Leadership in Transition & Uncertainty

A publication from the Albers School of Business and Economics Executive Education Programs

the Center for Leadership Formation

fall 2020

What’s Inside

Dean’s message

2. A Letter from the Dean 3. Uncertainty, Transition, and the Pursuit of Wiser Leadership 6. Seminal Events-Liminal Time: A Call for Leadership 8. Will You Take the Leading With Values Challenge?

9. Leaders Learn To See The World 10. Trendwatch 12. CLF Staff, Fellows, and Board

T

he last six months have been an unimaginable period of uncertainty for business — and for higher education. The theme for this edition of InSights — “Leadership in Transition and Uncertainty” — could not be more appropriate for this point in time.

Our Center for Leadership Formation (CLF) is undergoing a period of transition, with Dr. Teresa Rothausen joining us to become its new Executive Director. We are excited to have Teresa with us and look forward to her leadership that will continue to expand the positive impact the CLF is so well known for. And let us take one more opportunity to thank Dr. Marilyn Gist for her many years of exceptional vision and outstanding leadership of the center.

We are all learning so much about leadership in our COVID19/BLM world. We are grateful to have thought leaders such as Teresa and Marilyn, and others like longserving program faculty members John Dienhart and Steve Brilling, to pull out some of the important lessons for us to learn from recent events and these interesting times.

It is not news to anyone that higher education is experiencing the most disruptive period it has known since the Second World War, which means anyone now working in higher ed has never seen anything like this. Our CLF faculty and staff worked very hard to pivot our programs in the spring to a virtual world, and I am so proud of the successful work they did. With this new academic year we are ready for anything!

Joseph M. Phillips Dean, Albers School of Business and Economics

The Center for Leadership Formation

albersschool

Albers School of Business and Economics

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Seattle University 901 12th Ave. P.O. Box 222000 Seattle, WA 98122-1090 seattleu.edu/albers/executive

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BY TERESA ROTHAUSEN, PHD

Pandemic: The Game One tradition I cherish is family game night. Some of my offspring and their partners, who are all in their mid ‘20s to early ‘30s, especially love complex board games requiring subtle strategic thinking. One of my sons found such a game several years ago and brought it to family game night.

The game is called Risk, and in it we each represent one region of the world, with the goal to rule all regions.

In this game, it’s either dominate or be dominated.

After we had played Risk several times, my daughter found a different game and suggested we try it. This game is called Pandemic, and in it we all needed to cooperate across different regions of the world, the goal being to save the interdependent health of all people worldwide, before disease spread past the point of no return. Sound familiar? In this game, it’s either win together or die together.

Which game are we playing in our organizations and in our lives?

Pandemic: The reality Though organizations have always cooperated in some form, for the most part, we often operate as if the law of dominate or be dominated rules us,

that it’s “just the way it is.” And this worldview is often emphasized in MBA programs: focus on the interests of the organization first. Give only a passing nod to a wider lens that includes the communities in which the business operates, the sustainability of its operations for the environment we all share, and the health and thriving of other good players in our industry.

The COVID-19 pandemic is teaching us that even when the world appears to work by the laws of “dominate or be dominated,” the reality of interdependence and interconnectedness is operating. That we do not see or focus on it does not make it less real. As we are again learning, this interconnected side of reality will always make itself known, even when—or maybe especially when—we try to ignore it.

Just a Game?

Our last family game night occurred in late February, and it was only our second time playing Pandemic. For the second time, we failed to save the world. But we were learning! We got so much closer than we had the first time we played. We thought we had time, but…well, you know what happened in March. Sometime in mid-March, my

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daughter’s partner texted us all to say, “Wow, I guess we really screwed up losing that last game!”

Contrary to his text, I don’t think there was a direct link between our not saving the world in the game, and the next month’s awakening to the extent of the real pandemic. But I have thought about these two games many times in the months since, because their two very different worldviews reflect something very real, mirroring predictable stages of leader development.

