Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On View From The Top 20140621

Impact everyone else. He conducted indepth interviews with 550 government and Business Leaders. To find out how they operate. This event was hosted by the Trinity Forum, Nonprofit Organization based in washington d. C. Good evening, everyone. Good evening, and welcome to the evening conversation tonight with d. Michael lindsay on view from the top an inside look at how people in power see and shape the world. We are thrilled by the turn out tonight and if you are Still Standing there are a few seats right over a year, one or two right there as well. Make your way to a spot where you can actually sit comfortably for the rest of the evening. I am the president of the trinity for a manned we are excited to partner with gordon in hosting tonights presentation. I would like to thank the gordons board and staff for their willingness to partner with us and delighted we are joined by trustees from gordon including susie young as well as Trinity Forum Board Members and holiday and bob kramer, Advisory Board member Peter Mcdonald and treated before ands Academy Trustees hearty and carol and gardner. I am delighted so many Academy Alumni and gordon alumni are here tonight. We are delighted you are here and finally we are excited that each and every one of you are here this evening. We think you are going to find this discussion very compelling and since there is not enough time to answer all the audience questions we want to let you know we will be live logging this event so you can follow along on social media on our face book page or on twitter using hash tag trinityforum or hash tag youfromthetop. In addition to being broadcast live on cspan2 tonights presentation will run throughout the weekend on cspans booktv. For those who are not familiar with the forum we provide a space and resources for leaders to engage lifes greatest questions, we believe ideas have consequences and as part of the christian mandate of loving god with all of your mind requires fought for contemplation of the great ideas and questions of our time so it is our mission and our joy to provide publications and programs such as the one tonight to help leaders engage those Big Questions and ultimately to come to better know the author of the answers. It has been said the Great Questions of life essentially boiled down to just three, what is a good person . What is a good life and what is a just society . Our conceptions of and hopes for all three of those questions are necessarily influenced at least in part by the individuals, institutions that shape our lives. So grappling with those Great Questions ushers in another line of inquiry. What is the nature of good leadership . Is it possible to lead wisely and well . It is a question of the enormous importance and perhaps particularly in our time when public trust in leaders in business, government and virtually every institution has plummeted to new lows in the wake of leadership failures. As a supply of trucks were the leaders edens ever more elusive the need to understand how to cultivate and develop such leadership is more urgent and few can address that need with the expertise or insight as our speaker this evening, dr. Michael lindsay. Michael is a prominent sociologist, author and president of Gordon College located outside boston, mass. A graduate of baylor with theology degrees from princeton and oxford as well as the ph. D. In sociology from princeton michael has devoted much of his academic career to the study of leadership. As a professor at Rice University he directed the program for the study of leadership there as well as published his Pulitzer Prize nominated book face in the halls of power which was listed as the best book of 2007 by Publishers Weekly and widely profiled in the new york times, wall street journal, usa today, cnn and cal was other assets. Since assuming the presidency of gordon might collapse leadership expertise has become increasingly practical as well as academic. His relatively short tenure has been accompanied not only by a dramatic increase in application, enrollment and donations for which im sure your trustees thank you but also a new emphasis on chief helping, inspiring a new generation of leaders. Towards that end he has developed, introduced two new programs including the gordon president ial Fellows Program which is modeled after the white house Fellows Program, and what he calls a weeklong leadership laps. He has also just completed the largest ever interviewed based study of leaders the results of which he details in his newest book the view from the top an inside look at how people in power see and shape the world which we invited him to discuss here today. In the conclusion of his remarks he will be joined by his coauthor, m. G. Hager, who i am proud to say is an alumnus of the 24 academy. We are proud to claim her and together they will take audience questions. Michael, welcome. [applause] thank you very much. I wish my folks were here, my dad would be so proud and my mom would actually believe what you said. Tonight i am going to share with you what the last ten years of my life focused on, trying to understand what makes great leaders, what are the motivations that draws them to assume positions of responsibility, how do they manage the challenges and opportunities they encounter within their positions of responsibility, and how do they seek to create a legacy that extends beyond their term in office . A lot of people ask me how did you get a chance to interview 550 amazing individuals . It was a wonderful project that started out as my dissertation at princeton. I am living proof you can write a dissertation your wife will describe as actually interesting. Sold much of the interviews is a matter of being in the right place at the right time. I was out at Silicon Valley conducting some interviews and had a couple hours to kill so i went to the bookstore at stanford university. I had been in the store couple minutes and looked over and out of the corner of my eye, i saw a woman i have been trying to track down for years. A woman who looked exactly like karen hughes. You remember karen hughes . She served as counselor to the president for george w. Bush. I had been trying to get an interview with her for four years and here she wasor so i thought in the flesh. I wasnt positive it was karen hughes. I decided to wait until she spoke so i just sort of eased up beside this woman ended a couple of minutes she said something and i instantly recognize that raspy texan voice and thought this is my big break. And then i realized i have never asked somebody for an interview facetoface. It is like asking somebody out on a date facetoface. What if they say no . Then it is embarrassing. I needed to get my nerves up so i decided to circle around karen hughes which i did, i got to the end of the first circle and decided i am not ready to do this oil will do it a second time. I circled around karen hughes a third time, fourth time, i circled around karen use five times at