Harvard Leadership Magazine - Issue 3

a p ub l i c at i o n o f t he l e a d e r s hi p in st it u t e at h arvar d co l l eg e

Ashley Art Judd &Advocacy plus:

Lessons from Bain & Company Co-Founder George Bennett Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus on Public Service Leadership An Interview with Fmr. NSC Director for Iraq and Afghanistan Brett McGurk

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fall 2010

In this issue

Contents

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Art, Advocacy, Activism: An Interview with Ashley Judd

FALL 2010

Features 〉〉 Entrepreneurship & Leadership in Service 14

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Editor’s Note 18 Entrepreneurship in Unlikely

Places

Esther Hsu

Around THE Campus 3 On Student Governance:

An Interview with UC President

Johnny Bowman & VP Eric Hysen

Peter Chen 5

Finding Waldo: A Boston Entrepreneur Reflects on a Life of Innovation Gabriel Lloyd

19 Positive Change Drop By Drop

Obianujunwa Anakwenze

A Cross Campus Perspective on Asian American Organizations Annie Ye

8 Women in Leadership:

No Longer the Second Sex?

Stuti Joshipura Photos 10 Leadership in Mentorship Quotes 34 Defining Leadership

Alice Li

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22 Leading by Giving Back

Benjamin Brinkopf

Skills 38 All Eyes on You

Reid McCann 39

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A Call to Action: U.S. Sec. of the Navy & Former Mississippi Gov. Ray Mabus on Public Service Yoseph Ayele

27 Art, Advocacy, Activism:

An Interview with Ashley Judd

Kara Kubarych 31

From the Supreme Court to the National Security Council: Brett McGurk on Leadership in Law and Foreign Policy Alexander Sherbany

Spotlight 40 Leadership Classes & Programs

at Harvard

Tunc Kiymaz

Managing Teams: Tips from Tim Murphy, Head Coach of Harvard Football Elizabeth Bates

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editor's note

…What is �eadership?

“The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible, and achieve it, generation after generation.” Pearl S. Buck, winner of the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 1938 Nobel Prize for Literature, recognized the indispensable role that youth play in leadership, entrepeneurship, and innovation. When the Leadership Magazine was founded two years ago, its purpose was to give young people the leadership tools they need in order to pursue and ultimately realize their dreams.

That purpose still stands today. This year we have expanded our content to include two photo spreads and 25 responses from student leaders to the question, “What is leadership?” We worked with the design firm Barrel NY to develop a new design that reflects our core values and objectives. We also reorganized the magazine to make it more accessible to our readers.

The section “Around the Campus” contains diverse articles and interviews about leaders on university campuses. The Features are focused pieces that provide insights into the theme of the issue. Leadership skills articles now comprise their own section, and a shorter piece highlighting four Harvard classes and programs has replaced the Directory of Leadership Opportunities.

In all of our content, we have placed the words of the featured leaders in the foreground. You will find that many of the pieces are interviews and that our articles emphasize quotes taken directly from the leaders. Whether your dream is to start a company (George Bennett, page 14), to provide aid to a continent (Darryl Finkton, page 19), or to improve your school (Harvard Undergraduate Council, page 3), we hope that their words will inspire you as much as they have inspired us.

Masthead

Editor-in-Chief

Han (Angela) Zhang Managing Editor

Alexander Sherbany Publisher

Yoseph Ayele Associate Editors

Kara Kubarych, Alice Li, Gabriel Lloyd Design

Barrel www.barrelny.com Business

Valentin Fernandez, John Tan, Yi Han, Evan Greif, Valerie Chadha, Jia Jia Zhang Staff

Obianujunwa Anakwenze, Elizabeth Bates, Benjamin Brinkopf, Peter Chen, Karen Ding, Melanie Fontes, Stuti Joshipura, Tunc Kiymaz, Kate Ma, Frank Maldonado, Reid McCann, Dalumuzi Mhlanga, Annie Ye Advisory Board

Loren Gary / Associate Director, Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School of Government Anand Venkatesan / Board of Advisors, the Leadership Institute at Harvard College

Han (Angela) Zhang, Editor-in-Chief

Jonathan Doochin / Chair of the Board of Overseers, the Leadership Institute at Harvard College David Ager / Harvard University Department of Sociology —

Special thanks to the Flora Family Foundation, the Harvard Undergraduate Council, the Harvard Office of Student Life, and to the entire Leadership Institute at Harvard College Board of Advisors.

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Around THE Campus

On Student Governance: An Interview with Harvard Undergraduate Council President Johnny Bowman and Vice President Eric Hysen by peter chen Last November, Johnny Bowman and Eric Hysen teamed up to produce a phenomenal Undergraduate Council (UC) presidential campaign that captured the votes of thousands of students on campus. While the dynamic duo maintained a positive reputation throughout the campaign, they had to overcome a controversial challenge to the legitimacy of the election results.

Having weathered that crisis, Johnny and Eric now hold two of the most prestigious leadership positions at Harvard College: UC President and Vice President, respectively. As the face of the student body, these two work with students, administrators, and faculty to improve the lives of Harvard students.

Johnny and Eric sat down with the Leadership Magazine to talk about their roles as UC President and Vice President, about leadership during crisis situations, and about the experiences that shaped their leadership development.

So what exactly do the UC President and Vice President do?

JB: The UC President does what most student organization presidents do: I meet with the executive board once a week to go over all the projects that the UC is up to and I preside over a general meeting of all the UC members. However, there are three main differences. The first is that while most student groups have enough projects to fill an Easter basket, the UC’s could fill Strega Nona’s magical pasta pot. So watching over those is a science unto itself. Another big [difference] is morning meetings in HarvardLeadership.org

the basement of University Hall where the Office of Student Life [OSL] resides.

Eric and I are there at least once a week to drink OSL’s coffee and talk to administrators about UC initiatives new and old.

Finally, I also meet with any students that email me and want to chat about a project they think the UC should take on or about Harvard life in general. This involves a good deal of coffee drinking as well.

So to recap, I a) spend more time on email than health experts advise and b) am 100% addicted to coffee by now.

EH: The VP’s main job is to, along with the President, represent undergrads to the College, Faculty, and University administration at all levels. This means a lot of meetings—the biggest change I saw going from being a UC committee chair to VP is that before I had meetings in University Hall once a month; now I’m there several times a week. It’s a huge time commitment but it’s really important—Johnny and I are the people the Deans turn to when they’re making decisions that affect all of our lives, so our most important job is to present what students want in those situations.

Beyond that, I generally play a sort of utility role on the UC —leading and

helping out with various projects. The Vice President doesn’t have any predefined areas of responsibility here, so I’m able to pick projects to work on based on what needs help and where we can see concrete accomplishments. Recently, I’ve led the advocacy efforts to get student programming during January 2011, and also helped plan the t-shirt distribution and tailgate before the Men’s Lacrosse Game vs. Duke.

The two of you have mentioned that the UC should not always take things so seriously. How have you made the UC more “fun” while still ensuring that it stays true to its responsibility to the students?

JB: We blast techno at the beginning of our big meetings in Sever 113 to get everyone juiced up for serious business.

Also, we have a section in our meetings called “Meet a Rep” that used to involve long descriptions of extracurriculars.

Now they involve lassos and singing.

Also, I don’t know how this has happened, but encounters with methamphetamines have been discussed more than I’m currently comfortable with.

Needless to say people feel safe telling

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around THE campus

On Student Governance: An Interview with Harvard Undergraduate Council President Johnny Bowman…

some outrageous tales. As for the UC’s responsibility to students, that’s something we’re always working to improve.

But as long as we keep delivering (and so far we have with the new room reservations site, expanded housing for winter break, an improved events calendar, a Harvard-wide Craigslist, the Harvard for Haiti campaign, and a pilot program for parties), the techno stays.

EH: A big way we’ve tried to make the UC more fun is to make what we do for students more fun. If all you’re doing on the UC is writing reports and trying to grapple with obscure parliamentary procedure, most people won’t enjoy it and everything will get super-political. If you’re doing fun things like handing out free t-shirts to everyone at dinner, coordinating parties like we’re doing with the Student Initiated Programming fund, or throwing a study break in your House or Yard, then you’ll probably enjoy it more.

The end of the last UC Presidential campaign was marred by controversy. Did the episode make the leadership transition more difficult? If so, how did you overcome the obstacles that arose?

JB: Luckily most of that was dealt with by the end of [the fall] semester. We then had the month of January to say, “That was crazy” and realize that it had no bearing on anything we wanted to do.

Laughing about it turned out to be a very effective method of recovery.

EH: I don’t think it actually made the transition any harder—the controversy was settled before Thanksgiving, so Johnny and I had all of December and

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January to get settled in. The fact that everyone on the UC spent some time at home twice (Thanksgiving & Winter Break) between the election and when we started really helped everyone put the whole thing in perspective.

Some would say that the mark of a leader is the ability to carry a team through any crisis situation. Do you think that the first few months of your term as UC President and Vice President has changed your perception of leadership? What is your perception of leadership and why?

JB: As much as I would have liked to have dealt with the situation, I wasn’t president at the time. It was not my time to lead. I think most of the credit for helping the UC not dissolve into oblivion belongs to [past UC President Andrea Flores]. I think the best thing Eric and I did as the UC’s new leadership was to get right down to business when we came back from January and then make tasteless jokes about what happened at social functions.

This has reinforced one of my perceptions of leadership —leaders should have a good sense of humor as it will save them and everyone else a lot of time and frustration. A sense of humor also allows you to criticize other people’s actions in a way that is not confrontational, which is extremely useful.

EH: I learned a lot from how Andrea handled the post-election period. She did an incredible job keeping the campaigns, UC, student body, administration, and everyone else who was involved in the situation fully aware of what was going on, and allowing everyone to participate in the process. Rather than following

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the standard protocol of having the UC’s Executive Board discuss the situation and make a decision in private, she moved the discussions to the full UC in a widely-advertised, public meeting, and then allowed every student there to ask questions and present their views before any decisions were made.

Real leadership isn’t just making the right decisions, it’s really about making those decisions in the right way to ensure that everyone is involved, and this situation definitely showed me the importance of that.

What experiences taught you the most about leadership? How can others learn to be leaders?

JB: Helping organize hotel workers in Los Angeles was eye-opening. My first week on the job, organizers sat me down and told me the stories of their lives. We were all bawling by the end. For the next six weeks I would have done (and did) anything for them. If you want to build trust, there is no better way to do it than by trusting other people.

EH: In terms of others learning to be leaders, I think the best way is to work closely with someone who’s a good leader. I’ve had to go to leadership trainings and other things like that for student government in the past, and I’ve never found it as useful as watching how a strong leader does their job. I’ve worked closely with the past three sets of UC Presidents & VPs, and in that time I’ve been able to learn from what each of them has done well or struggled with. ■

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around THE campus

A Cross Campus Perspective on Asian American Organizations by Annie Ye What do the acronyms AAA, AASA, and APSC have in common? They are the names of the respective Asian American organizations at Harvard, Yale, Brown, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Harvard’s Asian American Association (AAA), Yale’s Asian American Students Alliance (AASA), Brown’s Asian American Student Association (AASA), and University of Pennsylvania’s Asian Pacific Student Coalition (APSC) all strive towards the same goal: to create and foster a support network for the Asian American community on campus and to raise awareness of Asian American issues among the student body.