When we transitioned family game night from Risk to Pandemic, it made us see Risk in a new way. Things we thought made sense when playing Risk seemed pretty unwise in the Pandemic world.

Transitions such as this in the real world can provide a window through which we suddenly see that the worlds of society, organizations, and cultures, which we took for granted as “just the way things are,” were in fact created by human beings and can be re-created by us. In 1844, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “Life must be lived on a higher plane. We must go up to a higher platform, to which we are always invited to ascend; there, the whole aspect of things changes.”

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uncertainty, transition, and the pursuit of wiser leadership Continued from page 3

Transitions can give us glimpses from this higher plane, which is always available to us, and which leads to greater wisdom. Leadership and adult development research suggest that learning to hold realities together that at first appear mutually exclusive, and being able to respond from them in balance, is one hallmark of wisdom.

The research tells us that the first, most visible worldview suggests that only the dominator thrives. The second worldview suggests that not only are we all interconnected, but we are so interrelated that any dominator is never secure as long as there are others who have been “dominated.” A third level suggests that both worldviews hold elements of the truth and must be simultaneously and intentionally engaged.

Which of these three worldviews really drives your organization and leadership decisions and actions?

transitions & wisdom Adult development research also tells us that transitions—whether forced on us by external pressures like COVID-19, or coming as internal pressures from our own still, small voices within—often lead to a liminal space in which we realize that how we’ve been understanding ourselves and the world is no longer working for us. It is during these transitions that we either tend to double down on the old way, or use the opportunity to grow in wisdom. The former can lead to leadership stagnation. The latter often results in what I call “Wiser Leadership.”

(I don’t know about you, but wiser is something I can aspire to, whereas to claim to be wise…not so much.)

Just as shifting family game night from Risk to Pandemic made us see the world of Risk in an entirely new light, so too can living through the current pandemic shift our view of our worlds.

It doesn’t mean that the “old” realities no longer exist; it’s just that other realities exist alongside them, and now we can see them. It is an opportunity to climb Emerson’s platform to see how

our old ways are no longer serving us or the world. We see it no longer suffices to play dominate or be dominated while thinking we can give back later because this leads to endless cycles of playing Risk. The liminal space is a window of opportunity to act in ways that recast reality as we know it.

In the liminal space, reality is no longer what it was, but has not yet settled into what it will be. In this space, we have an opportunity to (re-) create our part of the world, and also ourselves as leaders, to align more closely to our true values. Using these opportunities well is another hallmark of Wiser Leadership.

and fear. My students were managers and leaders at organizations like 3M, General Mills, Medtronic, Cargill, as well as small- to mid-sized business and family firms. Like all of us, their impulse was toward their own and loved ones’ survival, and toward others who were suffering more.

What were their leaders doing with these impulses? During this time, and others like it in the past, we have seen with clarity the enormous impact of the direction chosen by leaders.

Where there is fear, leadership can reassure, calm, and pull us together for the common good. Some states saw this in what their governors said and did, and in what business leaders did in response to the pandemic. Or, where there is fear, leadership can exacerbate it and direct it outward, dividing us into enemy camps, as we saw with increased instances of hatred and aggression toward people of specific social identities and backgrounds.

Similarly, where there is compassion, leaders can either make that feel naïve, or unite it toward extraordinary achievements of human spirit.

The outcomes of uniting toward the common good and extraordinary achievement of human spirit are the signs that Wiser Leadership is present.

the role of wiser leadership amid uncertainty

the pursuit of wiser leadership through transition at CLF

You might have seen worldview transitions in your organizations during the pandemic. In my MBA classes on leadership and inclusive leadership in Minneapolis, participants were living through gut-wrenching times at work and home even as we transitioned to all online learning. They were concerned for their own health and the safety of their loved ones working on the front lines in health care and public safety, and facing decreasing household incomes while watching colleagues lose financial security.