sanford explore thebook store. At the end of the fifth cycle i decided i am out of here, i left the store. There is a large plaza outside the bookstore and i am out there thinking what was that all about . Why was i so intimidated and concerned with what she would think of me . What if she says no . She will forget it in five minute and i will remember the rest of my life. I decided to go back into the bookstore and went looking for karen use and i cant find her. I thought this is divine punishment. I didnt have the courage early on. Eventually i noticed she is on the second floor at the coffee bar so i start walking up and as i am walking up the stairs i am thinking how the line address her . To whitecollar madam counselor or counselors use, mrs. Hughes . Hey, karen . What am i supposed to say . I was still sorting that out in my mind as i reached her and didnt know what to say so i kept her on the shoulder. Turnaround and i have this habit when i get nervous of having red splotches appear on my neck. I knew i had about 60 seconds before my face would be be read. So i said mrs. Hughes, my name is d. Michael lindsay, i am conducting a study on leaders and will you give me an interview . Said i am not here looking at colleges for my son so this is not a good time but i will give you my phone number and you can call me in a couple months and i would be happy to sit down with you. I took her number and a couple months passed and i gave her a call, i dont know if you remember me, d. Michael lindsay. Yes, the young man who turned bright red at sanford. I said yes, that is me. She gave me an interview, we did it at the adams hotel across the street from the white house and was an amazing interview. Because here was a woman who really was as surprised as anyone that she was in the inner circle of political power. She had not spent her life trying to get there. She happens to be good friends with a man who ran for president , he ended up winning and he invited her to work with him. Once she was in that office, however, she began to wonder is this how i want to live my life . She was working crazy hours, had a teenage son she was never seeing and if you know her story she ended up reminding resigned her position, moving back to austin and at that time i conducted the interview with her. Was grappling with the questions about location and calling, responsibly and influence and she ended up deciding to go back to washington, worked in the state department for a couple of years, she represents in miniature what i found across 550 people i was blessed to get a chance to meet, extraordinary individuals, each of them have their own stories, it had interesting things to offer as we try to understand how does leadership worked in our culture today . I wrote view from the top an inside look at how people in power see and shape the world in the hopes it would inspire the next generation of leaders. It is a book if you are in a position of responsibility will find it resonates with your experience. A lot of the people i have interviewed i picked up copies and send me some emails, theyre not all hate emails. I take that as a good sign. What we tried to do in the story is represent peoples experience as truthfully and honestly as we could and at the same time apply the critical analysis of the social scientists, stories of numbers, big numbers of folks who are represented in the study but also individual experiences and journeys. Four things i thought might be helpful tonight to share that i walk away from the study after ten years thinking is really important. One is the significance of institutional leadership. George hallmeyer is an extraordinary man. And engineer who grew up not far from the university of pennsylvania. His parents were immigrants to this country. He didnt have a lot of money. His dad was a janitor. But he went to college, studied engineering and got a job working for rca. Well he was an engineer very discover the technology that would allow liquid crystal displays, something that we use today. The problem however is george discovered this in 1964 and the leadership at rca wasnt convinced it was all that interesting. So while he tried to persuade his colleagues, in the end he wasnt successful. And the u. S. Lost its competitive advantage. It was the japanese who brought liquid crystal displays to the marketplace in the 1970s and 80s. George is an extraordinary individual but without institutional backing he wasnt able to make a longterm difference the change human history. He still gets the credit for coming up with the invention but most people dont even know his name. Institutions matter far more than i expected starting to study. I thought interviewing 550 people, i would be studying about extraordinary personalities, people with a certain persona. Actually what i found is most of the power in our culture is housed within institutions. So if you dont have that sort of inside connection with the leadership position in an institution you have little chance of making a longterm impact on culture. One extraordinary person i met named marty evans was the first female rear admiral in the u. S. Navy. You went on to serve as the head of the american red cross, commissioner of the ladies professional golf association, been on a number of corporate boards. Remember the tailhook incident that happened in the u. S. Navy and the 1990s . It was an embarrassing situation where there was clear gender bias occurring within the military. Marty was the person who was tasked with leading the task force that would help the u. S. Navy figure out how to create more space for women to serve in combat or leadership positions in the u. S. Navy. Because she was an insider at the institution she was able to bring about a significant change to the u. S. Military. One of the key lessons i tell my students that borden is if you want to have a Lasting Impact you have got to be in the room where decisions are made. That is why institutional leadership matters. The second key element of leadership that we encountered over the course of the study is the value of her leadership. Here is the interesting thing. We found that really doesnt matter much about what you do before age 20. There is no statistical significant relationship between any variable you could imagine and the likelihood of becoming strategic leader later in life. Doesnt matter if your parents were rich or poor, doesnt matter if you were a varsity athlete or student body president. Doesnt matter if you were popular or a nerd. None of those things matter. What does matter is that some time in the early adult stage, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, in the College Years in particular, you need to find a mentor, somebody who will help raise opportunities for you, introduce you to different networks. Theres a wonderful social scientist who wrote a book in the 70s called getting a job. The key finding from his research is it doesnt really matter if your family and friends help you make connections when applying for jobs because they dont have a longterm