On Monday, July 19th, our CEO Layla Zaidane spoke to the summer cohort of The Ronald Reagan Institute’s Leadership and the American Presidency. The cohort is made up of college students from around the country who are in Washington D.C. to garner experiences in government, business, and nonprofit organizations.

The event, one of the final installments in the series for the LTAP summer program, allowed Layla to share her leadership journey with the diverse group of students. For Layla, leadership didn’t happen overnight. A myriad of pivotal moments, interactions, and experiences prepared her for the open-minded and positive outlook she now has on her life. 

She detailed how her summers in Morocco with family gave her an understanding of different ways of life, which helped her learn to listen first and open herself up to new experiences. Layla also described the anxieties of graduating college without a job in her desired field and feeling she needed to have everything figured out. 

So, Layla decided to take a chance and go into an unfamiliar career field. In doing so, she laid the groundwork for approaching every new opportunity with a positive mindset: making the most of her unexpected career path by gleaning new information and skills. In doing so, she learned how to say “we” and become successful with her team.

Layla shared with the LTAP student how she was eventually able to parlay those skills into another role that was more directly related to her fields of study in college. Without taking that leap into the unknown, she wouldn’t have been able to garner the experience and expertise needed to land a job in her field. She reflected on how the core MAP values were meaningful to her even before she joined the MAP team — breaking barriers, innovating, and building trust with others were core tenets of the leadership success she saw in her own personal journey.

Layla closed drawing parallels between her own story and the leadership she sees among young elected leaders across the country. Layla described MAP’s mission and vision to bridge the partisan divide to create meaningful change, and underlined the power of the next generation to lead the way. Members of the LTAP cohort had the opportunity to ask questions about her leadership journey and MAP. Their questions were thoughtful and demonstrated a deep interest in post-partisan solutions, which is the future (and present) MAP strives for.