Third, what personal benefits do you get from your civic involvements?
Personal benefits include a sense of satisfaction, doing something that helps others, teaming with good people, and sharing a vision for a better future that is possible and important to those that I am working with.
11. One of the benefits of growing older is that we are increasingly able to reflect on our experiences and learn from them. Have you found any patterns of personal behavior no longer useful in your leadership role? Is so, what are these and how have you changed?
I don’t think I have changed dramatically. Earlier in my life I was more of an observer, and I reflected and contemplated about things. More often now I sometimes “shoot from the hip” but usually, I think, in an appropriate way. I’m more spontaneous and less analytical. I learned much throughout my business career. I am probably not a “natural executive” in terms of how I grew up and how I went through school. I learned in business what it took to succeed, and even if I did not agree with the culture at times I recognized the need and adjusted to it. Now I think it is great to come into a situation where I am not pressured to behave in a particular way but can draw from my own resources and what I think is right and what I find rewarding. So I think over time I have shed “hyper-analysis and contemplation” in favor of more spontaneity.
12. What leadership qualities do you most admire in effective leaders that you have known? Which of these qualities do you believe best describe your leadership?
The ability to have both patience and impatience and pick the appropriate combination of what is needed at a given time. The ability to see the big picture. A bias for action. Liking people, being able to understand people and their different characteristics and attributes, and relate to them in a way that is appropriate to them. To be adaptable to people who express themselves in different ways. And a sense of humor. These traits are what I have tried to bring into my own leadership and I think they’ve helped me to be successful.
13. What, if any, spiritual traditions or practices do you most draw upon in exercising leadership?
Spiritual to me means a sense of connection to something larger and a sense of appreciation and awe of what we are given. I and we have been given something incredibly beautiful, useful and valuable. And we should do the best we can with what we have to appreciate this. I’m no longer involved with any organized religion.
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