impact. And said he discovered what he called the strength of weak ties. We get jobs because of the clintons networks. Friends of friends who help make introductions that give us opportunities and in fact that is what i found over the course of my city. Many of the folks who got a leg up in the world achieved that because they were a friend of a friend who made an introduction. One of the key findings of the study is young people have to learn how to maximize the opportunities they are given. Not everybody has the same repertoire of skills or talent but you use what you are given to the maximum potential. Kevin plank was a Football Player at the university of maryland. Kevin wasnt the best student in school, he wasnt the best athlete. Number of his friends were getting drafted to the nfl and he didnt have didnt think it was going to be a possibility. Kevin had always been good at sales. Iran in college of Flour Service where guys could buy roses for their girlfriends on valentines day, ran it out of his dorm room and made a lot of money so he knew he could sell things. One day at the end of the practice, two day practice he was having in late august, in his senior year, he realized he took his shoulder pads off, his tshirt was just waited down with sweat and he thought there has got to be a way in which you can invent a fabric that could somehow with the way the moisture so that you would not have this 5 or 10 pounds youre carrying when trying to perform as an athlete. He literally invented the industry of performance apparel. He took his last 600 while he was sleeping on the couch and his grandmothers house, invested in six different fibers trying to see if this would be the key and it ended up working and that, ladies and gentlemen was the start of under armor. You never know how you take opportunities and backgrounds and experiencess you have got, maximize and leverage them to have a Lasting Impact. Surely leadership, we found, make it huge difference. You have to experience what we call a leadership catalyst. One of was a faculty member at rice we were trying to figure out how could rightcenter into the top 10 institutions nationally ranked. Rice is a wonderful school, number 16, 17, 18 for number of years and they wanted to go to the next level. One of the areas they thought they might invest in what rigorous Leadership Development program that would help elevate contributions of the young people they were serving. Imus task with given the opportunity to look at all volusia Development Programs being running universities in the private sector, Public Sector and see what was working effectively. I looked at 25 that had a lot of promise and actually concluded there was one that was very significant called the white house fellowship, it was started in 1964 by president johnson. Is a program where folks in their 20s who are promising emerging leaders, resign whatever job they had the time, move to washington and come to work for u. S. Cabinet secretary for one year. In that role they are given a chance to see up close how does leadership really work and they take the experience back with them to their respective jobs. The idea according to president johnson is this would raise the leadership quotient of those folks who would go on to occupy Senior Leadership roles, commerce, technology, entertainment and government, not just over the next ten years that the next 50 years. Has been amazingly significant. I was able to be involved in the selection process. I will convince this was extraordinary. Across the table from a guy who was chief of surgery at Johns Hopkins medical school. He wrote a textbook that is using 40 of medical schools across the country and the regular contributor to cnn. He got rejected for the white house fellowship. I decided that is what the rejects look like and i have got to study this program. It is wonderful because some years there will be as many as 2 or 3,000 people who will apply for the white house fellowship and i will narrow down to 30 national finalists. If i never went down to 30, it is hard to tell who should be selected and who shouldnt. Because i was on the inside track, i could tell you there were a lot of things that were idiosyncratic. Data particular candidate tillage of the judges like . Did they make a particular connection with somebody else . You cant tell these folks a part in meaningful ways at that point but if you follow their career trajectories, something emerges. We found among those folks who were finalists but not actually selected to be a fellow, 12 of them go on to be very senior leader, to be the ceo of a fortune 1,000 company will hold a similar position of leadership in their own fields, whether they are medicine, law, entertainment or education, 12 , that is not bad. If you compare that with those folks who are not just finalists for the program but actual white house fellows you see over the course of their career 32 of the golan to hold that position. You cant tell these folks apart. At another moment is one group that is 2. 5 times more likely to assume the pinnacle of leadership in our society. We went about to study what made the program work and i interviewed 100 white house fellows like colin powell, wesley clark, the ceo of levi strauss, j. C. Penney, extraordinary individuals, we did a survey of them, got an 82 response rate, really had an amazing experience, and then i went about the process of building a leader should Development Program models on the White House College of for college students. I was invited to assume the presidency at borden. I will never forget my conversation with the rice president and that went into tell him, he said were really excited about you but i have a question. Whose intellectual property is that study you did . I think it is part of my research. Said i was afraid you going to say that. It is the only program in the country that is modeled on the White House College of program. And between 20 and 40 that significant season, people who have a particular upward trajectory have the opportunity to significantly sharpen the angle of their trajectory and go on to assume significant positions of responsibility in their chosen vocation. In addition to institutional leadership and early leadership we also saw the value of symbolic leadership. It is interesting because i did not realize how much leadership depends on your ability to really lead with your life. So much of what a leader does is measured by how they represent themselves in public. How much they embody the values and virtues of the institutions of which they are a part. It is interesting because some people are incredibly fought for realized even when you are trying to be careful in how you represent your values and ideals you cant always predict how they will be interpreted. Wonderful story as i interviewed condoleezza rice. An amazing woman. Concert pianist, soviet expert, youngest provost at stanford university, National Security adviser and secretary of state. Meeting her was an extraordinary opportunity and as we were conducting the interview i