In figuring out how to best represent and celebrate their Asian communities, the leaders of each organization have taken creative approaches to designing valuable and effective campus programming. Selected aspects of AAA, AASA, and APSC demonstrate how different approaches to envisioning, developing and leading an organization have allowed the vibrant student groups to thrive.

The Executive Board: Structure and Passion At the heart of every organization is the executive board. Eric Lee (Brown ’10), Co-Chair of Brown’s AASA, lauded his E-Board as the driving force behind AASA. Lee explained,“E-Board is made HarvardLeadership.org

up of different individuals from diverse backgrounds with diverse interests. It’s the passion for helping the Asian American community, among countless other things, that brings us together. AASA keeps us busy…At the beginning of each semester, we try to figure out what the issues we want to work on are, what events or speakers we want this semester, and how we can make it all happen.”

Lee emphasized that “The diversity of our members helps in all these respects.

Each person has personal interests and passions, and they may turn E-Board onto a new issue that Asian Americans face, so we learn from each other a lot.”

The general structure of Brown’s E-Board is similar to that of other

organizations: it has Co-Chairs, a Financial Officer, a Publicity Chair, etc.

However, E-Board does not divide event programming positions into social, cultural, and political divisions. Rather, there is one General Events Chair, but the whole board comes together for event brainstorming, discussion, and implementation. The role of overseeing event execution is often passed around E-Board rather than delegated under the responsibility of the General Events Chair.

Moreover, dedicated E-Board members without positions also help run the events. Although there are elected positions at the end of spring term, there are many unelected individuals who regularly attend E-Board meetings, weigh in

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A Cross campus perspective on asian american organizations

The passion for helping the Asian American community, among countless other things, brings us together.

Left: Yale AASA | Right: Harvard AAA

on discussions, and help staff activities.

Membership: Building Student Community The key to a sustainable organization is not only a motivated executive board, but also a dedicated group of members.

Austin Chu ’11, 2009 Co-President for Harvard’s AAA explained how he was initially drawn to the organization by the people. “I decided to show up to an AAA event, partially because I knew a few people who were going. I met some very interesting and fun people, people who I enjoyed spending time with, as well as people who I looked up to in older classes.”

The social aspect draws people into the organization and continues to be an important part of the experience for group members. Although some prefer educational and political events, Chu has integrated a strong social component into his vision of AAA. “I want to strike a very good balance between social and educational/political events. I think it’s very important to have

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both. Otherwise at the end of the day, nobody feels compelled to be a part of AAA,” Chu remarked.

The goal of AAA, said Chu, is “to foster a sense of community among Asian American students. AAA provides a forum for discussion and for learning, but also provides a forum for socializing and meeting new people. Another important function is easing the transition of Asian American students from high school to college and providing some extracurricular significance to the undergraduate experience at Harvard.”

Vision: Transforming Administration to Action Becoming the president of an organization means upholding its values and mission. But what happens when the leaders decide that the organization they want to serve needs to head in a new direction? Vi Nguyen (Yale ’11), 2009 Co-President of Yale’s AASA, explained, “When we came in as freshmen, AASA threw a lot of events to socialize. When we looked at the Asian American community at Yale, we saw a

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lot of cultural events – cultural shows, pho night, dumpling nights, etc. There was a gap of political involvement and political education, a niche that my Co-President Peter Lu (Yale ’11) and I thought AASA should fill. ” While other campuses may envy such a culturally rich atmosphere, Yale University’s administration added something that would make Asian American groups on other campuses even more jealous: an Asian American Cultural Center complete with a Dean and 10 undergraduate staffers. The Cultural Center provides AASA with great advice, support, and funding to distribute to its member groups. With the University financially backing its events and those of its member groups, Nguyen and Lu decided to expand AAA’s political and educational programming.

Continuing with their momentum, AASA came up with an ingenious method to raise awareness of some striking statistics about the Asian American community. After buying over four thousand fortune cookies, AASA asked

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A Cross campus perspective on asian american organizations

around THE campus

He gave Penn’s President Amy Gutmann an ultimatum: give the campus community the funding for the Asian American Studies Program or there would be 1,000 protesters of all races and backgrounds storming the lawn on College Green the following morning.

Left: Brown AASA | Right: Penn APSC

their member groups to contribute facts rather than fortunes, rolled these statistics up and then placed the cookies in the dining halls. The only complaint that AASA received was that one statistic was too depressing to be in a fortune cookie: “15% of Asian American women have been victim to domestic violence.”

Activism: Fighting for a Community Voice Like Yale’s AASA, the University of Pennsylvania’s APSC is an umbrella organization, but with a much bigger reach. APSC recognizes 20 constituent groups from cultural groups to Greek organizations and from publication to pre-professional organizations. There is a formal application process to join APSC, and organizations can lose APSC recognition if they fail to meet APSC’s constitutional requirements.

In addition, the Chairs of the umbrella minority groups meet monthly with the Vice-Provost for University Life, each semester with the President of the University, and several times a year with Penn’s

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University Council to discuss issues and concerns. This integration enables APSC to function as the mediator between the Asian American student community and the administration, acting as the voice for nearly 25% of Penn’s undergraduate student body.

2009 Executive Vice-Chair Justin Ching (Penn ’11) recalled, “Two years ago, the University tried to end the Asian American Studies Program. In collaboration with the Program’s Undergraduate Advisory Board, APSC championed the cause and collected over 3,000 signatures in support of maintaining Penn’s ASAM Program.”

Ching described how with widespread support he “gave Penn’s President Amy Gutmann an ultimatum: give the campus community the funding for the Asian American Studies Program or there would be 1,000 protesters of all races and backgrounds storming the lawn on College Green the following morning. And as I helped write this letter I asked my cowriter, then APSC Chair Ben Alisuag, ‘really? Are we really demanding this from

the President of Penn?’ And the crazy thing is that an hour before the deadline, in Gmail, a white bar pops up with ‘1 new message’ and Dean DeTurk, the Dean of Academics, basically said ‘you win.’”

What’s Next?

This article has unwittingly served as the impetus of a Pan-Asian Coalition conceived by the leaders of these organizations. This cross-campus coalition strives to bring together the leaders of these four major Asian American organizations to further the discussion of effective group leadership, programming and student innovation. While the formation of this forum is tentative, its mission is clear.

So let us get out of our student group bubbles and reach across campuses to our counterparts who function under different administrations and distinct campus cultures and learn from them.

Learn from their successes, their failures, their enthusiasm, and their frustrations while sharing our own leadership experiences. ■

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Women in Leadership: No Longer the Second Sex?

by Stuti Joshipura

Women in leadership have historically faced lack of recognition despite their influence and success.

The Leadership Magazine interviewed Tessa Lyons, Amy Chen, and Amanda Morejon, three student leaders who demonstrate that women can and will have an important role as leaders on campus and in the world at large.

Tessa Lyons is a co-president of the Harvard Undergraduate Women in Business (HUWIB). She previously served as a Case Team Leader with the Harvard College Consulting Group, a liaison for Harvard Institute of Politics Fellow Jennifer Donahue, and a member of The Harvard Crimson’s business board.

Amy Chen serves as co-president of HUWIB, founded the consulting arm of Harvard Media Ventures, and fundraised for Eleganza 2009. She is the principal clarinetist of the Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra and plays actively in the Boston area.

Amanda Morejon is the Alumni Coordinator for Harvard’s largest student organization, the Phillips Brooks House Association. She is a member of the Harvard Club Soccer Team and is affiliated with Harvard’s Cuban American Undergraduate Student Association and the Athena Program at Harvard.

Have you ever found that you do not receive the same leadership opportunities as men?

TL: I feel fortunate to say that I have yet to experience any form of discrimination.

That said, I think that men and women choose to exhibit leadership differently in different spheres and that these choices can influence the opportunities they receive. I think that this is less applicable to students at Harvard, but in other settings I have seen young women refrain from leading class discussions, facilitating sporting events, etc. By opting out of these forms of everyday leadership, women not only miss out on the opportunity to develop leadership skills but also fail to see themselves as leaders or to be recognized as leaders by their peers. I often feel that there is too much focus on leadership in the formal sense of holding positions of power, when really leadership is something that must be established and reinforced in various settings day after day.

AC: As a college student, I haven’t ever encountered this issue. We live in a new age where a number of steps have been taken to address sexism and take gender

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out of the equation. I have seen incredibly successful female and male leaders on campus, and, in my opinion, merit has served as the crucial factor in electing leaders—not gender.

AM: I hold great feminist ideals as a woman. In my opinion, women are just as capable as males, although society seems to think otherwise. Fortunately, I have not encountered a situation where the male leader has gotten preference over the female leader. However, just because I have not encountered such an occurrence, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen. I am sure that in some places, men are given more leadership opportunities than females.

In your opinion, how is female leadership different from male leadership?

TL: Although it is difficult and not always constructive to make generalizations about leadership styles, I think it is true that female leaders tend to be more collaborative than male leaders. But what I see happening today, especially at the level of college leadership, is that individuals are learning more from each other in HarvardLeadership.org

around THE campus

developing their leadership styles. I hope that soon we will not need to distinguish between feminine leadership and masculine leadership, but will instead be able to form hybrid styles that incorporate the best practices of both.

AC: Based on my experience, female leaders place a greater emphasis on individual development in the context of the larger team. This isn’t to say that this method is better than male leadership, though. Perhaps this element of female leadership is rooted in certain predispositions that are characteristic of women.

Much of my experience with female leaders has been built around a community with a strong sense of responsibility and personal investment between the leader and the individual.

AM: In my opinion, female leadership puts an emphasis on different aspects of an organization. Based on my experience, women focus more on communication while men tend to focus more on developing the organization. Both aspects are integral parts of an organization, which is why it is important to have female and male leaders.

What obstacles have you encountered as a woman leader?

TL: I have at times struggled by being overly collaborative. I think that this can be strength of women’s leadership when appropriately employed, but that it can also be detrimental if it starts to define one’s leadership style rather than being a component of it. I believe that this stems in part from the challenges of separating the professional from the personal that, in my experience, seem to be more difficult for women than for men. This is something that I have had to work on over time HarvardLeadership.org

and I think that the best ways to overcome this and other obstacles are to practice leadership and to learn from the successful leadership styles of others.

AC: One of the biggest challenges I have faced is managing personal relationships in a professional setting. Working with friends in a professional context has been one of the most rewarding experiences I have had on campus, but it certainly comes with its own difficulties, especially when you’re managing a team of both friends and people who you’re less familiar with.

AM: One obstacle is overcoming the stigma of being a woman leader. Many people believe that women are meant to be subservient to men. As a woman leader, I have had to overcome this perception and have had to work harder to gain the trust of my colleagues.

What advice do you give to other aspiring women leaders?

TL: Leadership is not a title. It is a quality that you develop over time. To be a successful leader you must demonstrate it equally in the times when you are in control and the times when you are reporting to others. It is about being committed to a mission, inspiring others, and challenging yourself.

