Be curious, be open, be bold, be yourself and be grateful

That’s Leadership 101, says Coiya Tompkins, nonprofit director, in her 18:83 Speaker Series talk

Editor’s note: A video of Coiya Tompkins 18:83 Speaker Series talk is above.

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When she looks back on her career that led her to become president and CEO of the Community Violence Intervention Center in Grand Forks, Coiya Tompkins credits some unusual mentors.

They include Martin Luther King, Jr., who died years before Tompkins was born; a veteran reporter for the Associated Press; and a 9-year-old girl in West Fargo.

But Tompkins’ gratitude to her mentors isn’t about their influence on her professional life. Instead, it’s for the lessons in leadership that they taught her, and that she shared on Wednesday, Oct. 4, in the 18:83 Speaker Series talk that she delivered in UND’s Memorial Union.

“I believe that no matter where you are in your leadership career, you can always become better or more effective than you are today,” she said to listeners on the Social Stairs.

“So today, I want to talk to you about being curious; being open; being bold; being yourself; and being grateful.” Those are the lessons that can be taught by not only able supervisors whom one encounters on the job, but also by people of all ages and heroes whom one meets only in history books, Tompkins said.

Learning from the best

The 18:83 Speaker Series is designed to help listeners learn lessons in leadership from campus and community leaders in a “TED Talk” format. Speakers time their weekly presentations to last for around 18 minutes and 83 seconds, a number that coincides with UND’s founding year.

Launching her talk by discussing curiosity – the first on her list of core traits for successful leaders – Tompkins described learning reporting from Joe Dill, the former bureau chief for the AP who became editor of The Forum in Fargo-Moorhead in 1981.

While a journalism student at North Dakota State University, Tompkins interned at The Forum and worked in the newsroom with Dill. “I was fortunate to have a mentor who knew about curiosity right out of the gate,” she said. “He needed that skill to be an Associated Press reporter, and I needed it to become a reporter myself.”

At that point in her life, Tompkins “could hardly string a sentence together,” she said, but Dill and others helped her learn the reporter’s craft. Moreover, Dill – who died in 2015 – was a great storyteller; and one of his tales from the front lines of journalism told of a real-life encounter with one of Tompkins’ heroes, Martin Luther King Jr.

King, of course, was a leader who encompassed curiosity and all of the other leadership qualities Tompkins listed, and more. Moreover, Tompkins has honored King and his leadership ever since the age of 12, which is when she first encountered King’s life and thought.

“I became fascinated with what he was able to do,” she told the Memorial Union audience. So, she was doubly thrilled to hear about King from Dill, who’d been an AP reporter in Chicago when the chance came to interview the civil-rights leader.

Dill had tried for weeks to get the interview, Tompkins said. At last the call came from one of King’s staffers: “If you can be here in 10 minutes, Dr. King will take your appointment,” the staffer said.

Dill told the AP’s switchboard operator where he was heading, then dashed out of the office. “He raced across town to this old Baptist church,” Tompkins recounted. As Joe told the story, she said, he noted that he could still smell the oak in the pews, and could still hear “the creak in the old stairs” as he climbed them to see King.

And he could still hear the phone ring, as it did on King’s desk a few minutes after the interview started. King answered the call, then, puzzled, handed the receiver to Dill.

Equally puzzled, Dill took the call. “Yep … yep … OK, eggs and milk on the way home. Got it,” Dill said into the receiver.

The civil rights leader laughed when the embarrassed Dill hung up. “That was your wife, wasn’t it?” Martin Luther King Jr. said to Joe Dill.

As Tompkins told the story, the listeners on the Social Stairs laughed, too. “I like to think it was curiosity that got Joe the interview, but it was his wife who helped him break the ice,” she said.

Leadership at any age

Then there is boldness, No. 3 on Tompkins’ list of vital leadership traits. “And it’s hard to talk about being bold without talking about Sawyer Anderson,” Tompkins said.

“She was 9 years old when I met her. I had the good fortune of talking with her when I was working for the Jeremiah Organization in Fargo; it’s an organization that helps young mothers and their kiddos.

“And Sawyer had come to us with a donation of what’s called a Chitenge bag.” Chitenge is a colorful fabric used in Africa to make items such as bags, handbags and garments similar to a sarong. In Sawyer’s case, the youngster was sewing the bags with her father’s help, then selling them as a charity fundraiser for $50 each — $50 being the amount, Tompkins said, that will provide clean water for one person in Africa, for life.

“You see, Sawyer had learned that there were kiddos her own age in Africa, who were dying because they didn’t have clean water,” Tompkins said. “And she decided she wanted to do something about that.”

Nor did Sawyer stop there. Over the past five years, Sawyer – who’s now 14 – has written and illustrated a children’s book, “Water Works,” 100 percent of the proceeds of which go to clean water efforts. She was one of 16 activists around the world to win the 2022 International Young Eco-Hero Award, presented by Action for Nature. Just last week, she won the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes, a national award for inspiring young people.

And she has raised more than $1.2 million for the cause of bringing clean water to Africa.

“I think this just goes to prove that you can do anything at any age, if you stay bold about it,” Tompkins said.

Experience life as a gift

Tompkins closed her talk by mentioning gratitude, a leadership trait with effects that can ripple across time. “For example, I got a text message this morning from someone I had worked with about seven years ago,” she said. In the message, the writer thanked Tompkins for the help Tompkins had offered all those years ago, because that help had wound up making a huge difference.

Heartfelt expressions of gratitude always lift people’s spirits, and that one lifted hers, Tompkins said. And that’s why she makes a point of sending handwritten thank-you notes: because she knows they’re going to surprise and delight someone – and there’s no better feeling than that of making someone’s day.

“I’m going to keep that text message,” she said. “I’ve already screenshotted it, because it’s such a good reminder that gratitude and paying it forward really go a long way.”