asked her about missteps she had made while in the white house and what did she learn from that . She said i learned that your life is a symbol and people Pay Attention to symbols. What does that mean . She said the remember when Hurricane Katrina hit new orleans . I did. She said i was serving as secretary of state at the time. Secretary of state, i had nothing to do with fear not for the u. S. Governments response to what was happening in new orleans. Was as far removed as you can possibly be. As it turns out, i was in new york for the opening of the General Assembly of the United Nations as the secretary of state should do. I realized i had not packed inappropriate dress for a reception that evening and my staff said they would be happy to get me one. I said no, i have a spare hour, i will run into the store to do it. So she took a spare hour, ran to get address, picked out a dress that was perfectly appropriate and hopped in a cab to get to the un. As it turns out secretary of state is being watched all the time and reporter snapped a picture of dr. Rice walking out with a shopping bag on the same day there was a picture of the devastation happening in new orleans, and she said i realized you have to lead with your life. The fourth approach to leadership we encountered, is that we think differentiate folks, we call platinum leadership. I interviewed 550 amazing people, folks who have done extraordinary things but within that 550, we found there were 22 of them, 120 individuals who had done extraordinary, not only relating and institutions that had national or global scope but they also had been able to maximize the opportunities the came to the in that role and at the same time garner the trust and respect of their colleagues and their peers. Incredibly hard to do in a competitive environment. These platinum leaders we found released apart from other folks. They had the ability to combine the institutional leadership we talked about and the symbolic leadership. They recognize that they could do extraordinary things and so they were individuals who i particularly liked, enjoyed getting to know some because they had a compelling sort of went from persona about how they carried their values with them to take water affect. It turns out one of the individuals who really impressed me was a Senior Vice President of Continental Airlines in the late 1990s, in the 1990s, the Airline Industry was trying to figure out new ways to recognize Revenue Opportunities and david was able to broker a landmark deal that really changed the entire Airline Industry, he brokered a deal with one of continentals competitors where they would sell seats on each others planes, would recognize reciprocal benefits for their frequent fliers. Is laid the groundwork for all the consolidation in the Airline Industry over the last ten years. It started in the late 1990s. Was wildly successful and as a result wall street loved the story and the stock price of continental went through the roof. Because of that, david was untitled as a senior is akin to a nice end of year bonus as was the entire executive team that david and his wife are people of deep faith who want to make sure that their life is commensurate with their values and so they made a decision that they would live beneath their means. They wouldnt always by the fanciest car or live in the biggest house and david realized if the end of year bonus which is a lot of money, we want to give it away. They were particularly wanting to give it to a charity called world vision. There will be less money able to go to that particular organization and so he approached the general counsel at continental to see if he could give back his bonus and if that money could be directed through continentals Corporate Philanthropy to the Charitable Organization of his choice. The lawyer had never heard of an executive wanting to give back their bonus. They had to check the law books to see if this could pass muster. 3 of it was possible. Here is the extraordinary thing. David had the opportunity to use that experience to garner more authority. Because of that, he went around and knock on the doors of all the other executives who were going to get bonuses that year and they all knew that the stock prices gone up because of what david had done. He said you really dont need that million dollars, wouldnt it be great to do something extraordinary . And an end davis was able to use that moral authority to be able to persuade his colleagues to donate a lot more money through continentals Corporate Philanthropy. They looked good, the Company Looks good and they did a lot of good. It is not everyday you get to tell us story about one of your interviewees who happens to be in the room but tonight i am blessed because david is here and i salute you. [applause] i had the pleasure of meeting some Extraordinary People like david and made a difference when given responsibilities and roles. The key thing a leader needs to do if they are going to be a leader over the long haul in 2014 is they have to think institutionally but act personally. We lead with our lives. That is how you the in a way that not only builds your organization that serves. Mary grace served as special assistant. She graduated from rice in 2010. She is an alumnus from which im delighted to say and i know mary grace has been very involved in a lot of the quantitative and Qualitative Analysis from trenton. Since you are one of those twentysomethings michael is talked about quite a bit in the book that like to start off the question by a question to you which is what is your take away as a twentysomething on that journey of a leader . From the analysis what did you kind of pull an application to your own life . Thank you. I started working research in college i remember my senior i was working on the Rhodes Scholars and i spent all day reading their journal and think about wrote scott and i felt those so discouraged because of not going to be a Rhodes Scholar. The only path to success, kind of the next couple of years has been more, i then realized its not, it helps to be a Rhodes Scholar put it comes to come from a family with resources but its not necessary. The plurality of the informants come from middleclass backgrounds but it was encouraging to me to see there is a chance. This is important i think what he thinks in the book is it support to the liberal arts approach to life and really something im thinking about now as a twentysomething is kind of specializing and focusing on something but also being abroad mindset and connections because that skidoo leadership later on. Thank you for great comments today and congratulations on leadership at gordon. Question for you about question of pride and humility and faithfulness. This is a town built on a lot of people clawing to the top and step on others for leadership. Did you find anything in your leadership which indicate these are people who are not seeking to believe but instead seeking, their eyes are on the horizon, on the coal and ownership was a byproduct or were these people trying to