AC: Set clear goals and keep things in perspective. As a leader, you will want to make incredible changes. But at times, you might realize that not everything in your vision can be feasibly achieved; sometimes, maintaining the organization’s current position is a difficult task in itself. You will make mistakes, and, while no one likes failing, it’s often one of the most informative experiences you

can have to develop and grow as leader.

Remember that mistakes can be okay, and be sure that you can learn from them and connect them to the greater context of the goals and objectives you are trying to achieve.

If you want your team to be giving 100 percent, you better be running at at least 200 percent. Your team looks to you to set the standard and tone of their experience. If you expect people to arrive at meetings on time, you better be early—always. If your team experiences a setback, it’s up to you to bring their morale back up and remain optimistic and excited—even if you feel the same way they do.

Be sure that you are invested in the development and experience of each individual in your team. One of the most challenging—yet crucial—aspects of leadership is the ability to motivate others. Know your staff and their individual interests and abilities; this will help you leverage your team’s strengths. I think this is especially applicable to women, who tend to leverage their softer skills more actively in a leadership setting.

Remember to step back from time to time and ensure that you’re enjoying the experience. If you aren’t having fun, chances are, your team isn’t either.

AM: To all other aspiring women leaders, I have three words: follow your dream. As a woman, it’s unfortunate that sometimes men get more opportunities. However, do not let this injustice inhibit your aspirations. It is entirely possible to be a successful woman leader in this society and in fact, a woman’s perspective is very beneficial to society. So again, I say do not let the stigma against women leaders inhibit you. ■

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photos

Leade�ship in Mentorship Leadership is sometimes better seen than described. This issue of the Leadership Magazine features two photo spreads of Harvard students demonstrating leadership through mentorship. Pages 10-11 follow the Harvard Phillips Brooks House Association Chinatown Adventure Camp in Boston. Pages 12-13 show photographs from the Leadership Institute at Harvard College Social Outreach Program in Charlestown, MA.

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leadership in mentorship

photos

Pages 10-11: photos by Kris Snibbe, Harvard Public Affairs and Communications

The Harvard Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) Summer Urban Program runs a set of 12 student-run summer camps for children in Boston and Cambridge. Approximately 150 Harvard students participate in the program each summer. The camps use the city as their classroom, providing 800 youths with curricular, classroom-based enrichment and the opportunity to participate in field trips in and around Boston.

The Chinatown Adventure Summer Urban Program camp specifically works with underprivileged youth in Boston’s Chinatown community. These children face poverty, overcrowded living conditions, and lack of support. The Chinatown Adventure program promotes growth amongst the campers, emphasizing healthy self-identities, high self-esteem, and cross-cultural awareness.

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leadership in mentorship

The Leadership Institute at Harvard College (LIHC) Social Outreach Initiative developed a 10-week youth leadership training program to be taught to students across the world. Combining LIHC’s resources with the outreach infrastructure of Citizen Schools, the program aims to bring a high-level of leadership awareness to students as they go out into the world. The Leadership Institute currently delivers its curriculum to middle school students at the Edwards School in Charleston, MA. Founded in 1995, Citizen Schools is an education nonprofit dedicated to fostering the academic and leadership growth of low-income children across the country. It currently operates a growing national network of after-school programs covering 44 sites in 7 states that serve about 3,800 middle school students and engage approximately 3,200 volunteers. Ninety-one percent of its students qualify for a free or reduced-price lunch.

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feature

A Boston Entrepreneur Reflects on a Life of Innovation

BY GABRIEL LLOYD

Boston has always been a hotbed of creative business leaders—in traditional industries, in the start-up culture of the high tech boom years, and perhaps especially in the field of management consulting.

The Leadership Magazine recently interviewed a native Bostonian whose life of leadership has spanned all three of these areas in a career marked by innovation, discipline, and remarkable success.

George Bennett has been called a “serial entrepreneur,” someone who quickly moves from one start-up to another, leaving a string of successful businesses in his wake. He is a longtime management consultant, a founding partner of Bain & Company, and the founder of the consulting firms Braxton & Associates and Symmetrix, Inc. A graduate of West Virginia University and Carnegie Mellon with a doctorate in industrial engineering, Bennett currently serves as the cofounder and CEO of Health Dialog, a healthcare management company.

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feature

First Launch It was not many years before Bennett launched his first independent venture, the commodities group Braxton & Associates. He did it because he “liked the idea of being the chief executive of a firm and testing [his] wings.” The experience caused Bennett to realize the need for start-ups to continuously adapt to changing circumstances in order to flourish.

When Braxton initially encountered trouble raising sufficient funds as a commodities group, Bennett shifted its focus to consulting.

Braxton’s focus continued to evolve after it became a consulting firm. Bennett initially refused to work with Fortune 500 companies and corporate planners, concentrating instead on smaller companies.

However, an opportunity arose to work with the corporate planning depart-

Most were implemented.”

An example of an inefficient policy that the Commission helped to change occurred within the Census Bureau. The Bureau operated on a strictly cash basis.

If a department wanted to make a large purchase of computers, for instance, it had to cut costs elsewhere. The commission introduced the principle of amortizing expenses over a longer period of time—spreading out the cost of a purchase over the life of the product. “To have a government the stature of ours operating on a cash basis was shocking,” he explained. “That’s the kind of thing that makes business people slap their heads and say, ‘You can’t be serious.’” While many improvements took place, Bennett is quick to note that areas where the U.S. government can still learn from the business world “con-

The single thing that seems to differentiate the effective leaders is the skill with which they decide what not to do.

Early Years Bennett made his start with the Boston Consulting Group, where he began honing the skills and practices that have defined his career. Bill Bain became a key mentor, and within a few years the two of them left BCG to form the consulting firm Bain, Bennett & Graham, later known as Bain & Company. Bennett’s formative years at Bain taught him that there is no substitute for thoroughness.

He notes the danger of latching on to seemingly bright ideas for clients without having done the hundreds of hours of work necessary to understand every detail of the client’s business. “We would only make recommendations,” Bennett recalls, “when we felt we knew what we were talking about… You’ve got to do your homework.”

Bennett also gleaned from those early years the absolute importance of integrity; “People who work for you have to have confidence that you’ve given them the whole story and that they can freely rely on you to do what’s best for them.

Clients have to know you are sincere.”

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ment at DuPont Corporation, one of the largest companies in America. Bennett remembers, “As an entrepreneur I said yes even though it didn’t fit my original mission.” The DuPont contract became the foundation of a soon-to-be flourishing company.

Taking Business to Government In the 1980s, Bennett took a hiatus from business to help establish Ronald Reagan’s Grace Commission. The Commission sought to bring innovative business practices into the federal government, looking to improve efficiency and cut costs. Bennett was one of four individuals who began the process of assembling the commission. The group met with President Reagan each month and created a unique pact with the President.

Bennett recalls, “[Reagan] made a commitment to us that if we would donate our time and money in order to try to bring business practices to government, when we submitted our recommendations to him, he would either implement the recommendations or have a cabinetlevel explanation for why they weren’t.

tinue to abound.” Bennett still assists efforts to address these issues, working closely with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services in recent years.

Finding Waldo After returning to business, Bennett continued his practice of starting and developing successful new ventures.

Three essential ingredients—mission, strategy, and communication—have defined his leadership approach at Bain, Braxton, and now Symmetrix and Health Dialog. On the importance of mission, Bennett notes, “if you want to lead you need to have clarity of mission, whether running a company, an NGO, or any organization.” No venture can make money without carving out a specific market. Bennett’s companies have

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finding waldo

Bennett built his career around his disciplined search for the “Waldo” in each venture he has undertaken. evolved as he works to define in the clearest possible way the institutions’ goals.

Although clarity of purpose is important for leadership, Bennett also observes, “The single thing that seems to differentiate the effective leaders is the skill with which they decide what not to do.”

Leaders must act strategically. Strategy articulates exactly how the mission is to be accomplished. It calls for fierce focus, attention to detail, and clear ways to measure success. Bennett’s focus on strategy and mission has allowed his companies to compete in large industries like management consulting, where hundreds of firms compete for a relatively small number of lucrative accounts.

Bennett also emphasizes the essential role of communication in any institution.

Once a leader has settled on a mission and developed a strategy to achieve that mission, he or she must communicate that mission to his employees and customers.

“You’ve got to listen to your customers, and you’ve got to listen to your staff… [T] he basic rule is it’s impossible to overcommunicate,” he explains. Bennett’s method of communication often revolves around simple metaphors and anecdotes to explain complicated ideas.

One of Bennett’s favorite metaphors captures the spirit of his work and the essence of his approach to leadership.

Bennett often cites the example of the well-known series of children’s books

by Martin Handford entitled Where’s Waldo? These picture books challenge their young readers to find the small, distinctive figure of Waldo in a picture stuffed with images of animals, cars, and buildings. Somewhere in the midst of all the flurry of activity in the pictures can be found the tiny figure of Waldo, visible only through careful examination.

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Bennett says that Waldo represents the “elusive relevant,” and likens the cluttered background to all the distractions contending for the leader’s time, money, and attention.

Bennett built his career around his disciplined search for the “Waldo” in each venture he has undertaken. As a consultant, he sought to help each client’s company pare away the distractions obscuring the “elusive relevant” and make it the center of the business. For nearly a decade, his work in the health care industry has focused on finding the significant inflection points in the health care system where re-engineering, restructuring, or inventive cost- and time-saving processes could make a difference.

Changing Health Care All the principles Bennett has highlighted came into play when he decided to leave the consulting industry to found a health services company. He created Health Dialog, a company that provides analytic services to health insurance companies and telephone- and web-based advice to patients in an effort to cut healthcare costs for both patients and insurers. The venture has received wide acclaim in the medical community, and Bennett worked with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s staff to advise lawmakers on healthcare costcutting measures for inclusion in the recent healthcare bill.

Bennett perfected the relatively simple idea behind Health Dialog with a team of business and medical professionals who have been developing the concept over the last twenty years. Research at the Dartmouth Medical Center into the general effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of healthcare inspired the idea of shared decision-making for patients.

Healthcare strategies that enable patients to be better informed about their diagnoses, protocols for treatment, and statistical outcomes lead to better and ultimately more economical decisions.

“Health Dialog substitutes for a deficiency in the clinical care system,”

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says Bennett. “We deliver longitudinal care outside of the clinical system, such as talking to a diabetic to make sure she complies with medication, eats right, and exercises. Clearly those functions should be part of the clinical health care system, but doctors don’t have the time to spend an hour with each patient.” The company keeps patients better informed about their health and prevents unnecessary doctor’s visits. Bennett believes that the company’s approach will have a major impact: “The seminal ideas of Health Dialog are poised to change healthcare worldwide.”

The formulation of Health Dialog’s mission and the creation of its organizational architecture called upon all of Bennett’s leadership principles. Bennett spent years refining the exact mission of the company; with so many parties involved in the health care industry, it was essential that Health Dialog find a specific focus.. Bennett and his team took care to communicate their vision and strategic plans for the company to its ever-growing staff and also invested time and effort into marketing the company and its revolutionary concepts. Their efforts paid off. Health Dialog earned $3 million in revenues in 1999. In 2007, after eight years of remarkable growth, the company sold for $775 million.