What you probably saw in your colleagues, as I did in my students in Minneapolis, was a mix of compassion

Speaking of transitions, I’ve written this article—my inaugural one for Insights as Executive Director of CLF— four times! As I write this version in May, Seattle area businesses are making the decision to continue remote work, where feasible, through the fall, exactly when this message is scheduled to land on your desk. I am winding down an unprecedented semester in the University of St. Thomas-Minnesota MBA programs, where most recently I held the Susan E. Heckler Endowed Chair in Principled Leadership. At the same time, the creative and extraordinary team of CLF faculty and staff are preparing to cap off their own

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unparalleled virtual celebration for the 2020 graduates of the Leadership Executive MBA Program.

I am honored and humbled to have been invited to transition into leadership at CLF. However, the work I will be doing my first year is very different from what I expected, based on the job description and discussions I had had when I accepted the position.

But as it turns out, it is only on one level—the level of operational decisions.

At a more fundamental level, the work is exactly the same—the level of worldviews.

What attracted me to the Executive Leadership certificate and the Leadership Executive MBA programs, which are the flagships of CLF, are the faculty, administrators, and staff who work simultaneously to deliver programs which not only

acknowledge multiple worldviews, but teach our participants skills to hold them together to find new ways to operate their organizations.

At CLF, our programs are distinct for emphasizing the interdependent worldview, which we know is not new. In reality, almost all of the world’s ancient wisdom traditions point us toward it.

Ancient philosophers debated human happiness, some arguing for “get as

Teresa Rothausen is Executive Director of the Center for Leadership Formation (CLF) at Seattle University, where she is also Professor of Management in the Albers School of Business and Economics. Before coming to Seattle University, she held the Susan E. Heckler Endowed Chair in Principled Leadership in the Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, MN (UST), where she was also Professor of Management and John Ireland Scholar. At UST, she chaired the University Tenure and Promotion Committee, was Founding Director of the UST MBA Program, and served as lead faculty in executive development programs.

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At CLF, our programs are distinct for emphasizing the interdependent worldview…

As Founding Director of the UST MBA program, she led a team of faculty and staff though building an award-winning full-time MBA program that included an integrated business simulation, consulting project, and innovative leadership, communications, and ethics labs woven into functional business courses, resulting in job placement of initial graduates at companies including General Mills, Accenture, Wells Fargo, Land O’ Lakes, and United Health Care, and winning AACSB recognition for excellence in quality of curriculum, quality of program management, quality of faculty, and student skills development.

Teresa Rothausen, Ph.D.

much enjoyment as you can” (hedonia) and others for “live a life of meaning, focused on your contribution to others” (eudaimonia). Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed (PBUH) all pointed us toward the death implicit in living only for yourself or for your own friends and family or organization—for people like ourselves, rather than for all.

It’s not that hedonic elements will

Teresa was instrumental in college-wide initiatives that resulted in attracting one of the highest proportions of African-American business faculty in the nation. Led by the dean, Teresa and her colleagues significantly increased diversity within the full-time MBA program until 20% of students were African-American and Hispanic-American and 25% were international. While at UST and in partnership with a colleague from UnitedHealth Group, she developed the pioneering Executive Education Program for Nurse Leaders. Prior to UST, she was Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University and consultant and auditor at Arthur Andersen & Co. Teresa developed Wiser Leadership©, which has been recognized as a ground-breaking approach to leadership development. She writes, speaks, educates, consults, and researches leader development; meaning and purpose in work; well-

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being, satisfaction, engagement, and retention; pluralism and inclusion, masculinity and whiteness in organizations; work-life, vocation, and career; and spirituality in leadership. Her coaching and spiritual leadership practice involves one-on-one and group sessions with leaders from all walks of life. Clients and partners have included 3M, Ameriprise, Thomson Reuters, UnitedHealth Group, and USBank.

Teresa’s research is published in top academic journals, including Journal of Management, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Personnel Psychology, and Journal of Business Ethics.

Her 2019 article on meaning-based job-related well-being was recognized by the editorial board of Journal of Business and Psychology as one of the top 12 contribution from over 800 articles submitted that year. Earlier articles were nominated for the Kanter International Award for Excellence in Work-Family Research and Best Article of the Year in Family Business Review.