figure out how to lead . Thats a very perceptive observation and i have to say that i did find that were some people clawing their way up to the top and their service and samples are not going to name any names tonight, but i also have to say that what ive found is theres a distinct difference between those folks who occupied the very top organizations and those who are the wannabes. I found that those individuals who actually get to the top position, they tend to have a higher degree of personal humility but a deeper degree of institutional pride. That resonates with research that a variety of us folks have done. I found that to be the case in my work as well. Individuals who admitted to making committed to making their life count and to make a difference, it didnt matter so much what their title was and they werent as focused on issues about authority. There some who were, but by and large the majority of the folks, sort of the plant and leaders we talk about, they were individuals who seem to be above that fray. They were committed to trying to make their life count. They didnt want to waste opportunities. I would say there have been times along the way when it probably took steps that may be didnt always reflect their values. Certainly the case, but on the whole they tended to be individuals who found himself an opportunity. Part of it is that they got into the right networks. They were relational entrepreneur is but one of my favorite stories is Vernon Jordan who in the book we found he is the most influential adviser to the Business Community alive today. At one time Vernon Jordan served on 12 fortune 500 ceo boards at the same time. When i asked ceos to name individuals whose counsel they sought, his name came up the most. Hes an extraordinary individual. Vernon jordan said i have never applied for a job in my life. It helps that he made friends in powerful places. But early on he had a real commitment to a sense of calling and vision. He was involved in civil rights, went to go study with political scientist at harvard and that opened up a lot of doors. I found that to be more often the case. My question is similar actually. I write for the christian post. And it seems like almost every week we are writing about the failures of some evangelical leader, pastor or the leader of an evangelical organization, it seems like there some comments that i see in all these stories and that is looking at people with humongous egos and little accountability, as i am listening to speak im wondering, is that a problem that you need to the evangelical world or is that something that you see elsewhere with leaders . I dont think evangelicals have a corner on the market, moral failure or of a lack of accountability. But if you think theres something that is entrepreneurial, a lot of startups kind of organizations and startup churches. Within that entrepreneurial ethos that tends not to be the same kind of institutional structures that create the sense of accountability which is why weve done institutions really do matter for longterm success. So one bit of advice i give him people who really want to lead well over the long haul is for them to develop a network of friends who they know from an early part of their career who can hold them accountable from some hard questions about life. Truthfully the things they get folks in trouble are quite common, its sex, money and power. So you need friends who will ask you some hard questions, are you being faithful in your marriage . How are you handling your finances . And who is keeping grounded so you dont begin to believe your own press . And the people who i interviewed who had that platinum style leadership have found ways in which individuals could hold them accountable. Wonderful story of a great guy, john gannon was ceo of bankunited. John has maintain friendships from high school. These are the folks who need vacations with, and then way of keeping him grounded. That kind of approach i found it incredible help her regardless of your faith. Its important to have accountability. Up here in front. Good evening. Im a 2012 recent grad of Gordon College and since moving go fighting scott spent exactly. Played field hockey for all of one season. As a young professional in International Development who takes seriously both the power of Decision Makers and the distance between my office in d. C. And the places where we work, i was wondering if you could speak to the distance between those places of power and views that are not from the top . As someone also very interested in institutional power and change, did you find any things or suggestions for how reoriented those institutions towards change that a christian commitment or a commitment to all views would offer . One of the things we say in the book, which is an area for real critique, many other leaders we found is their lack of attention, really a blind spot, of their awareness about the issue of executive compensation, excessive compensation the road to their public trust. Its striking to i individually visit and ive no idea how much money i make less you. I said thats because you make so much you stop counting it. Teammate 37 million the year before. The number of executives who were completely oblivious to how executive compensation becomes emblematic of the inability to connect with the experiences of ordinary americans, significantly diminishes their symbolic leadership. I did find some wonderful counterexamples who, their stories have been galvanized. I was sure one that happen a number of years ago thats been helpful for a number of Business Leaders. A seat a ceo of the furniture company, max had a regular practice of walking the factory floor. One day he was having conversation with a guy who is working in the factory who didnt have a college degree, an older gentleman who maxed said he had never really been a culture rated into the niceties of what you asked the ceo and what you dont ask the ceo. And he said somewhere in the conversation the topic came up about makes it how much weight you may . In a moment i was embarrassed to injury and. Because i realized i couldnt justify why my salary was so different from his. Historically the average differential from the top employed to the lowest paid employee within the company is about 45 to one. So if the lowest paid employee made 1000 a year, the top paid employee makes 45,000 or so you. Max had learned historically it was about 20 to one. We went to his board and said i would like for us to cap my salary so that it is connected to be 20 times that of the lowest paid employee. You might say welcome peace in n the 20 times. Thats a lot better than the National Average today which is 150 to one. So i did find some examples of folks were willing to think about how their powerful an influence could be a properly channeled enough they could put boundaries on their life to try to bridal things like compensation to but there are not enough examples. Perhaps you would bill to lead the way. Question in the back. Thank you so much. My name is mark. I was a class envy