Angel Investing While Bennett is still active on corporate and nonprofit boards, he has recently taken a step back from day-to-day corporate management in part to assume the role of an “angel investor,” business parlance for an individual investor who funds early-stage companies. Having started numerous ventures himself, Bennett occupies a unique position to evaluate the business plans of the next generation of leaders. When young entrepreneurs approach him with ideas for businesses, he uses a deceptively simple methodology to evaluate those ideas, asking one primary question. “Can you produce for me a person who will be among your first HarvardLeadership.org

finding waldo

Most of the great ideas that have changed the world were invented by people who were under twentyfive. Most innovations, however, are incremental changes off of some base. Entrepreneurs that survive are usually a pretty cautious lot.

customers [and] who can explain to me why he will pay for the product you will deliver?” Bennett gains crucial information about the entrepreneur’s plan, strategy, and communication with customers all in one simple inquiry.

Bennett finds a clear pattern of characteristics in the current cohort of young entrepreneurial leaders. First, most successful entrepreneurs have a history of past successes that indicate inner drive. Second, most fruitful ventures benefited from the advice of a mentor at the beginning of its development. Third, successful business leaders have audacity and passion. “I look for raw tenacity,” Bennett says. If a man or woman is going to be an entrepreneur, they have to be tenacious. I don’t mind if they have failed, the question is whether they can stand back up again. There has to be an energy and a fervor about them because it is very hard to survive in the entrepreneurial industry.”

Sometimes, however, past success, effective mentorship, and audacity aren’t enough. While a few great ventures truly change the world, Bennett notes that HarvardLeadership.org

most successful businesses are less groundbreaking, and their leaders more cautious than you might expect. “Most of the great ideas that have changed the world were invented by people who were under twenty-five. Most innovations, however, are incremental changes off of some base. Entrepreneurs that survive are usually a pretty cautious lot.” Bennett remains ambivalent about whether younger entrepreneurs have an advantage over older ones but emphasizes the importance of understanding an industry (and working in it) before attempting to change it.

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privilege. He explains, “You can’t do your work in entrepreneurship if you don’t get renewed, if you aren’t in touch with your community… Community work is a renewing activity, a selfless activity.”

His management and business sense have also proved to be effective tools in his volunteerism. “A lot of the skills I have to have in order to succeed in business have directly translated to community work,” he says. Bennett’s success in service and in the various other endeavors that he has undertaken over the course of his long career have been based on a core set of business principles.

These principles have allowed him to have a remarkable impact on the world around him. In corporate America, public service, and his own community, Bennett has found Waldo. ■

Perspective Despite a hectic schedule, Bennett has stayed committed to volunteerism and serving his community throughout his career. Employing his business acumen, he has served on the boards of the National Youth Science Foundation and the Disease Management Association of America. He has volunteered as a Cub Scout leader and served as a leader in his Boston church. Bennett views his volunteerism not as an obligation, but a fall 2010 Harvard Undergraduate Leadership Magazine

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arrive to these places, find a wobbly bench, a place under a tree, or a random internet cafe, and set up shop the best I can. It is an unpredictable pace—changing scenery and casts of characters, spikes of burning the midnight oil, and uncertain itineraries. But amidst this chaotic life, my teams have been tied together by a commitment to leave a mark that will improve life for people mired in poverty.

The story didn’t start this way. I went into management consulting with Bain & Company after graduating from Penn. I liked the structure and order of a company with a “track,” with formal training and clear assignments. It was the safe, traditional path for a Wharton undergraduate. Consulting was a great option for someone like me- looking to learn and develop, keep doors open, and not commit just yet to any particular industry.

I became an entrepreneur by chance. In many ways, entrepreneurial ventures and opportunities have happened to me. True, I was open to them, not locked in a path or determined to attain one specific goal. I have been fortunate to come across these projects by way of friends, classmates, and a bit of “right place, right time” luck. These entrepreneurial adventures pushed me out of the cubicle comfort zone and into wild places untamed by bureaucratic efficiency.

The skills that may have seemed mundane when used to create PowerPoint slides in consulting helped me to think, communicate, and operate no matter the context. Whether with sugar cane farmers in Swaziland, negotiating yak down prices in China, or visiting homesteads by Lake Victoria, I could put these skills to good use and make life tangibly better for those in need.

My path from college has been defined by seeking new experiences and learning about new places. For better or worse, I have chased opportunities that place me in unknown situations. This has made me more flexible and hardy and more humble about how little I know in the grand scheme of things. I also see how my traditional business skills, academic experiences, and privileged background have positioned me well to take risks.

If someone like me cannot take a leap of faith for fear of failure or a difficult life, who can? I have found a purpose that I did not consciously have in college. I see my academic and professional path preparing and refining me to serve the poor. The personal challenges certainly are not over—I will still wonder which job is right for me, how to balance all the demands of life, and how best to make an impact. But I can hold true to a few things: I can be useful anywhere; my purpose of helping others can be employed no matter where I sit; and I leave the hallowed halls of Harvard with a duty to serve. ■

I

Entrepreneurship in Unlikely Places

by Esther Hsu

● Deep in the isolated and remote Himalaya Mountains where ruddycheeked Tibetans nomads and their loyal pack animals, yaks, reside. ● A parcel of unused land in the Kingdom of Swaziland that would soon give rise to a new crop of gooseberries at the hand of an eager farmer’s wife. ● A small house in rural Uganda where community health workers have been newly trained and mobilized to care for their villages.

Esther Hsu is a 2010 graduate of Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School and a member of the Leadership Institute at Harvard College Board of Overseers.

For more information on Esther’s adventures, check out the website of the organizations that have been important in her path: www.shokay.com, www.technoserve.org, www.tamtamafrica.org.

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photo on facing page by Shreyans Bhansali via Flickr

Darryl Finkton, named one of 32 Rhodes Scholars in 2009 for his academic excellence and demonstrated leadership ability, is not an average Harvard graduate. Before graduating from Harvard College in the spring of 2010, Finkton focused his time on poverty alleviation efforts that have extended across the continent of Africa.

He is best known for engineering and implementing a sustainable-water-delivery system for a 2,000-member community in Agyementi, Ghana that had a water system designed for 300. Finkton’s interest in social change is also evident in his influence within the Boston area. He is the founder of College Bound, a college information program that works to convince students in Roxbury to consider attending college. The Leadership Institute recently had the opportunity to interview Finkton about his work in Africa.

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Water seems like an unlikely vehicle for change. So, why water?

DF: I think change starts from the bottom up. If you live in a country with indoor plumbing, paved roads, and street lights, then you need to make change by improving your educational systems, increasing your economic output, etc. But when you live in a place where children are dying of diarrhea and guinea worm, and other waterborne diseases, then you need to take care of that before you can move onto other issues. Water is basic and Agyementi needed the basics.

Can you tell us about an experience in the field that has really changed you personally or that has changed the direction and goals of your project?

DF: The worst day in Agyementi was a typical day when I was conducting household surveys with my team. I was having a conversation with a lady in the village and eventually I told her that I studied neurobiology and she became really excited. She dragged me over to her son.

He seemed to be about a year old. The boy didn’t look at me or seem to be aware of my presence as I approached him. I touched him to say hi and still nothing.

Then his mother told me that he was 3 years old, could not see, could not walk, and suffered from severe brain damage because of a nutritional deficiency. His mother then told me that the pills would have cost about 1 US dollar.

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Our culture is a “grind for greatness” culture.

After that, I really understood the importance of development and the urgency of the situation. It was really too late for me to do anything for this child but I knew that we had to work to prevent this from happening to others. Since then, we have begun work on developing a model for rural clinics and pharmacies that can combat tragedies like this. I’m doing some research at Children’s Hospital Boston as well to learn more about these deficiencies, the damages they cause, and possible treatments. That day really helped me see how serious simple problems become when you live in dire poverty.

What skills enabled you to maneuver within a vastly different Ghanaian society with the goal of accomplishing such a huge project? It seems like a daunting endeavor.

DF: The African and African American Studies Department did most of that for me. I worked with Professor Charles Owu-Ewie, who is no longer here, to learn Twi and better understand Ghanaian and Akan culture. The rest of the department provided me with advice about how to perform anthropological studies, how to integrate into the community, etc. And my co-director, Sangu Delle, is Ghanaian so that helped too. It was a bit of a culture shock, but then again so was Harvard. Eventually you just adapt.

What best describes the culture of your team, and how has your team changed and expanded your original vision?

DF: Our culture is a “grind for greatness” culture. We constantly criticize each others’ work and strive to improve.

Being surrounded by people who are so good at what they do, I know I am constantly pushing myself to do a better job, research better, design better interventions, and find bigger grants. It is a lot of fun but we know that our task is serious.

We have been able to make a difference but I don’t think we have made a great difference yet. The only way we can get to that level is by critiquing and developing

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ourselves. So we are grinding every day until we reach that status of greatness in our work.

You ended up raising about $50,000 for this project. How did you inspire others to share in your vision and adopt your cause as their own?

DF: Begging [laugh]. We asked everyone who would listen for money and explained why we thought it was important to use research, a grassroots approach, and collaboration to make development work a real success. People believed us and gave us a chance. And when we started to get positive results, they knew we were trustworthy.

Now that you have begun this, how do you plan to sustain it?

DF: In the same way. We have to keep fundraising no matter what. That is the burden of being a non-profit. But I’m excited about it. We are expanding beyond undergraduate work. We have professionals, professors, graduate students, and more [individuals] working with us and it is helping us become more sustainable as an organization. Like with any 501(c)(3), you have to provide motivation for your employees and volunteers beyond financial incentives and I think we are doing that. When people see how our methods work and the changes they can make, they become eager to spread that benefit to more and more people.

What have you taken from your development work in Africa, and what do you hope that others, both here and abroad, will take from it?

DF: The world is a diverse and scary place. I love learning new languages, eating new foods, and hearing traditional stories. It is great to experience new cultures. But it is also key that people understand that there is more to the world than Cambridge, MA. There are people dealing with issues that many of us could not even imagine. I think, as people, it is HarvardLeadership.org

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our job to help others when we have the resources to do so.

Moving forward, are there any other projects that you intend to pursue or any causes that you would like to address?

DF: We are doing several projects right now in places like Northern Ghana, St. Lucia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Uganda, and more. I think it’s only going to keep expanding because there is so much to be done. If anyone is trying to do something positive and they are willing to do the diligence required for them to create some actual change, then I’m always willing to help make that happen.

Is there a person or experience that has shaped your leadership abilities or motivated your drive to lead?

DF: Just life. I just like getting things done that I feel need to be done. Sometimes, I am the one who needs to lead and other times I need to follow. It really doesn’t matter to me which role I have as long as we get the job done. I guess I get that from being the youngest of four kids.

Sometimes I could tag along with my big brother or sisters and they would show me the way to get the things I wanted.

Other times, being the smallest, I had to be able to jump in front of them and convince them to work with their little brother because I had a good idea that I knew would work. I think it’s huge to know how to do both.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to take initiative in his or her own community or even on a global scale?

