Daredevil Spotlight – Ryan Quinn

The Connection – UofL Leadership App

Recently, we posted a blog announcing the completion of the UofL leadership app. Ryan was our spearheading voice in the process. He wanted to create an engaging environment where students and community leaders could foster positive leadership qualities through practice. Through this, Ryan could achieve his dream for himself: unleash moral potential in people during their everyday situations. 

While developing and building a software with us, Ryan’s favorite part was the creative process. He also said he enjoyed the other big kids and daredevils at Slingshot that he got to work with. When we asked him what advice he would give to others building an app, he said simply: “to work with Slingshot.”

Thank you Ryan – for your kind words, and for working to change the world for the better. 

The Daredevil – Ryan Quinn

But who is Ryan Quinn? If you looked at just the surface, you would see Ryan is a husband, father, Christian, and professor at the University of Louisville. Dig a bit deeper, and you would find his passion: helping people and organizations unleash their potential.

When it comes to being more of a big kid or a daredevil, Ryan feels that he is both. He’s creative and fun loving, but also open to taking risks. 

Just like everyone, Ryan has dreams. For his children, he wants them to grow up to be confident, happy, loving, and capable adults. For himself, he wants to unleash moral potential in people and in organizations wherever he can. While not a fan of the lottery, if he suddenly had millions of dollars he’d invest in his children’s future as well as build a non-profit for the underestimated of the world.

In his spare time, Ryan enjoys watching basketball. He loves helping the community and spending time with his children. Eventually he plans to try mountain biking. 

Ryan is also a writer. He’s not only published several papers, but has also written a book. Lift: The Fundamental State of Leadership is about becoming a positive force in any situation. On why he wanted to write a book, he said: “I want to help people become leaders.”

The Purpose – Positive Leadership

He loves being a professor because he gets to help people unleash their potential. “I love teaching at the University of Louisville because it is integrated with its community in a way that few other universities are.”

Ryan’s focus is on positive leadership training. But what is that? We first have to discuss leadership: Ryan says it “occurs when a person exhibits at least one virtue with more excellence than they would have exhibited if they had conformed to convention, and at least one other person feels elevation, gratitude, awe, admiration, or inspiration and chooses to follow as a result.” 

So what is positive leadership? It happens when the leader and the follower both exhibit multiple, distinct, and relevant virtues rather than just one or a few. If both parties aren’t working towards positive leadership, then it doesn’t happen. 

Positive leadership training contains three overarching steps. First, you’ll need to understand what the four virtues of leadership mean in real-life situations. Next, you’ll require practice in acting on those virtues with the intention to inspire others rather than control them. Finally, you’ll want to improve on that understanding and action over time through reflection and re-practicing.

The world needs positive leadership because morals begin with an individual person and their actions. These beliefs then influence how we treat others: those both above and below us on the corporate ladder. 

The Wrap-up

While developing and building a software with us, Ryan’s favorite part was the creative process. He also said he enjoyed the other big kids and daredevils at Slingshot that he got to work with. When we asked him what advice he would give to others building an app, he said simply: “to work with Slingshot.”

Thank you Ryan – for your kind words, and for working to change the world for the better.