nine from gordon and its a treat to hear from you. Class of 89 that any given time, we can all be leaders, right . At gordon not all the students there will be leaders in a particular field at a given time. May be leaders in home and other places. And i think about raising my voice, what i try to teach them about leadership. And i think the best message i give them is, guys, i want you to spot opportunities to do whats good and excellent and fun and life affirming. And those kinds of things. And encourage other people to do that. What is your interviews, your research over time talk you, what is it you tell how do you teach your kids, what you teach your students generally about what it is they should aspire to . I think its something about this with whats good, right, excellent, pure, perfect. But id be glad to hear what you learned generally. What do we all need to hear about leadership . So i think one of the most important things to teach our kids and for us to live day in and day out is we really played with our life. So the way we conduct ourselves makes a real difference. Its interesting because in the midst of doing this research, eight to 10 years of my life, my wife and i had a daughter who ended up being a special needs child. And parenting elizabeth has helped me to see an entirely different view of leadership, and to understand what it means to have a life worth leading, and to recognize that just because our society does have individuals who going to occupy the pentacles of power, thats not the calling for everyone. I am not sure its a healthy motivation for us to seek those kind of position. Getting back to bills point. I think its far more significant or us to develop within our sons and daughters a willingness to try to serve and to do things with excellence. And in my mind thats what leadership is about. Excellence and service. And we tried to cultivate within our young people, with other kids, that kind of a commitment, recognizing leadership occurs in lots of different settings. It doesnt require you to be the ceo of a fortune 100 company. You can exercise significant leadership as a classroom teacher or as a coach, as a pastor as a nurse. These are significant roles that have long Lasting Impacts. One of the things that we encountered over the course of the study, we wanted to see what were the most formative influences on these folks who go around occupy really senior roles. What we found was a tended not to be people who were in those very powerful positions that were their mentors. Instead, folks who lived much humbler lives but who then helped them get opportunities to make a real difference. I would imagine that all of us say in one way or another, we stand on the shoulders of giants, people who helped move us along which include a variety of folks, not always the ceo but folks who did indeed lead with their lives. I was when it could provide insight how leaders could respond to failure, or how they dont . I think something, one of the things the common question we asked was ho how leaders of you decision whether they look back on it a lot or struggled with it. Those have to put it behind you and move on. I think being, there is a part of anyones life and being able to handle that well and to is a key trait. Not every step is a step forward and leadership, you have to move on from failures spent one of my favorite quotes was from fat allen, and it turned out he is a after the fema debacle in new orleans he was put in charge and then as it turned out because he develop some a significant relationships any warrants the federal government asked him to be the point person with the bp Deepwater Oil spill. So he lets her of the Us Government response of two major crises that happened in new orleans. He is a rough and tumble kind of guy. He was arrested twice as an adult, got into some fights. So he helped me learn just because you can be a leader in one domain doesnt mean youll be a leader in another domain. [laughter] but he was really, really well for the coast guard. They loved him. One of the things thad. Net is when youre leaving you cant spend a lot of time in what he calls the regret locker. You have to move on. I think thats probably true. Every Single Person we interviewed experienced significant data at some point in time. And, in fact, we learned so much more about who we are and who we want to be in those moments of failure than we do in moments of success. But the difference between these folks and maybe ordinary americanamerican s is that they have tremendous the great and persistence, and they bounce back. They are willing to keep trying and go after. When i studied the white house fellowship, how many folks have been rejected the first time they applied. I saw people come if you get rejected, try again. You never know what may happen. Im a recent white house fellow so i appreciate the plug to the program. My question is, how, over time, as leadership at all changed when you see like 50 years into generation because i think a big reason is mulling hills are often critiqued for not appreciating institutions because sometimes we dont need. Im just curious how you seen that leadership, people you interviewed, change, if at all. One of the most Amazing Things is how you would have to be born to a certain time if youre going to have a certain kind of leadership profile. If you look, a longer view than 50 years, take a look at 500 years, what would constitute some of as a leader in 1500 looks really different than what would constitute a leader in 2000. In 1500, you needed to be physically quite strong and be a warrior. Thats what about folks to be seen as a leader. In 1700, it was education. Being somebody who is the most wanted person in the Committee Gave you what others did not have so they defer to your leadership. Today, the most important characteristic for leaders is the ability to persuade. Extraordinary how persuasion is the coin of the realm. So your point about millennials is interesting because while it is true that some mulling hills sort of felt like a bureaucracy, they also are probably more committed to Institution Building that has been the case for three generations. They are more like the grandparents or the great grandparents who are real builders of opportunity, and so one of the things im excited about is the entrepreneurial edge weve seen some of millennials. They want to solve this problem and they know to get that done its going to take an organization or institution to the all they are all about treating those but if you want reform something have to be an insider your profits may be able to make the headlines but it will not make a real difference. Youve got to be an insider to make the change. One question i had is you talked a little bit about the importance of institutional conductivity and influence. How does that do you think that up against what a lot of americans are seeing now as influence of cronyism in our politics and our leadership, people with the best representrepresent ation on k street, the best members of the trade association