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Sheri Dew Receives Global Leadership Award

The BYU–Hawaii chapter of BYU Management Society awarded their fourth Global Leadership Award to Sheri L. Dew. Sister Dew served as a counselor in the Relief Society general presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1997-2002, and since March 2002, she has served as the chief executive officer of Deseret Book Company.

At the Management Society’s annual Global Leadership Awards Gala held on Tuesday, March 18, honoring her, Dew suggested five prospects of leadership, centered on the theme “You were born to lead”:

  1. Understanding who you are will shape your leadership.
  2. True success isn’t about you.
  3.  Leadership depends on trust.
  4.  It is easier to motivate someone to do something difficult rather than easy.
  5. The greatest leadership is guided by heaven.

Dew opened her address talking about her heritage as a daughter of a third-generation farmer. She challenged the audience to think about their own heritage and to decide if they were living up to the standard their ancestors had set. Stressing the importance of who you are, she said, “Identity helps to shape your destiny.”

Expanding on her second point, she acknowledged that good leaders “help others do and become what they otherwise wouldn’t be able to do or become.”  Leaders not only are inspiring to their peers, but they are trustworthy. “We will not follow someone we do not trust,” she said.

“Our spirits naturally want to progress,” she said. “No one is happy living beneath themselves.” She shared a story about her leadership experience at Deseret Book during her first few months with the struggling company. One of the product teams came to her and said they had a way to land a book on the New York Times Best-Seller List, an accomplishment the publishing company had yet to do. Concerned with payroll, Dew couldn’t even fathom starting a new project, but she told them to go try. That year, the company had three books hit the Best-Seller List. Through this experience she learned that people are motivated by trying something hard, not just living with what they have.

She counseled the audience to lead for good causes, emphasizing that “leadership guided by the Lord is the most powerful. … The work of salvation is the most consequential work on Earth.” She stressed the fact that the work of the Church is hastening forward, and as leaders, now is the time to stand as men and women of principle and conviction.

Earlier in the day, Sheri Dew was the Devotional speaker for the BYU–Hawaii campus. Watch or read her Devotional address at devotional.byuh.edu.