A General’s Advice on ’Personal’ Leadership with Dennis Via

Each spring, VMI hosts a leader-in-residence to visit Post for a mutual exchange of ideas on leadership and ethics. The individual is a leader in business, industry, government, military, or academia. Their visit takes place, ideally, over a two-week period of time where they visit VMI academic departments, meet with staff and faculty, and give the keynote speech for the superintendent's Annual Leadership Dinner. 

In 2020, Gen. Richard 'Butch' Neal spent one week with us visiting various groups and classes on post with the intention of having him return for two more week-long visits. Due to the restrictions required by the Commonwealth as a result of the novel coronavirus pandemic, he was unable to return this year.  

We hope you will enjoy, instead, this interview we conducted with our 2019 Leader-in-Residence, General Dennis Via, US Army Retired.  Capt. Roy, Communications Specialist for the Center, sat down with Via to get his insights on leadership to share with the VMI community. 

Our Center's mission is to enhance the VMI citizen-soldier 'leader journey' with programming that educates, engages, and inspires.  For more information about our Center and its programming, please visit vmi.edu/cle. 

In this episode, we touch on the following leadership values from the VMI Leader Journey: vision, goals, positive attitude, responsibility, empathy, mentoring, inclusion, commitment, and character.