Teresa holds a Ph.D. in human resources and industrial relations with specialties in staffing, training, and development and organizational b e h av io r/t h e o r y fro m t h e U nive rsit y of Minnesota, a B.A. with honors in economics from St. Olaf College, and a C.P.A. She was certified as a trainer in diversity, equity, and inclusion by The MultiCultural Institute in Washington D.C., holds a graduate certificate in spiritual direction from St. Catherine University, and did post-doctoral study on the moral and spiritual development of leaders at Harvard Divinity School.

B

y itself, the Covid-19 pandemic was a seminal event. Its implications have obvious consequences for many systems, including global health, domestic health care policy, the economy, education, travel, social connections, and recreation. What may be less obvious are its consequences for transformation of the self and leadership for the betterment of our world.

The pandemic is a shared event that affects each of us in unique ways. We have had to adjust not only how we function in the world on a daily basis, but to how we feel spending so much time with “Self” now that there are fewer distractions. Many of us have found significant challenge in getting right with ourselves. During the first month of the shutdown, several people shared with me that they had come face-to-face with themselves and did not like some of what they now saw.

They were struggling with what to do about that, and they seemed to hope for a quick solution that would return them to an easy relationship with themselves, confident again that they were largely okay. Yet we are now in a liminal phase. Liminality refers to a transitional phase, an essential stage of passage as we move from one state to another. The period in our lives from adolescence through the teen years is a long, liminal phase between childhood and adulthood. And, in the transition from caterpillar to butterfly, liminality is the cocoon phase so essential for transformation and growth. The liminal phase triggered by the pandemic is just as real. We will change significantly through this passage, and it is calling for us to reflect on ‘who I am as an individual.’

Amidst this self-reflection came another seminal event: the killing of George Floyd. Perhaps because our world had slowed down, we noticed this event whereas we seemed to ignore many earlier cases of racial injustice.

People took to streets across the world demanding change. The changes needed to dismantle structural racism will also require more than short-term fixes, so our liminal phase deepened. We are now being asked to consider not only ‘who I am as an individual’ but ‘who I am in relation to the inequities in our world.’

We are forced to examine the ways we have structured

our lives and our society that leave us vulnerable and unprepared and leave so many people behind. And beyond COVID and racial unrest, we know that other pressing challenges demand our attention; among them are the economy, climate change, homelessness, immigration, and extreme wealth disparity.

These events throw a spotlight on leadership. How did we get here? Is it necessary for these problems to be this bad? Why are we so sharply divided? What do we really need and is there a way to move forward together to achieve that? Above all, we need leaders who can work with all stakeholders and inspire them to align around shared goals.

As we near our elections, let’s all consider the most important thing about leadership — the #1 factor in why leaders succeed or fail today. It’s this: leading means relationship. There are so many different stakeholders that leaders have to work with (e.g., employees, customers, suppliers, boards, voters, auditors, legislators). Leaders form relationships with each of them ­­— whether it’s a good relationship, a bad one, or one that’s just so-so. Yet the quality of each relationship determines how well leaders and their stakeholders will work together.

The essential foundation for healthy relationships is humility. Rather than meekness or weakness, leader humility is a tendency to feel and display a deep regard for others’ dignity. We can still be strong and have high standards while respecting others’ sense of self-worth. And working well with stakeholders always rests on how well leaders understand that every human being has and needs a sense of self-worth — of dignity. When leaders fail to recognize and honor this, they damage the relationship. If

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Marilyn Gist, Ph.D.

By Marilyn Gist, PhD

those on the receiving end of offensive behavior are not equal in power, they may not challenge the leader overtly.

But the leader’s behavior will cause resentment, anger, or withdrawal — as opposed to empowerment, engagement, and enthusiasm.

As I show in my book, The Extraordinary Power of Leader Humility, stakeholders have three prime questions when facing a new leader: Who are you? Where are we going? Do you see me? Answers to these questions are mirrored by the following leader behaviors: who I am, the direction I set, and how I treat you. Favorable answers only come when leaders have humility enough to respect the dignity of stakeholders.