DF: Ask questions and listen. Chances are, the people in the community you are trying to help already know what they need. They just need your assistance to find the resources to get it done. ■

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THE WATER CRISIS Three Points about Access to Water

1.1 billion people in developing countries lack access to the 20 liters of water a day required for basic human needs. Most of these individuals use 5 liters a day, which is less than the average amount needed to flush a toilet in developed countries.

The water crisis disproportionately affects the poor. Almost two out of three individuals without access to clean water earn less than $2 a day.

The poorest people in the developing world pay some of the world's highest prices for their water, which is often not even sanitary.

Those living in the slums of locations like Manila, the Philippines, Nairobi, Kenya, or Jakarta, Indonesia spend 5 to 10 times more than the wealthy in their own cities. They also spend more than individuals living in London or New York City.

WHAT SHOULD WE DO? We need to ensure that people are aware of water crisis and are actively finding solutions to alleviate the situation. It is especially important that effective and affordable services are offered to the poor.

– Based on findings published in the United National Development Programme 2006 Human Development Report

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Leading by Giving Back

by Benjamin Brinkopf

Dr. Greitens is a Rhodes Scholar, Truman Scholar, White House Fellow, and recipient of the President’s Volunteer Service Award. A decorated Navy SEAL, Dr. Greitens serves as the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of the Center for Citizen Leadership. He currently is a Senior Fellow at the University of Missouri Truman School of Public Affairs and at the Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values at Washington University in St. Louis. He has traveled around the world and provided humanitarian aid in Cambodia, Rwanda, Albania, Mexico, India, Croatia, and Bolivia. Dr. Greitens is the author of “Strength and Compassion,” a collection of photographs and essays from his travels.

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How is leadership incorporated into the Center for Citizen Leadership and what is the vision of the Center’s flagship program, “The Mission Continues?”

EG: “The Mission Continues” allows wounded and disabled veterans to serve their country again—this time not on the battlefields, but in their communities.

After arriving back from my last tour in Iraq, I visited Bethesda Naval Hospital, and each of the Marines I spoke with told me how much they wanted to return to their own units. Many of their injuries, unfortunately, would not allow that, but they each sought to provide some public service. The Center for Citizen Leadership aims to get communities not just to say “thank you” to these veterans, but rather say “we still need you.” That is how we can say thank you to these men: by allowing them to serve again in our communities.

What do your experiences reveal about the importance of leadership?

EG: My experiences overseas have inspired me to promote strength and compassion as characteristics of leaders.

All humans have the capacity for courage and hope, and I believe that what it takes to transform someone’s life is to challenge them. To challenge someone is to believe in that person. As people, we should also try to connect to others who are strong. Connecting with the right people and having them nearby will help determine who you are.

Though most modern literature does not acknowledge the subject, good leadership is about developing the relationships with the people close to you.

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Students of all levels should try to make themselves uncomfortable in positive ways.

Aristotle, in extolling the virtues of man in the Nicomachean Ethics, devoted a chapter on each important value, but he devoted two chapters on friendship, and I believe that is essential to fostering good leaders.

What should students and undergraduates be learning about leadership?

Are there specific lessons that they can acquire?

EG: To improve leadership, students of all levels should try to make themselves uncomfortable in positive ways. They should push themselves to serve in ways that challenge them. Finding our strengths is not like finding our car keys; we cannot discover it by simple exercises. We can, however, develop it in action through service to others. Action and reflection are crucial parts of leadership.

Experiences provide us with the opportunity to learn, but reflection guarantees that we discuss and grow from these explanations. Whether it occurs in the classroom or not, reflecting on experiences, actions and processes will sharpen students’ leadership skills.

Do you have any personal mentors or individuals who impress you with their leadership?

personal example of character, strength, service, compassion and honor. Someone with those qualities makes both a great friend and leader.

What advice would you give to aspiring leaders on campus?

EG: My service with the White House Fellowship Program and my experience with humanitarian missions have shown, either as an academic or policy expert, that working with a service background is critical. Our country is based on a democratic model, and as such, requires compromise from both sides.

Working together to see real change in the world requires compromise and a constant service to others.

It’s easy now to look back on my life and draw a neat line: college, military service, graduate school, etc. But it doesn’t look that way in the moment. For every path that proves to be fruitful, there are seven or eight unseen failures. Leadership requires the quality of perseverance. It demands a lot of great work, and people who I work with exemplify their courage through their perseverance.

If I can pass anything on to undergraduates, I would advise them to keep pushing on. If you believe in your heart to keep going, you will find a way to make it happen. ■

EG: Senator Max Cleland (D-GA) is one of my personal mentors. He epitomizes leading life by serving one’s country regardless of party and ideology. He is a

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——— A ———

CALL TO ACTION: ————

U.S. Secretary of the Navy and Former Mississippi Governor Ray Mabus on Public Service

BY YOSEPH AYELE

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“Do something that is bigger than yourself… [it] is what you will remember most in life.”

Politics and Public Service: Spotlight on the Harvard University Institute of Politics

-United States Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus during his March 2010 address to the Leadership Institute at Harvard College and Harvard undergraduates.

It is fine to want to make money. We all want to succeed and prosper. But Ray Mabus, the current United States Secretary of the Navy, reminds us that the satisfaction derived from money, influence, and personal success is often insubstantial compared to the satisfaction that can be gained from service to our communities, our countries, and our world.

Senior administrators at Harvard spend a great deal of time promoting service activities and encouraging undergraduates to employ their talents in public service or the non-profit sector after graduation. Ray Mabus’s life is an illustration of how people can combine personal ambition with a commitment to serving others.

Born in Ackerman, Mississippi, Mabus grew up helping around the family hardware store. After entering the University of Mississippi, Mabus began to strengthen his lifelong interest in politics. “I really enjoyed running campaigns,” Mabus remembers. “I ran for everything possible, and lost all of them.

But I still enjoyed campaigning.”

After graduation, he served for two years in the United States Navy and earned a Masters Degree in political science from Johns Hopkins and a Law Degree from Harvard Law School. In 1998, the guy who used to lose college campaigns was elected Governor of Mississippi at the age of 39. He became the youngest Governor of his time.

Mabus ran on the slogan “Mississippi Will Never Be Last Again” and is remembered for his comprehensive education reform plan, B.E.S.T. (Better Education for Success Tomorrow). The program gave Mississippi teachers the largest pay raise the nation had seen. Mabus went on

to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. As Secretary of the Navy, he leads 900,000 people and handles an annual budget of $150 billion.

While Mabus is a model of a dedicated career public servant, he also shows that it is possible to serve while working in industries that are seemingly remote from public service. After his ambassadorship to Saudi Arabia, Mabus went back to Mississippi to run his family’s lumber business. The highlight of his career in the corporate world came in 2006 when Mabus became Chairman and CEO of Foamex International, a large manufacturing company on the verge of bankruptcy. Within the span of nine months, he paid all company creditors in full and brought the company back to fiscal solvency. Importantly, Mabus continued to maintain his commitment to service while working in business. Mabus helped meet the needs of children affected by Hurricane Katrina through his work as a founder of the Help and Hope Foundation and also served on the boards of multiple charities.

Mabus’ experiences disprove the commonly held belief that students must make a black-or-white decision when embarking on their careers. Students often believe that they must either become selfish moneymaking machines or work for Teach for America. However, Wall Street financial analysts, consultants, entrepreneurs, educators, and students can all be active in public service. Mabus challenges us to find our desire to serve and to become leaders through our service. By immersing ourselves in causes that are larger than any one of us, we can have a positive impact on our communities and lead more meaningful lives. ■

The Harvard Institute of Politics (IOP) aims to promote interest in public service and leadership among Harvard undergraduates. It features thirteen distinct programs that range from a quarterly journal on politics and public policy to weekly study groups which have recently featured such high profile leaders as former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, President Emeritus of the AFL-CIO John Sweeney, and past Prime Minister of Haiti Michèle Pierre-Louis. Kenzie Bok, the current IOP President, explains, “Those of us in the IOP want to get students to think about how to involve service in their lives either as a career focus or at least as part of what they do on a daily basis.”

Much of the IOP’s programming emphasizes the power of politics to create change. Although many Americans, including Harvard students, retain a cynical view of the political system, Bok and her colleagues at the IOP stress that “politics matters.” “[T]he IOP’s goal,” Bok says, “[is] to demonstrate that altruism has no political ideology and reflects the interest of the community—not as a means to win elections.”

Bok believes that the IOP’s efforts, such as the popular Director’s Internship Program which received over 500 applications for 50 positions last year, will inspire more Harvard students to become involved in service and politics after graduation. She hopes that during her term and in the next five years, the IOP will find even more ways to open doors for students considering public service.

—Frank Maldonado

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relationship with the media, and how do you manage your private/public roles?

How do you define leadership?

RM: The willingness to make decisions and live with consequences; the ability to take a lot of facts and a lot of different circumstances to be able to reach those decisions.

Has there been any advice that someone has given you that you will always remember?

RM: My Dad was very opposed to my entering politics. When he figured out that I was going to do it anyway, he said, “Always be honest. Always be honest about everything, not just about money and things like that. Be honest philosophically, emotionally, about what you are up to.”

How did you handle the transition from the public to private sector? Do you believe that “leadership is leadership” and that you don’t have to adapt your style at all when you work in different areas, or do you find yourself adapting quite a bit when you change from CEO to an Executive Branch position?

RM: I think you change tactics but not strategy. The same skills are there. For example, coming in to this job [U.S. Secretary of Navy], the Pentagon is a huge bureaucracy that moves slowly, and you have to adapt to that. But on the other hand you have a number of amazingly talented people, which we didn’t always have in other positions. I have also thought people can move from one thing to the other. Four years is the longest I have ever held a job in my life,

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and I think […] being able to change, and being able to accept new challenges is what makes life interesting.

When you served as U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, you did not have a lot of formal authority but had a lot of influence. Can you tell us about how you build structure and relationships in a foreign country and lead through influence?

RM: First, it is important for any Ambassador to remember who you are there representing. One of the big temptations is to become a homer, that you are representing Saudi Arabia to the United States instead of vice versa. But second, you do it the same way you do anything. You do it over time; you can’t do it instantly. You have to put the time in, you have to put in the energy, you have to understand the culture and who you are talking to, and you have to be very patient in terms of building those relationships. I have always had a rule in politics: go to see people at least twice before you go to ask them for anything.

Because you have to understand where people are, you have to understand what their concerns are before you start to ask for things and before you start giving advice. I think part of any ambassadorial role or any job like that is trying to get people to do things that are in our best interest and to convince them that it is in their best interest as well.

RM: I think one of my jobs is to get the Navy and Marine stories out there. Such a small percentage of America is in uniform. I think reaching out [and] telling the American people what the Navy and Marines do on a day-to-day basis is an important part of my job. I went to the Daily Show because I like it – I get my news from the Daily Show [laughs]. Plus, the demographic is 18-35 year olds and that is where they get their news. I think they gave an invitation to every Secretary of the Navy to come on. I said “Sure,” I would love to do that.

You mentioned that you went to 20 countries in the past 10 months. Out of the 900,000 people you lead as Secretary of Navy, how many do you get to interact with?

RM: Tens of thousands so far. Part of my job is to go see the sailors and marines, wherever they are in the world, and tell them that we are paying attention to what they are doing and that we appreciate [their work].

