Staff and students filled seats and lined aisles to hear Dennis Barsema speak Tuesday night in Barsema Hall.

Barsema, a 1977 graduate of NIU who majored in business management, spoke about being an executive in the business world and of the challenges life throws people.

Barsema said passion, goals and values and leadership were the three categories that made him a success.

“You gotta do what you have passion for,” he said.

He said he will always hire someone with passion over someone with only experience.

“If you don’t have passion for what you are doing, you will fail at it eventually,” he said.

He also spoke about the importance of goals and values.

“Goals are very important for when you get off track – and you will get off track in your life,” Barsema said.

Values are even more important than goals, because values should never change, he said.

Barsema said that above everything, trust is the most important part of being a leader.

“Once you get trust, value it with your life, because you can lose it,” he said.

Besides leadership qualities, Barsema spoke about some of the different companies he has worked for and what he has learned. He said he prefers to work for small businesses.

“When I don’t know everyone’s first name, the company is too big,” he said.

He said building discipline is the biggest transition students have to make when leaving college and entering the workforce.

Barsema is currently teaching a class in leadership for assistant professor Jon Briscoe in the College of Business. He will be at NIU until the end of October. He plans to teach an entrepreneurship class next fall.