Jimmy Collins, former President and Chief Operating Officer of Chick-fil-A, will speak at Shorter University on Monday, Feb. 27, at 11 a.m. in the lobby of the Robert H. Ledbetter College of Business, 232 Shorter Ave., Rome. The event is open to the public at no charge.

Collins lecture is sponsored by Shorter’s Hopkins Institute for Business Ethics, which hosts lectures or seminars featuring notable individuals in government, education, industry, medicine or other fields who are known as ethical leaders. The Hopkins Institute was funded through the generous support of Col. and Mrs. Harvard Hopkins.

Dr. Heath Hooper, Dean of the Ledbetter College of Business, said, “We are honored to have Jimmy Collins return to Shorter University to speak with our students, faculty, and community guests. He is a great communicator who has a great story to tell of his personal journey from being a 12-year-old delivering groceries on his bicycle to retiring as president and COO of Chick-fil-A and becoming a successful author and speaker. I am confident that our students will be inspired by his story and can learn much from the principles he shares as he talks about the concept of ‘Creative Followership.’”

Collins is the author of “Creative Followership: In the Shadow of Greatness,” which details his personal experiences during his quest to become a leader. Along the way, he said he discovered creative followership principles were a better route than the pursuit of leadership roles.

Collins’ profile on LinkedIn states, “(In ‘Creative Followership,) I describe my unrealized search for a formula to become a leader and why I reached the conclusion that leadership cannot be taught. Then, I point out that only those with followers are leaders, and that followers choose a leader with a unifying purpose they can share. That search for a leadership formula was not in vain; it led me to a better path to an effective executive role. The discovery of the Creative Followership Principles and how to apply them proved to be a better route than the over-emphasized pursuit of leadership roles.”

“Creative Followership Principles can be used by anyone, at any level of responsibility, in any organization,” Collins added in the profile.

Collins’ lecture is also part of a four-part series of lectures being held at Shorter University’s Ledbetter College of Business this spring to allow attendees to hear personal success stories and receive advice from business professionals. The series will conclude on April 17 at 11 a.m. with a lecture by Stephanie Graves, Associate Vice President for Marketing at Coosa Valley Credit Union, who earned her Master of Arts in Leadership from Shorter.