And there are specific personal qualities, behaviors, and attention that display deep regard for others’ dignity.

Balanced ego and robust integrity yield favorable answers to who I am. When leaders set a compelling vision for the good of all stakeholders and form ethical strategies to achieve that vision, it enhances “the direction I set.” And generous inclusion of all stakeholders, along with an eye toward supporting their longer-term goals (developmental focus) allows them to feel seen and well treated.

As we move through our liminality, we know we need to address complex and pressing problems of business and society. It’s also clear that we need leaders who can pull us together and forge consensus on a path forward.

Leader humility — displaying genuine regard for others’ dignity — is the foundation for working together. We must seek nothing less as we choose leaders and we must give nothing less as we lead.

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Marilyn Gist is Professor Emerita in the Albers School of Business and Economics. As former Associate Dean, Professor of Management, and Executive Director of the Center for Leadership Formation, she led the design and development of Seattle University’s Leadership EMBA degree program from its inception in 2006 to rank as high as #11 in the nation by US News and World Report.

She began her academic career at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She later joined the University of Washington where she held the Boeing Endowed Professorship of Business Management and served as Faculty Director of Executive MBA programs for many years.

Marilyn speaks, writes, and consults widely on leadership effectiveness and impact. Her research has been highly cited by others, demonstrating exceptional thought leadership. Her book, The Extraordinary Power of Leader Humility: Thriving Organizations – Great Results (September 2020), brings ground-breaking insight into six keys required for leaders to work together with all stakeholders. According to Marshall Goldsmith, “Marilyn Gist’s The Extraordinary Power of Leader Humility, is a must-read for every leader.

There is no more important topic today than humility in leadership!” Ken Blanchard who authored The One-Minute Manager says, “This inspiring book belongs on the desk of every CEO and politician in America.”

Marilyn earned her BA from Howard University and her MBA and PhD from the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is a member of the Academy of Management , American Psychological Association, and the International Women’s Forum.

on leadership in uncertain times Leading during these uncertain times involves many of the basic tenents of adaptive leadership.

This year has certainly confirmed that leaders must prioritize listening to and communicating with their entire team.

Providing open, honest, and direct communication along with engaging your team in conversations must be a priority. Directly invite your team to share the impacts they are feeling and experiencing.

As a leader, your experience, concerns and views on uncertainty and change may be very different than what some, or all, of your team is experiencing.

Understanding where they are is critical. Acknowledge the challenges directly, along with the fact that some may experience these challenges as a significant loss or change in their life.

Avoid communicating with a focus on what steps can be taken to get back to normal or speculating on when they might be able to go back to the way things were. Resist inclinations to apply technical solutions to approximate the old way of doing things. Instead, work with your team to set a new common vision and plan. Be open to the creative possibilities that may spring forth and a future that may look very different from the past. Working together with your team to create a new future instead of spending time and effort making attempts to get back to where you were can open the door for an incredible energy to emerge and carry everyone forward.

Brian Daniels, LEMBA ‘14 Assistant Vice President – Surety Division Philadelphia Insurance Companies

The tumultuousness of the last few months has highlighted the inequities in access to health care, reliable income, and more.

If there is a positive side to the world being “on pause” as we fight the pandemic, it has been our ability to focus on the injustices faced by many in our society. All told, it feels as if the world has been upended.

These are the days when dynamic leaders rise to tackle the uncertainty.

We need to listen to our stakeholders (partners, customers, teams, etc.), actively seek their input, and act on what they tell us. Curiosity, innovation, and adaptability are all key to building what must be, and the leader invites diverse participation to get things started.

Communication and transparency are needed more than ever, now.

Without them, competing narratives surface, to the detriment of our efforts. In these times, we lead by creating a safe environment for others to contribute. We model this leadership through open, honest, and frequent communication. In meeting the challenges ahead, be creative and authentic in the use of these valuable leadership practices.

