"When I saw Christian from afar while I was coaching at Penn State, I could tell his teammates rallied around him," head men's volleyball coach Jay Hosack said. "When I got to Mason I noticed he's a really good volleyball player and we're lucky to have him."
Redshirt-senior Christian Malias will play his final season of NCAA volleyball eligibility in 2018 for the Patriots. Thanks to his experience and skill, he is a team captain - a title he's had for the last three seasons. Leadership comes in many forms, and there's no limit to ways one can hone their leadership skills.
This past summer, Malias interned at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a government agency located in downtown Washington, D.C. where he worked in performance management.
He found out about the internship through the George Mason career fair. The application process was so competitive that it only accepted resumes for one day due to the high volume of applicants, and took months to decide who will be offered the position.
"I thought 'I'm not gonna get this' but I just applied on a whim," Malias said. "I got a call back months later and I was stoked."
Malias was assigned to the office of human capital, specifically as a performance management intern.
"I sat in a bunch of manager implementation performance training sessions. So my office taught managers how to manage employees, how to motivate them and how to track their performance," Malias said. "I was able to learn and absorb lots of directly relatable and useful knowledge through this experience related to leading teams or as an acting manager."
One of his takeaways was attacking the challenge of working with a bunch of different personalities. As a leader, it's important to know who reacts well to what kind of approach when attempting to motivate someone who's underperforming - whether it's a calm, nice approach or telling them point blank they need to get it together. It applies to both jobs and sports.
"While I was in the room, I was thinking about how I could relate all this back to the volleyball team," he added.
The Orlando, Fla. native was present for these training sessions and was exposed to unique ways of connecting with individuals in situations that called for positive reinforcement, motivational tactics and sometimes even constructive criticism. While Malias wasn't directly responsible for the reports, he credited learning via osmosis toward his interpersonal communication skills development.
"I had the opportunity to learn from, participate in and assist in these training programs," Malias said. "In these sessions I absorbed all of this information and could directly see a connection on how I could effectively transition these practices and tools as a leader of the team at George Mason."
Very complimentary to the people he worked with, Malias called the experience of learning from very well off and established professionals for seven weeks as "incredible."
Additional contributions he had to the CFPB included organizing and leading a Director's Mission Achievement Award ceremony, as well as using his millennial perspective of how to modernize the electronic personnel file records.
While he doesn't rule out returning to work in a government agency, in the long-term Malias has aspirations of being a management consultant. He said the internship was valuable experience and hopefully opened doors toward that quest. For now, his leadership influence will be applied to help guide a Patriots team that is looking to return to the NCAA Tournament after being absent from it last year.
"I want him to lead by example and be the voice of the coaching staff when we're not around," Hosack said. "I want him to be a good ambassador for the volleyball program when talking to external constituents."
Hosack's expectations for his co-captain are convenient since Malias describes his own personality as a "lead by example" leadership style where he doesn't have to say much, but can show how to do things and how hard he can work.
Once January 5 rolls around, Malias will make his first appearance for the Green and Gold since May 3, 2016 when the team was playing in the NCAA Tournament. Due to both shoulder and lower back injuries, he missed the entire 2017 season but obtained an injury-redshirt to give him one more year of eligibility.
In 2016, Malias finished second on the team in kills per set (2.91), service aces (32), third in blocks per set (0.48) and only committed 18 reception errors on 519 attempts. With his spectacular on-court ability and leadership presence in the huddle, this Patriots team with good health is primed for a run at the EIVA crown and beyond.