You have always said you have the world’s coolest job. Can you tell us an insider Navy story?

RM: It is one of those things you can’t make up. We were in the process of planning to move 8,000 troops out of Guam.

One of the things I was getting briefed on was brown tree snakes because they tend to hide in things and we were trying to keep them out of Hawaii or Texas. And so they said we were setting up an intense inspections program. One of my questions was, can we wipe them out? They said that Tylenol kills them, but they won’t eat Tylenol. So the plan was to put Tylenol into mice and parachute the mice in for the snakes to eat. Who thought of that? We are out there cutting edge on mouse technology [laugh]. 

You have been very engaged with the media as the Secretary of the Navy, appearing on the Daily Show and 60 Minutes. How do you view your

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cover story

While best known for playing leading roles in films, Ashley Judd has emerged as a leader off the screen and in the real world, increasingly devoting her life to service, advocacy, and creative activism. She is famous for having played strong women in films such as Where the Heart Is, High Crimes, Double Jeopardy and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, but she has of late played the more meaningful role of strong woman’s advocate, working internationally to protect vulnerable women and girls from sex trafficking and demonstrating domestically at pro-choice events to empower young women. Judd also serves as a Global Ambassador for YouthAIDS, an international AIDS prevention and treatment program affiliated with the NGO Population Services International.

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art, advocacy, activism: an interview with ashley judd

humanitarian and political work evolved into Judd’s central focus and passion, she sought to further her education in the realm of public leadership and enrolled in the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (HKS) Mid-Career Master in Public Administration program in July 2009. In an interview with the Leadership Magazine, Judd spoke about her nontraditional and little known path to a life of both stardom and service. The journey between the two seemingly opposite worlds began early for Judd, who chose between Hollywood and the Peace Corps when starting her career. But her My responsibility to support and advance work on the screen ultimately prepared her well to advocate, engage, and create human rights, social justice, and gender equality impact in real-life dramas that require a comes from the fact that I am human being. strong voice and active leadership.

As

Celebrities are very public figures with a great deal of power to influence culture and society. How do you view your role as a public figure and what responsibilities do you believe come with your celebrity power?

AJ: Oh dear. I have to say, in general I am uncomfortable with this particular question, which I get rather often.

Because my husband and I live in rural middle Tennessee and in Scotland, and because acting is an intrinsic part of my life but only a part, and due to my disdain for the “C” word and my grave concern regarding the outrageous, out-of-control nature of our celebrity-obsessed culture, I am loathe to even apply that word to myself. I don’t mean to be disingenuous and coyly shirk it; I simply regard it very ambivalently. Yes, because of my success as an artist, for which I am grateful, I have become famous. “Yikes!,” however, is my feeling, not, “yippee!” In keeping with that ambivalence, I do not construct much meaning (that’s a shout out to Bob Kegan) from fame, except in a frankly cautious way.

It brings a bundle of complexities, many quite personal, that people simply do not want to understand, or regard, sometimes a bit angrily, as the price of success an artist should be willing to pay. My responsibility to support and advance human rights, social justice, and gender equality comes from the fact that I am human being. For me, it’s a sacred and spiritual pursuit in response to what the God of my understanding asks me to do. I would hope I would be leveraging more core values and acting on my beliefs irrespective of any vocation—[whether] school teacher, janitor, writer, or executive. It’s not what I do because [of my vocation]; it is who I am.

While many celebrities support charities, your work has involved much more than photo-ops and financial donations. When did you begin to consider public service and

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art, advocacy, activism: an interview with ashley judd

I have a button that says, “I am a shameless agitator.” advocacy as being important to your life and what prompted this change in your thinking?

AJ: I have a button that says, “I am a shameless agitator,” which is probably one of the highest compliments I can pay myself!

At the University of Kentucky in 1986, I became very active with politically themed student groups that in particular were protesting human rights abuses. I was a steady presence at Amnesty International candlelight vigils. I was outraged when a highly respected, senior member of the board of trustees, Gov. “Happy” Chandler, during a meeting at which divesting from [apartheid-era South Africa] was being discussed, said, “Why are we talking about this? Aren’t they just a bunch of n——— down there anyway?”

I organized a campus-wide walkout of classes, asking for his resignation from the board. My friends were in line to have Mr. Chandler sign copies of his autobiography; I was in the smaller line, holding a placard, asking him to give us his seat. I used to listen to LP’s of Father Tutu’s talks that some white South African friends had smuggled out; I listened to U2 records, which helped sensitize and radicalize me.

So, in 2003, when I became involved with DATA, PSI, etc., I was simply picking up where I had left off. Establishing my Hollywood career, while fun and gratifying in its own way, was in some respects a long distraction.

You’ve done a lot of work on behalf of women and children globally, specifically on AIDS initiatives. Can you talk about why you were drawn to this particular cause and what sort of roles you’ve played as an advocate?

AJ: The [line that runs through] all of my work is gender inequality. In all the pressing issues in which I am deeply involved, the lack of equal status of girls and women is central.

How has your acting background prepared you for your ambassadorial and advocacy roles?

AJ: I would say it has helped with knowing my self-care needs and [was] the most helpful way to prepare to speak in public, shoring up the courage of my convictions and [my] willingness to speak from a place of both vulnerability and strength, my feelings and the script, if you will. One of my mentors says, “What comes from the heart, goes straight to the heart. What comes from the head, goes right over the head.” The most compelling acting is filled with feeling, however subtle and nuanced. The public speaking I find most inspirational is similar in this way.

After growing up in the South, moving to Hollywood, and then traveling to remote parts of the world to do outreach, you’ve seen and done more than most. What drew you to Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and what do you hope to gain from the experience?

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CHILDREN UNDER 15 YEARS LIVING WITH HIV, 2008 SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

1,800,000

SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST ASIA 140,000 LATIN AMERICA 31,000 EASTERN EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA 20,000 EAST ASIA

16,000

MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA 15,000 CARIBBEAN 11,000 OCEANIA 1,500 NORTH AMERICA <100 WESTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE <100 GLOBAL: 2.1 MILLION SOURCE: UNAIDS/WHO, NOVEMBER 2009

Women and the HIV/AIDS Epidemic Although awareness of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic is increasing, few realize that the disease disproportionately affects women.

UNAIDS reports that 60 percent of HIV-positive individuals in sub-Saharan Africa are women. There are three times more South African women between 15 and 24 years of age with HIV than South African men in the same age group. HIV is also the leading cause of disease and death among women between 15 and 49 years of age around the world.

Susceptibility to violence and lack of education likely contribute to the high numbers of women who acquire HIV/AIDS. Women

who fear or are already victims of violence are more likely to practice unsafe sex, avoid HIV testing or treatment, and hide their HIV status. Women also have less access to education; two out of three children without schooling are female.

Women who are illiterate are four times as likely to believe that HIV is unpreventable.

Statistics show that African and Latin American girls with education are more likely to delay their first sexual encounter and to insist on protected sex.

Based on the UNAIDS 2010 Factsheet, “Women, Girls, and HIV” available online at www.unaids.org.

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The motivation for leading many is the value of one.

Given your background as an actress, have you ever felt in your advocacy work or in your time here at Harvard that people don’t take you as seriously as they would a trained professional in the field? In essence, do you find that your being a celebrity tends to help or hinder your overall goals?

AJ: It’s none of my business what other people think of me. I don’t concern myself with it. That’s a gift I gave myself years ago. I don’t maintain this boundary impeccably, but it gets easier with time. If anything, based on the volume of unsolicited e-mails and seemingly endless series of requests I receive to participate in various things around school, folks are quite enthusiastic about my being here! That has practically shocked me. I spend a fair amount of time writing back, thanks, but no thanks. My goal here is to be on “receive,” not “transmit!” I want to give back, naturally, but my whole life outside of Harvard is about giving back. This is special moment in time during which I want to take advantage of all this mighty institution and faculty, in particular, have to offer me!

There is a lot of talk at Harvard College about the importance of using leadership for social change. But the notion of “leadership for social change” is not easily defined. How would you define this phrase?

AJ: Using the whole of myself, not just certain parts of myself,

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to carry the message of equality and peace. I don’t segregate my work, or confine it to certain days or domains. Service is a way of life, something I hope to practice with every breath. Every day is the day I must bring Rabbi Hillel’s three questions into my life: If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?

Where do you see yourself in ten years? Will acting still be a large part of your life or will you focus on advocacy and engendering positive change?

AJ: I am more interested in where I see myself in 10 days—in my nightgown, barefoot, in our garden, having quiet time with Dario and our pets! I think it will be wildly interesting to begin reflecting on the year at Harvard, assimilating the experience, processing, savoring, reflecting. Unlike many of my cohort, I did not come here out of midlife crisis, and neither did being here trigger one. I love the configuration of my life and my many portfolios of experience: art, advocacy, activism. Harvard may change the trajectory of my life, or it may not. More will be revealed. Surely, it will be deepened and enhanced.

If you can give one piece of advice to a younger person who wants to enact positive change, what would it be?

AJ: Find a God of your understanding and connect with a spiritual director/mentor. I have lost and re-found my faith many, many times in my humanitarian work. It motivates, informs, and sustains my efforts; it teaches me healthy self-care, which helps me not burn out, make healthy choices, and prioritize the many urgent callings on my life. The world can be a coarse, brutal, tragic place. A dynamic, meaningful, personal spiritual practice helps me persevere with joy, and as Thomas à Kempis said, “Bear a burden that is no burden.” He also said, “Love is a great thing, yeah, a great and thorough good.” I have a lot of love to give and it’s wonderful to have been at Harvard to add deeper intellectual rigor and context to the love I love sharing. This way of life is a gift. ■ HarvardLeadership.org

facing page—headshot: Harvard Institute of Politics; Soldier image: Todd Frantom, Wikipedia Commons

AJ: I was drawn to HKS by the Women and Public Policy Program and the Carr Center for Human Rights. Professors such as Marshall Ganz were difference-makers in terms of attracting me. The coursework related to leadership was very appealing.

Interestingly, if I had had to guess what I would take away from my time here, it would have been an increased capacity to lead large numbers of people, movements, or maybe even constituents. But at present, the core lessons seem to be about preciousness and worth that inheres to every human being. The motivation for leading many is the value of one.

feature

From the Supreme Court to the National Security Council: Brett McGurk on Leadership in Law & Foreign Policy

by Alexander Sherbany

Brett McGurk has experienced leadership at the highest levels of public service in law and foreign policy. A Harvard Institute of Politics Fellow in Fall 2009, he served in several important posts on the National Security Council (NSC) staffs of the Obama and Bush administrations. During the Bush administration, he helped champion the critical “surge” strategy as Director for Iraq and then as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Iraq and Afghanistan. He then served as a Special Advisor to President Obama and a Senior Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. In 2007 and 2008, McGurk was the lead negotiator of a strategic agreement with Iraq governing the presence of U.S. forces and normalizing bilateral relations.

Prior to his NSC service, he was a legal advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority and a key player in the negotiation of Iraq’s interim constitution.

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Brett McGurk on Leadership in Law and Foreign Policy

Those fortunate enough to serve in places like the White House or the Supreme Court must appreciate that they are mere blips in history; and the best we can do is serve the country and preserve the institutions.