Finally, choose to embrace the certainty of failures. Each is an opportunity to adapt and align existing plans to a “new normal.” One of many things I have learned on my journey is to fail fast.

Successes are born of these failures.

Leadership has never been an endeavor for the faint of heart. In normal times, it is a trying, frustrating, and sometimes joyful process of learning, failing, getting back up, and starting over. But yesterday’s normal has morphed into an unprecedented trifecta of social and political unrest amidst a global pandemic, and the leadership challenge it presents can only be defined as epic. The path to some version of normal represents uncharted territory for most of us and, as we navigate so much change and uncertainty, a natural tendency might be to lie low and keep quiet so as not to offend or rock the boat. Now is not the time to employ a strategy of avoidance. Now is the time for courageous leadership. We won’t find a new way of operating by dancing around the issues, we will only find the next normal by leading through them.

Courageous leadership means opening the door to difficult conversations and committing to accepting the experience and perspective of another. It means demonstrating humility and seeking to understand, owning mistakes and vowing to learn more, listening for and assuming good intent without jumping to conclusions or taking an offensive stance. None of us has all the answers — and it’s okay. The current environment offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stretch beyond our comfort zone, step up to courageous leadership, and create a vibrant commons as a legacy for those who follow.

Danielle Quint, LEMBA ’18 Head of Operations Director of Business Development, Intellectual Ventures Invention Science Fund

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Dayna Eden, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, HLEMBA ‘16 Chief People Officer Aviation Technical Services (ATS) Inc.

uncertainty, transition, and the pursuit of wiser leadership Continued from page 5

go away, nor should they, as stories in the world’s sacred writings also demonstrate. As E.B. White once said in a 1969 interview with the New York Times, speaking for many of us: “I rise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”

the how of wiser leadership The world cries out for business and organizational leaders who plan their days not only around bettering themselves and their organizations in isolation, but who also deeply integrate the common good into the why, what, how, who, and where of their leadership. What makes the difference between leaders who are absorbed in the Risk worldview to the exclusion of the Pandemic worldview and those who can keep both in balance?

“…we will be here, trying to use the opportunities provided by transitions…”

Most of the world’s great wisdom traditions also provide answers to this. I read a Native American version of this in a novel by William Kent Krueger, a Minnesota mystery writer: “In every human being, there are two wolves constantly fighting. One is fear, and the other is love. Which of the wolves wins the battle? The one you feed. Always the one you feed.” 1 John 4:18 puts it this way: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”

Amid transitions caused by uncertainty, which wolf we feed matters more than ever. It matters now, not only because of the pandemic, but because of urgent issues that were facing humanity before 2020, including crises of environmental sustainability and social justice.

At CLF, we know a lot about helping people learn to feed the right wolf, and we try to do that ourselves. And there is much more for us to do.

So we will be here, trying to use the opportunities provided by transitions—that of business and education to the pandemic, and that of my transition to Executive Director here—to explore how to disseminate what we know about “the how of wisdom” even more effectively and more broadly, always based on the solid foundation that is already built here at CLF, and continuing to learn ourselves. I hope you will support us with your ideas and contributions; please send them to me at teresarothausen@seattleu.edu.

I’ll be writing more about what we know about Wiser Leadership in coming issues. In the meantime, we remember that the way each of us leads now will determine what our organizations and societies look like as we come out of the pandemic. And, unlike my cherished family tradition, this is not a game!

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Will you take the

leading with values

challe ng e ?

T

he Great Recession of 2007-2009 stress-tested the financial resiliency of our business institutions and society in general. In the darkest days, many of us saw our investments shrink by more than 40% and businesses question whether they would survive.

In my consulting practice, I saw leaders who were scared and not sure what new disaster would arrive at our doorstep the following day. The following day has now arrived. Are we better prepared?

Coming out of the recession, there was a cry for contingency planning to better prepare us for another unexpected shock. Now we face a double barrel challenge — keeping ourselves and our companies alive and again confronting the realities of rampant racial and social injustice across our country. Yet, I doubt many of us had that in our contingency plans! What could have helped us better include the concerns we are dealing with now? Perhaps more explicit, broader consideration beyond our perceived short-term needs by bringing in strategies of dealing with longer term systemic problems.

