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Kentucky State University President M. Christopher Brown II was the keynote speaker at the recent graduation ceremony of this year’s Leadership Frankfort class held on the Kentucky State campus.

President Brown asked the graduates to move beyond traditional transactional leadership and embrace transformational leadership.

“Be willing to use your work ethic more than the traditional way,” President Brown said. “Be willing to go beyond the status quo to do something that has never been done.”

A viable solution is not the only solution, President Brown said.

“The reality is all of us are complex thinkers and, as graduates of Leadership Frankfort, clearly effective decision makers,” President Brown said.

President Brown said focus will be placed this semester at Kentucky State on emphasizing the perspective of “my way, your way or a better way.” He’ll be asking employees to consider each month, “what can we do differently than how we have before that will make things better?”

Frankfort is a great place to live and raise a family.

“We can never sell Frankfort short,” he said. “There are small cities that believe they can be bigger in terms of quality of life.”

He referenced an R.L. Sharpe poem, “Princes & Kings” and said, “The Chamber of Commerce can help us all build a Frankfort into a stepping stone if we dare to lead differently.”

Carmen Inman, president/CEO of the Frankfort Area Chamber of Commerce, said 490 people have graduated from the Leadership Frankfort program since its inception in 1991.

Inman presented President Brown with a copy of Find Your Why by Simon Sinek for the Paul G. Blazer Library.