In addition to his experience in Middle East policy, McGurk was a Supreme Court law clerk to the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist from 2001 to 2002. He is currently an International Affairs Fellow in Residence at the Council on Foreign Relations and is working on a book about the future of the U.S.-Iraq relationship.

When we hear the word “leader,” we don’t tend to think of judges sitting in a room, sifting evidence and writing legal opinions. How do the Justices on the nation’s highest court “lead”? How do the clerks help them in that role?

BM: Great question. I found the Justices are very aware of their role as a guardians of the constitution and the rule of law. They know the country is watching and they love the institution they serve. To me, the justices led by rarely letting the cases before them impact personal relationships. The nine justices had a lunch together as a group at least once a week – and the Court was a place of respect: for one another, for the institution, from everyone who served there, from the Chief Justice down to the custodial staff. It’s just a special place.

Those fortunate enough to serve in places like the White House or the Supreme Court must appreciate that they are mere blips in history; and the best we can do is serve the country and preserve the institutions. The institutions must live on for hundreds of years; those occupying their offices do so temporarily. Recognizing that fact, seeing your role as one small piece in a larger history, and having humility, is to me a sign of leadership.

security detail who had just asked him to evacuate the building.

“I am not leaving,” he said. “You can tell everyone else to leave.”

Shortly thereafter all “non-essential” employees were told to evacuate. The justices and their clerks and immediate staff stayed. After another 30 minutes, when the security details believed a flight was heading for the capital (that was Flight 93 which crashed in Pennsylvania) we were ordered to leave out the back and run towards Union Station.

The next morning the Chief told us, “the best we can do for the country is not miss a step.” We actually published an opinion that day; you can find it in the U.S. reports. A case about religious freedom, published on September 12, 2001. The anthrax attacks happened a month or so later and the Court held arguments for the first time down the street at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court did not miss a single day of work and never delayed a hearing. It was the leadership of the Chief Justice and all the Justices that made it happen.

The surge would not have happened without a few people inside the U.S. government building the case and then making it – at great risk… to their future reputations and careers.

You clerked for Chief Justice Rehnquist. What was his leadership style?

BM: He was exceedingly humble even after serving on the Supreme Court for nearly 30 years. You know people who take themselves too seriously, often for no reason? Well, the Chief Justice had reason – but he never took himself seriously. The work was deadly serious, and he was deadly serious about it; but the work would end and he would invite us over to play charades or discuss trivia. Staying down to earth is an important trait for a leader. A leader who pretends to live in some rarified air won’t have many people following. And the point of being a leader is to have people follow you. Otherwise, there is nothing to lead.

This was during the time of the 9/11 attacks and the anthrax scare that led to the evacuation of the Supreme Court building, right? How did the Court react and what insights did you gain from the experience?

BM: On the morning of 9/11 I walked into the Chief Justice’s chambers, which were next to my office. The Chief was with his

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After going on to work at a DC law firm and to teach at the University of Virginia, how did you end up helping to write Iraq’s interim constitution in 2004?

BM: I was practicing at a law firm in D.C. in the fall of 2003 when I received a call with an offer to serve in Iraq as a legal advisor working on constitutional issues. It was the type of wrenching offer that I knew could change my life in various ways – but something I could not refuse. I went to Iraq a few weeks later, arriving in early January 2004. The war was not going well at that time and the violence continued to increase throughout 2004. But like anything, you had to learn to live with adversity and focus on the immediate task at hand.

The interim constitution was an important achievement and put in place a roadmap for ending the American occupation.

It stood in place through successive series of elections and a new government. Dealing with the Iraqi political leaders during an intense negotiation like that taught me about the divisions within Iraq and the sorts of issues that could help – slowly and HarvardLeadership.org

Brett McGurk on Leadership in Law and Foreign Policy

deliberately – build confidence and ultimately cement durable compromises. It took rolling up your sleeves and keeping steady day-to-day. That’s another thing leaders must do: remain steady even when the situation is worse than anticipated.

People are watching how a leader reacts to adversity. If the leader has sagging shoulders then you can forget about people following. This is a lesson I experienced first-hand and learned from watching people like General David Petraeus lead in times of tremendous crisis and adversity. Leadership matters. [It] can change institutions, armies, and entire nations.

You later served as Senior Director for Iraq and Afghanistan on the National Security Council. Can you give us an idea of how the NSC works, and how it functioned under President Bush?

BM: The National Security Council in its traditional role coordinates foreign policy between the different departments and agencies of the federal government. But when prosecuting two wars there is nothing traditional about the NSC. It becomes the central hub of war policy – ensuring our military and civilian agencies are acting in concert towards a single goal. We probably did not get this right in Iraq until the surge policy that began in early 2007.

The Bush administration implemented the troop “surge” for the Iraq War against the prevailing sentiment of public opinion. How was that critical decision made, and what role did you play in the change of policy at the NSC? BM: I was involved in the internal deliberations that ultimately led to the surge policy. These began in earnest in the summer of 2006 but the thinking behind the policy began much earlier.

As an advisor to the President of the United States it is your job to ensure as best you can that policy options are fully analyzed with costs, benefits, and risks, before they reach the Oval Office.

By the time President Bush decided on the surge we had nearly eight months of work to back up the empirics and show why the policy had a good chance of succeeding – and why the alternatives to the policy carried an unacceptably high risk.

The surge was hugely unpopular at the time but it was the right policy and it helped turn the tide in the war. To be a leader you must be willing to think hard about the issues before you and fight for what you believe is right no matter how unpopular.

That means thinking for yourself and stepping outside of conventional or bureaucratic wisdom. The surge would not have happened without a few people inside the U.S. government building the case and then making it – at great risk, frankly, to their future reputations and careers.

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On the morning of 9/11 I walked into the Chief Justice’s chambers...The Chief was with his security detail who had just asked him to evacuate the building. “I am not leaving,” he said. “You can tell everyone else to leave.”

What challenges did you encounter as lead negotiator for the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement, and how did you overcome them?

BM: The Status of Forces Agreement was the bookend to the surge policy. It sets in place a long-term framework for relations with Iraq and it charts the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq over 36 months. It also allowed President Obama to enter the Oval Office with a policy that was succeeding, sustainable, and anchored under a binding international agreement.

The agreement itself was entirely unprecedented in that it was a publicly approved and debated document that permitted the presence of foreign troops inside a mostly Arab state. We were not only dealing with intractable issues of military authorities and basing rights but we were also dealing with hundreds of years of history and neighboring states like Iran who pulled out all the stops to block the deal.

The entire process took 18 months and succeeded on account of constant flexibility and adaptation to changing facts and circumstances. I was fortunate by the time I handled the negotiations to have had years of experience in working with the key Iraqi leaders as well as a close relationship with the President who backed his negotiating team in Baghdad at critical moments.

Any tips for students interested in clerking for the Supreme Court or staffing the NSC? BM: Enjoy what you’re doing now, work extremely hard at it, and take some risks. Hard work is the essential element. But if you enjoy what you do then it doesn’t feel like work. With hard work and a positive attitude, doors will open all the time. And when they do, be willing to walk into an unknown experience, out of your comfort zone. ■

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QUOTES

Leadership is challenging people to think deeper, work harder, dream bigger and ultimately achieve more than they believe they are capable of. katie koga, Harvard Phillips Brooks House Association President

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QUOTES

To me, leadership is two-fold: nurturing creative ideas, and making the practical decisions necessary to bring them to fruition.

Hann-Shuin Yew, former President of Harvard Undergraduate Biological Sciences Society

Leadership is getting there early, leaving late, and smiling until others come along.

Nico Kirk-Giannini, Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Ichthus

Leadership is discovering people’s strengths and working collaboratively to develop them.

—Liz Ahern, Intercollegiate Business Convention Chair

Leadership is balancing between idealism and realism.

—Tim Hsieh, former President of Dynamo

Leadership is setting goals, taking risks, being creative, working hard with your team, staying optimistic, and taking responsibility when things go wrong.

—Susan Zhu, Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Independent

Though many different types of personalities can lead effectively, what all leaders have in common is an ability to unite others to achieve a shared vision.

—Lauren White, former Co-President of Harvard Undergraduate Bioethics Society

A good leader is ethical, empathetic, and works with others to do their best for the betterment of everyone.

—Evelyn Chow, President of the Harvard College Social Responsibility Trust

A leader is like the glue of a toothpick bridge: s/he provides the necessary support to fellow members while internalizing a structure for the overall vision of the project.

—Annie Ye, President of Harvard College Association for U.S. - China Relations

Being a leader means inspiring others to do, together, more than what they otherwise thought was possible.

Christine Baugh, former Co-Captain of the Radcliffe Heavyweight Crew Team

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Quotes

defining leadership

Leadership is fostering a positive environment for collaboration and innovation, and, ultimately, inspiring others to be leaders themselves.

Liz Krane, president of Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club

Effective leadership involves coordinating and motivating cooperation amongst a group to create and work towards common goals.

—Amanda Phillips, Co-Captain of the Radcliffe Rugby Team

Leadership is understanding what everyone can bring to the table, and how best to harness their strengths to reach a common goal.

—Evan Hoese, Co-Captain of the Radcliffe Rugby Team

Leadership is the ability to generate and mobilize passion to collectively reach greater goals.

—Jieun Baek, Sarah Yun, and Lena Bae, co-founders and director of Harvard Human Rights in North Korea

I take my definition of leadership from Marshall Ganz, “Leadership is taking responsibility for helping others achieve purpose in the face of uncertainty.”

—Yi Wei, President of Harvard College in Asia Program

Leadership is execution - recognizing when to ‘roll the hard six’ to get the job done.

—Ivan Bochkov, Relay for Life Team Captain

Leadership is vision, planning, management of people and resources, decision-making, self-evaluation. And determination.

—Rashid Yasin, Director of External Relations for the Harvard Islamic Society

Leadership is about bringing together a diverse group of people to solve a collection of problems, and ensuring they can operate without you.

Michael Henderson, Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard College Global Health Review

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defining leadership

Quotes

Leadership is the resolve to harness and motivate the talents and passions of others, optimizing the potential to affect a common cause.

Daniel Balmori, Co-President of the Cuban American Undergraduate Student Association

Being a leader means having the ability to teach others to lead as well.

—Jasmine Rencher, President of the Association of Black Harvard Women

Leadership means empowering and reaching out to others in your community so that they have the desire to contribute the best of themselves to the community, too.

—Athena Lao, Co-President of the Asian American Association

True leadership, to me, is about getting things done-- not by getting people to believe in you, but by inspiring them to believe in themselves, that they’re each directly responsible for fulfilling the shared vision for success —Derek Flanzraich, former President & Founder of On Harvard Time and Harvard Undergraduate Television

Leadership is not about telling others what to do; it’s about helping them realize what they need to do.

—Juan Munoz, Kirkland House Committee Publicity Chair

Leadership is the ability to elicit from people their best.

—Yuga Cohler, Music Director of the Harvard Bach Society Orchestra

Leadership is the ability to perceive and to use individuals’ strengths and weaknesses to create a coherent team.