In addition to dealing with basic

survival needs, my clients find themselves needing to address the values that support their mission and vision of the future as these relate to those who have been oppressed in societies. In August 2019, the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs of America’s leading companies, announced it had abandoned its long-held position that shareholder interests should be the prime focus of a corporation and should instead be more inclusive in addressing all stakeholder interests: employees, customers, partners, and society in general. The acknowledgement on the part of major companies that it’s time to move from “It’s all about me” to a more inclusive “It’s about us” is a welcome change.

With today’s growing public discontent over racial, income, health care, and education inequality, this new focus is being put to the test. Will companies, large and small, remember that the challenge moving forward goes beyond keeping their own companies viable? It is more imperative than ever to remember the stakeholders who are part of the life blood of the company.

There are many hard questions that need to be addressed by our business

Steve Brilling Steve Brilling is Clark Nuber’s Family Business Advisor and an Adjunct Professor at Seattle University. Steve has over 30 years of executive leadership experience in financial, educational, and consulting services, holding titles of President, COO, CIO, Associate Partner and Executive Director.

Before joining Clark Nuber, Steve

leaders. Do you bring people back who had to be furloughed or decide you can take advantage of lowering salary costs? Do you listen to your employees who are directly affected by the social unrest witnessed on the streets or say, “That’s not our problem; just show up for work”? Do you seriously address income inequality or continue to pay minimum wages to improve your bottom line? Do you continue to support financial outreach programs that desperately need your help? Do you focus only on who’s in the room, or consider who hasn’t been in our rooms for too long?

In every crisis there is an opportunity.

This time around, I advise reflecting on reinvention of your company through increasing your commitment to the “us.”

Fight the temptation to only focus on cost savings but instead, think about other ways to serve your market and the people in your broader community.

Getting more people in your boat and pulling in the same direction will increase the chance that you will truly realize the values you boldly stated for all to hear.

was the Executive Director of Seattle U niversit y ’s Entrep ren eurship Center as well as their Family Business Director. Prior to this, Steve was the CIO/Senior Vice President at Swiss Re America in New York, and Associate Partner at Andersen Consulting/Accenture in Chicago.

Earlier in his career, Steve worked in several positions at RSI/Sedgwick Re in Seattle, including Chief Operating

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Officer, Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Steve currently serves on the board of Brezza as well as the advisory boards of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center and the School of Theology a n d M i n is t r y, b ot h at S e at tl e University. Steve holds MBA and BA degrees from Washington State University.

Leaders Learn to See the World

Dr. John Dienhart Dr. John Dienhart joined Seattle University’s Albers School of Business and Economics in 1999 as a Professor of Management and the Frank Shrontz Chair for Professional Ethics. John was the Director of the Center for Business Ethics at Albers and the Director of the Northwest Ethics Network, an independent group of ethics and compliance officers from the Pacific Northwest. He is also an Invited Fellow of the Ethics Resource Center in Washington, DC. He consults with and does ethics training for Bonneville Power Administration, Costco, Holland America, Premera, Russell Investment Group, Starbucks, Weyerhaeuser and the Russell Family Foundation. He has worked in business ethics since 1980.

John has his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Illinois at Urbana and is a past President of the Society for Business Ethics, an international group of philosophers, economists, legal theorists, and business people devoted to the study and communication of business ethics and its role in leadership. His comments on business ethics have appeared in newspapers across the country, including the New York Times, The Washington Post, the LA Times, the Puget Sound Business Journal, the Seattle Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

John has published four books, several articles, and made many presentations on ethics and leadership in business. His current focus is on leading organizational cultures to promote ethical behavior and compliance. His approach to the subject is described in his co-authored piece, “The Ethical Commitment to Compliance: Building Value-Based Cultures” (with Tom Tyler of New York University and Terry Thomas, Principal, TRT Consulting, California Management Review (Winter 2008)).

