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Learning Experience
Dulye Immersion Helps Local Leader Fill Her Well with Knowledge
BY GEORGE O’BRIEN
[email protected]
“I learned how
to better lead my department and, more importantly, how to recognize the strengths that I already have and better utilize them.”
Aundrea Paulk says many of her friends and colleagues call her a “sponge.” And she likes to use that phrase herself.
She believes it conveys what she consid- ers to be a real and almost unquenchable thirst for knowledge and insight into how she can be a better leader, a better entrepre- neur — and a better person.
“I like to learn ... and I don’t think any- one gets to, or should get to, a place where they get comfortable and think they know it all when it comes to leadership,” said Paulk, director of Marketing & Communications for Caring Health Center in Springfield and owner of her own event-planning business called Soiree Mi. “Leadership is so expan- sive, and not only here at the Caring Health Center, but with my own business, I want to make sure that I’m constantly filling my well with knowledge so that, as a leader, I can show up in my best capacity, but also give those nuggets, as they call them, to others that are looking to grow their own leader- ship skills.”
It was this ongoing quest for knowledge — and desire to pass on those ‘nuggets’ —
that prompted Paulk to put her name into consideration last fall when BusinessWest was gifting a slot at the two-day, immersive Dulye Leadership Experience (DLE) in the Berkshires.
Her self-nomination was one of many received by the magazine, and it certainly resonated with those deciding who would partake in this program of intense learning, networking, and professional development.
Paulk, a member of BusinessWest’s Forty Under 40 class of 2022, said she made the very most of her experience and came away with nuggets to share, a better appreciation of the need to sell herself and not just her company — or companies, in this case — and, overall, some solid take- aways on how to be a better, more effective leader.
“After completing the Dulye Leadership Experience immersion training, I learned how to better lead my department and, more importantly, how to recognize the strengths that I already have and better utilize them,” she said. “As the owner of Soiree Mi, it is important that I tap into those strengths to grow my business to develop relationships
  Aundrea Paulk says no one should think they know everything about leadership.
Staff Photo
  BusinessWest
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