Taylor Lane, Communications Director for the Harvard Institute of Politics

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skills

All Eyes On You Reid McCann

So says Roger Porter, Dunster House Master and IBM Professor of Business and Government at the Kennedy School of Government. Professor Porter has years of experience talking in front of top leaders in government. His public speaking portfolio ranges from working in the White House under three different presidents to giving the widely acclaimed Dunster House commencement speech each year. Here are Professor Porter’s top seven recommendations to aspiring orators: 1. Begin at the end In preparing a successful speech first ask yourself what is it that you want your audience to remember and to feel at the end of your remarks. Identify no more than a handful of central themes and build the content of your speech around them.

Arrange your central points so that they build on one another. In terms of the structure of your speech, simpler is generally better. Not least, most people will remember how they felt while you spoke longer than they will remember the specifics of what you said.

2. Use Memorable Illustrations You can help your audience remember many of your central themes through the use of an illustration or a story. Every story or illustration should have a point.

It is important that you clarify the message you want your listener to take from a story or illustration. Keep any story or illustration concise so that it does not dominate your ideas.

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“Every person can develop the skills to become a successful public speaker.”

3. Style and Delivery Matter Your demeanor, appearance, and speaking style should not distract from your remarks. Take care to enunciate clearly and to speak at a pace that is fast enough to keep your audience engaged rather than bored, and slow enough so that they can grasp and savor your wisdom.

4. Know Your Environment It is a good idea to visit the venue, if possible, before the time of your speech.

This enables you to visualize the event and avoid being surprised by an unfamiliar environment in front of a large crowd.

5. Connect with Your Audience Treat public speaking like talking with your best friend. Be honest, be personable, and have confidence in what you are saying.

Distance and eye contact also matter. In large auditoriums, people often do not sit in the first few rows. Get as close as possible to your audience so that you can sense how they are processing your remarks. It is easier to tune out a speaker who remains at a distance. If you are able to move close and make eye contact with people, they are more likely to stay focused. If you sense that you are losing their attention, shift gears and make some appropriate adjustments in either your approach or the pace of your delivery.

6. Keep a Record of Your Speech Instead of writing a full-length speech, consider using bullet points as a guide.

Harvard Undergraduate Leadership Magazine fall 2010

This encourages you to speak in a conversational manner rather than merely to read to your audience. Your outline will also serve as a record of your speech.

[You may want to fill in your outline after the speech is over. Immediately after Professor Porter finishes a speech, he writes out the speech as closely as possible to the way he delivered it. It then becomes part of a reservoir of material to draw from when composing future speeches.]

7. Learn from Other Speakers There is no substitute for practice and experience. At the same time, you can learn from observing other speakers. At the next lecture you attend, critique the speaker and determine what they did well and how they might communicate even more effectively. You can then draw lessons for your next presentation.

Harvard is currently petitioning for more speech classes to enable students to develop their communication skills. This is an exciting possibility, but keep in mind that there is a wealth of information out there on how to be a successful speaker.

You don’t need a class to stand in front of a group and speak your opinion. The opportunities surround us every day, and it is important that we use them.

The first step to success is getting out there and doing it. As Professor Porter reminds us, “Anyone can be a good public speaker.” 

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skills

Managing Teams: Tips from Tim Murphy, Head Coach of Harvard Varsity Football Elizabeth Bates

Effective team management and positive group culture are critical to an organization’s success. Tim Murphy, Head Coach of the Harvard Varsity Football Team, understands the importance of building and managing strong teams. He has led the Harvard team to ten consecutive winning seasons and was recently elected a Vice President of the American Football Coaches Association. Murphy emphasizes six points that all leaders should consider when managing their teams: 1. The Importance of Clear Goals The values and goals of a program must be defined (and agreed upon) from the beginning. Members who understand and appreciate both the group’s vision and their role in achieving that vision are motivated to fulfill their responsibilities and to drive growth of the overall organization.

2. Recruitment Matters Recruit people who will contribute to the elusive, intangible, and invaluable asset that is “team chemistry” and only recruit people whom you respect. While it is important to find people who have the ability to raise the caliber of the organization, it is also imperative that these individuals perpetuate rather than antagonize a positive team culture. This minimizes conflict within the group and allows for healthy assimilation of new members.

3. A Team-First Mentality When team members understand that HarvardLeadership.org

Well-known teams and organizations are typically revered for the numbers they put up on the scoreboard or the balance sheet.

But there is more to a team’s success than numbers; a winning group is defined by its members and their ability to work together. what benefits the team takes priority, it is easier to resolve disputes. Rather than deciding who has the better idea, the group will focus on deciding what idea will help the team more. While a member may still be disappointed if her idea is not selected by the group, the team-first mentality allows her to be satisfied knowing that the decision will benefit the team.

4. Conflict as a Force for Positive Change Conflict is inevitable in all organizations, regardless of whether it is a sports team, business, or student-run program.

The method with which a team handles conflict sets great organizations apart from simply good ones. Conflict can be the generator of change, and change can be for the good. It is proof that something is not right with the team. When conflict arises, dealing with and diffusing it is all about communication. What is the problem? Are there underlying issues? How can the group learn from the experience?

5. Peer Accountability and Ownership A strong team is composed of individuals who hold each other to the highest standards. Today’s society places heavy

emphasis on tolerance, which is unquestionably important when applied to areas like religion or race. However, it can also discourage people from voicing constructive criticisms of other people’s ideas or work. For an organization to run well, every member must take ownership of it and hold each other accountable to the values and norms established by the team. Members must respect each other, but they must not be afraid to challenge each other when it is justified.

6. Fostering Leadership It is important to cultivate leaders amongst the members. Teams are strong when every member has the ability to be the “President.” Without leaders at every level of the team or organization, success is unattainable. Coaches and CEOs cannot oversee every detail of their organization. Group members who understand how to lead are also better followers. They gain a deeper understanding of and more respect for other leaders.

Effective teambuilding and team management is integral to the success of all organizations. Experienced leaders prioritize the development of a healthy team culture that promotes accountability, leadership, and mutual respect. 

fall 2010 Harvard Undergraduate Leadership Magazine

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spotlight

SPď&#x201A;&#x2DC;TLIGHT On Leadership Classes Offered at Harvard

Sociology 25

Psychology 1500

Introduction to the Sociology of Organizations This popular class introduces the sociological study of formal organizations and surveys basic concepts, emphases, and approaches. Attention is given to processes within organizations and to relationships between organizations and their environments. Topics covered include bureaucracy, leadership and power in organizations, interorganizational networks, and coordination among organizations.

Psychology of Teams and Leadership This class combines recent theoretical developments and empirical findings with in-class experience to provide students with the knowledge and skills required for effective team management. Students apply theory to the management of team processes through group exercises and discussion of case studies. Topics covered include structuring teams, evaluating team performance, group communication, collective decision-making, team creativity, team problem-solving, conflict management, and team leadership. Psychology 1 is a required prerequisite. If this is of interest to you, sign up fastâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;enrollment is limited to 100.

Compiled by Tunc Kiymaz . Descriptions adapted from the Harvard University Course Catalog.

HIGHLIGHTED LEADERSHIP GROUPS/PROGRAMS AT HARVARD The Program Management Certificate The Program Management Certificate is a seven-session training series that provides tools and knowledge that all program directors and leaders should possess.

Every service program wants to provide high quality and consistent service, but programs are only as good as their leaders. Launched in Spring 2007 through the Harvard Phillip Brooks House Association, the Program Management Certificate was designed by staff and student leaders to teach best practices applicable to all programs.

Participants build their skills and learn ways to improve their programs. As part of a small learning community, participants also create lasting relationships with other campus leaders, enabling better collaboration and best practice sharing.

The following topics are addressed: Visioning, Goal Setting and Leadership, Working with Communities, Volunteer Management, Project and Time Management, Meeting and Reflection Facilitation, Finances and Fundraising, and Program and Self Evaluation.

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Harvard World Model United Nations Interested in world politics? Want to make a difference in the world? How about develop leadership skills? You can combine all these interests at the Harvard World Model United Nations and also have the opportunity to travel the world. The mission of Harvard World Model United Nations is to provide delegates with an understanding of the responsibilities and benefits of global citizenry.

Harvard World Model United Nations (WorldMUN) is the most diverse college-level Model UN conference and the largest outside of North America. In 2009, more than 2,400 delegates from over 50 countries gathered for a week of dynamic cross-cultural exchange in The Hague, Netherlands. Past locations include Beijing, China, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. The conference lasts one week in late March and combines committee sessions during the day with nightly social events. The week provides delegates with a unique way to experience the host country and to learn with students from around the world.

Find dates and registration information at:

Find dates and registration information at:

http://www.publicservicetraining.org/Program_Management_Cert.html

http://www.worldmun.org

Harvard Undergraduate Leadership Magazine fall 2010

HarvardLeadership.org

LIHC THE LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE AT HARVARD COLLEGE

Harvard College’s Premier Student Leadership Organization

HARVARD UNDERGRADUATE LEADERSHIP MAGAZINE The Harvard Undergraduate Leadership Magazine empowers students to examine leadership through a broad array of perspectives, and in doing so, construct their own definitions of leadership. Features include interviews with veteran leaders and articles on developing specific leadership skills. It has circulation at Harvard College, Harvard Business School, and across several other Ivy League universities. Thousands of copies have been distributed at Harvard and beyond.

ExTERNAL RELATIoNS The External Relations (ER) committee connects LIHC with the outside world and builds resources to fulfill the LIHC mission.

ER is engaged in fundraising, organizing internal leadership trainings for LIHC members, and developing partnerships with organizations at Harvard and beyond. One of these organizations is the Ivy Council, a consortium of student governments and distinguished student groups from all eight Ivy League universities.

THE PRESIDENTS’ foRUM The Presidents’ Forum (TPF) aims to promote collaboration and channels of communication between student leaders on campus. It facilitates top-down leadership development by bringing together the presidents, editors, and captains of Harvard’s student organizations and sports teams. TPF hosts intimate discussion forums on topics most relevant to presidents.

Past themes include women’s leadership, sports leadership, developing mentorship programs, and leadership in science.

LEADERSHIP DEVELoPMENT INITIATIVE The Leadership Development Initiative (LDI) works to equip Harvard students with the skills and principles necessary to practice leadership in the world. Through handson training as well as lectures and panels featuring some of society’s most esteemed leaders, students are given opportunities to prepare for future leadership roles. Training topics include: negotiation, public speaking, leadership presence, motivating a team, and more.

SocIAL oUTREAcH The Social Outreach (SO) committee aims to empower middle school students with the values, skills and inner confidence to be leaders and to accomplish positive change in their schools, communities and the world.

Members of Social Outreach teach a 10week leadership curriculum, entitled “Yes We Can Lead” to sixth grade minority students in partnership with Citizen Schools.

LIHC VISION ➜

To develop world-class leaders at Harvard University and promulgate leadership excellence throughout the world.

LIHC MISSION ➜

HarvardLeadership.org

LIHC is devoted to fostering awareness, skills, and values of leadership among Harvard undergraduates. By providing skill-building programs and channels for collaboration between student leaders, LIHC aims to inspire and empower students to fulfill their leadership potential at Harvard, in their communities, and in the world.