H

aving taught in the Center for Leadership Formation for nearly 20 years, I have been honored to witness executives go through remarkable, positive changes as they move through the program. These changes are the result of their own hard work.

The program provides a liminal space in which executives engage with each other, professors, staff, and coaches in a way that encourages deep and compassionate self reflection.

This deep and compassionate self reflection leads many to develop and deepen themselves as authentic leaders.

In my class, Ethical Leadership, I begin with a “bad luck” exercise. I ask the students to share something bad that has happened to them. What we hear together ranges from getting a speeding ticket to revelations of deep traumas.

I designed the bad luck exercise several years ago and I have found it promotes four important goals. First, leaders bond. Sharing these often intimate stories requires a great level of trust. Second, they realize they all have something in common besides being high achieving executives. No one gets this far in life without having a trauma or two. Third, they see firsthand the strength and resilience of their fellow students. Even those who seem not to have reconciled their traumas do not see themselves as victims. Finally, they witness the courage of those revealing their traumas, as well as the courage they showed in not suppressing them or pretending they never happened.

In my course, and several other courses, students find themselves with assignments and exercises requiring them to face difficult moments in their lives. These situations are structured so students have an opportunity to

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deal with these difficult moments in a constructive way.

Why is this so important? We believe that the best leaders— authentic leaders—see the world as it is, not as they wish it to be or how it “should” be. Only by dealing with the world as it is can leaders begin changing it in a way that promotes human dignity, respect, fairness, and justice.

We also believe the only way individuals can see the world clearly is if they see themselves clearly, not as they wish to be or how they “should” be. Once again, we can only develop if we see ourselves accurately.

In CLF programs, it’s not that we teach the values of human dignity, respect, fairness, and justice. We simply call them out. Together, we examine them, the conflicts they engender, and describe processes for resolving them. And, as T.S. Eliot described, many see these values again as for the first time. Also, like the Bourgeois Gentleman, they realize they have been acting from these values for many years.

“THE BEST LEADERS AUTHENTIC LEADERS - SEE THE WORLD AS IT IS.”

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The Center for Leadership Formation Alumni Association invites you to visit their website for news on events and programming, including quarterly community chats with Teresa Rothausen, Ph.D. Scan the QR code, or visit: https://www.clfaa.org/events.html/

CLF Staff Teresa Rothausen, Ph.D.

CLF Fellows Alan Mulally

Executive Director Center for Leadership Formation Professor of Management Albers School of Business and Economics

Senior Fellow Former President & CEO Ford Motor Company

Phyllis Campbell

Ariel Rosemond

Chairman, Pacific Northwest JP Morgan Chase

Associate Director

Kathleen McGill

Jim Dwyer

Manager, Executive Programs Outreach

President & CEO, Retired Delta Dental of Washington

Lorri Sheffer

Allan Golston

Senior Operations Manager

President, US Program Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Jim Sinegal

Co-Founder & Retired CEO Costco Wholesale

Brian Webster

President & CEO Kestra Medical Technologies, Inc.

CLF Advisory Board Lindsay Anderson

Harvey S. Kanter

Lorrie Baldevia

Jim Klauer

Sallie Bondy

Dr. John Milne

Brad Harlow

Doug Moore

Aaron Howes

Sarah Patterson

O. David Jackson

Dan Wall

Vice President of Quality, Retired Boeing Commercial Airplanes Chief Operating Officer AssuredPartners MCM Director, Business Operations Boeing Fabrication The Boeing Company CEO Cardiac Insight Inc. Vice President, Risk Management & Insurance Expeditors International of Washington Founder and Chief Strategist Jaxx Strategic Partners LLC

President and CEO DXL Group

Senior Vice President, Non-Foods Merchandising Costco Wholesale Sr. Vice President, Real Estate and Construction Providence St. Joseph Hospital President McKinstry Company Executive Vice President & COO Virginia Mason Medical Center President, Global Product Expeditors International of Washington