are able to get ahead while you see a lot of people in the rest of the country just muddling by. They dont have that sort of influence in washington. How do you square that to be a credible leader am an authentic leader but still have that cachet in the country they cannot just sort of giving by based on your connections based on the influences you been able to buy. You mentioned Vernon Jordan who has been successful largely because of his relationship with the clintons. How do you sort of way that ability to lead and be authentic with this since i think when out in the country that a lot of people are just getting by at the top because they know the right people and they know the right levers to turn. I have to say that when i look at the situation in washington as a social scientist i am pretty discouraged. Because the partisan rancor and the way in which our political conversations have evolved over the last three years i dont think have been healthy. And when i talk with our students, college students, they are very hopeful they can make a change but also quite discouraged about the structures they seem place. Interesting to sort of tweak a little bit what you said. I wouldve assumed the Vernon Jordan got because it was got to where he was because of bill clinton. Vernon jordan have been going to this conference were a number of years. Its sort of a power elite global organization, very selective. He brought bill clinton to the conference and when he brought him, the organizers said, who is this guy from arkansas . Vernon jordan said he will be the next president of the United States. He brought him in 1991. Sure enough, Vernon Jordan to create a lot of opportunities. The larger measure i think about influence and how does it work, i think that there are some hopeful signs. Im actually encouraged with what weve seen with the digital revolution and how that has democratized opportunities for a lot of people to get voices in ways that we wouldnt have seen 25 years ago. Im also encouraged by the number of sort of entrepreneurial initiatives that the Younger Generation is developing where youre seeing a blurring of the nonprofitforprofit line. People are selling shoes that can help build water wells in africa. But the partisanship of washington and the role of big money is a place of real discouragement. I want to ask both of you really, about the role of gender and race. You talked about view from the top with a particular institutional point of view, and youre saying its more entrepreneurial. Im wondering is this only in the United States . Is it the global . And really whats the role for women, and where are the interviews that youve had with women and people of color . Where they are contribute to a different view of what is the top, and artists and musicians. Thank you. So the study is focused on the United States. I think maybe there were a couple of liters who were based internationally. Side dont have a lot of response for the global question, but regarding women i think 10 of the study were women and it was not for lack of trying. It was a major priority to interview women and to find senior leaders. At this point they are very hard to find. So they definitely add a lot. I think they are still struggling with the second shift requirement of women, women in work, all of them in the workplace and when they come you responsible for household responsibilities as well. So thats still a barrier, but were talking about relationship. I think actually mentorship and relationships are key for women, minorities and making their way up the ladder, something you can do seek out, seek out women minorities and really to help them move up the chain as a way to teach them that some of the advantages than is spent one of the interesting paradox of the study, we worked so hard to get women in the study. Only about 10 of the respondents are women. Look at sort of the wider data, thats about right for what we see national. Whether were talking about women ceo of College President s are women heads of nonprofit. There are industries where women have more leadership role. Actually in the entertainment sector you see some women are in leadership opportunities, and higher education. But the paradox is that theres a segment of people who are part of whats been called the inner circle, the social scientists had warned who study what he called the inner circle where these are folks who are in multiple boards of directors. So you might be a director at general electric, a director at ibm. If you analyze it what you found was women and people of color are over represented in that inner circle. Part of it i think start at as token is that every fortune of uncounted wanted a woman edited the what went to go to so that all chose the same woman. They begin to spread them out but you see it happening with latinos and with africanamericans. Thats changing a little bit and is more of a trickledown effect so theyre more opportunities today. I think its probably the most significant finding about the gender divide, relates to a worklife balance. I would ask the people in the study how do you reconcile the challenge of being in a very demanding job with family life, and how do you manage that . 96 of the people i interviewed were married at the time i conducted the interview, which is unbelievable. Not all of them were first marriages but theres something about leadership that is quite lonely and that craves companionship. Both men and women talked about the challenge of balancing a busy job with and enriching family life. But to a person, every single woman was far more anguished about that challenge. They felt considerable guilt and frustration, a desire for them to figure out how they couldve done it better. Everything from managing childcare to caring for aging parents. There is within our culture still the norm that women carry the burden for caring for the family and as a result Women Leaders feel that pressure as well. There was a much more of women who were married and had children than men, because they just couldnt, they havent found time for both things in our lives. We are going to take two more questions, start right there. Thank you. 1986 gordon grabbed. I am curious to know in your book at all if you addressed other than economic and political leaders to i my own personal example. Desperately contentious leadership at the moment. I did note if you addressed that at all . We included a whole variety of different kinds of institutional leaders. We included not just corporate or Business Leaders or entrepreneurs, leaders in science, technology, entertainment, arts, media, education, nonprofit. We included in the arts performers, writers, directors. A whole range of folks to end and it was a wonderful project because we are able to sort of look to see are the significant differences. Those who were leaders in the Creative Sector tended to have slightly different paths. They tended to embody what mary grace the same, liberal arts close to life more readily which is never on a whole range of issues and are able to sort of