? It's not uncommon for companies to call their management level “the leadership team.” It's that kind of thinking that waters down the effectiveness of real leaders in an organization. In fact, leaders can reside in any level of an organization, while not every manager is really a “leader.”