build connections in lots of different ways. We did look at religious leadership as well, and there we found that many of those sort of bureaucratic challenges that the corporal theres experienced are similar, you put religious language around it. So complex can be found in the church as well. So many hands. We will start right here. My question is to follow up on what you were saying about women in leadership. And my experience has been that women can get to the top but many of them feel a sacrifice having children or a husband, or perhaps have had a failed marriage, or marriages, more than two. Can you talk about what he felt that men felt differently than women with respect to that . I actually found theres been a lot of research about how men are feeling more need to be, or involve fathers. My dad would have gone to my soccer game but i am expected to go to every soccer game. It is something i feel thats kind of come it does affect men more increasing. Theres more expectation that they will do more things with the house or with the kids. I think something we saw, it is possible to have a high leadership position and have a good family life. You can do anything else. No hobbies, no friends, you just have your family and your work. Thats really the only way to make it work. I think one thing we found that really helped people balance is if leaders prioritize rituals and routines. So if they make a ritual of every sunday im going to make pancakes and i promise im going to be there, then kids think yes, this is what it is to be a good father, to have antiques on saturday and this is what it means. So that was important. And also leaders could merely change at the top you can set when the meetings are. You can set the meeting around if your kids soccer game or recital and use that as a way to be a leader and have it on. So it is possible but theres not time for much else. We will take one more bonus question in the back. Hello, michael. I was just wondering about the ones that got away. So you interviewed over 500 which is fantastic over 10 years, but have you ever thought about the ones that got away and any commonality amongst them and things that maybe we could learn from those that didnt want to share . The commonality is they were askeextra the good evening allue because i worked pretty hard. Probably the biggest fish that got away with president clinton. I did have the opportunity to interview president bush and president carter and every wanted to interview bill clinton. And worked pretty hard and was relatively close a couple times but ended up falling to but i always regretted that. One of the things i think after that the price of having done two or 300 of these interviews ive to say the number of new ideas that i was in countering wasnt that great but i set a goal because the largest in to give a study that has ever been done was by researchers at Columbia University called American Leadership study and the interviewed 545 people. By golly, i was going to do firefight at 46. [laughter] and the funniest story is that i was in the midst of doing this research and while doing it january 2011, and 1 night i was getting into that kind of turned my wife rebecca and i said ive been working on this project for like seven years and i still have about 90 interviews to reach the 550 go. But i think i might actually get this opportunity to go and serve at Gordon College adages allawi would be up to do both of those. I dont know how i would be able to finish the study. She sort of sat up in bed and she said, well, you are going to. [laughter] so you know whos the leader who is so you know who the leader is in our household. Im happy to sit at work are added in two weeks after starting the job at gordon i did my five and 50 interview. It was the president of harvard. Its an amazing study and i do hope you enjoy the book. By the book and share with other folks. Thanks so much for coming tonight. [applause] spend thank you, michael. Thank you, mary grace but if you dont have a chance to ask a question, fear not. There is still opportunity to do so either on our Facebook Page or on our twitter feed at hashtag Trinity Forum or hashtag view from the top where you can offer your comments, question or incite. We encourage you to do is. Also, tomorrow well be posting photos from the events we encourage you to logon and tag your friend, abby, and so on. All of you should have on your seat an invitation to join the Trinity Forum society. We hope very much that you will avail yourself of this opportunity tonight. Events like is not possible without the regular support of our members and donors, and if you enjoyed tonights event, if you benefited from it, i encourage you to join the Trinity Forum society and make events like this possible for others as well. As a special incentive to join the turn before society tonight, if you do so we will give you a free copy of michael lindsays view from the top pic as well as our subscription to quarterly readings like long walk to freedom which just came out this spring, and many other opportunities as well. So we hope you will avail yourselves of that opportunity. Not only to make programs like this possible but also to be part of a community of people who want to engage the questiong questions of life and do it together. In addition, if youre if you ae interested in becoming a Trinity Forum academy fellow, like mary grace hager, we encourage you to think about that. There are several people in the audience that you could talk to, bob kramer, if you could raise your hand, beth chapman can either of them could talk to about how to do this. And, finally, i think it is only appropriate to end with banks, and many people to thank this evening. We very much appreciate our speakers and insight that you brought. So appreciate Gordon College of being willing to sponsor this event with us, and the staff there. Id also like to just thank my own incredibly competent, excellent staff to do their jobs often in silence but also with excellence and even panache. Rebecca good, margaret eberly, chloe and allies. Thank you very much. [applause] absolutely. Thank you all to the volunteers who have volunteered multiple times. We so appreciate your work. I should add that mike will be at the Registration Table right up back where we will be selling and he will be signing copies of his work, and encourage you to do that. In addition the bar will be open after we leave. Thank you for coming, and goodnight. [applause] [inaudible conversations] we would like to from you. Tweet us your feedback, twitter. Com tv. Booktv covers hundreds of author programs throughout the country all year long. Heres a look at some of the events will be attending this week. Look for these programs to air in the near future on cspan2. Thats a look at some of the author programs booktv will be covering this upcoming week. For more goo go to our website booktv. Org and visit upcoming programs. Suki kim talks about her book, without you, there is no us my time with the sons of north koreas elite. She talks to booktv at book