Gayle Davis on Leadership

Gayle Davis on Leadership September 9, 2009 September Meeting of the Leadership Academy Fellows Program 11:30am – 1:00pm

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Provost Davis: Well, I’m glad you think that I’m a better Provost because I have never loved a job so much as the one here at Grand Valley and I want to stay, so thanks Gleaves. Please call Tom Haas. It is really fun to see all of you here today. This is the first luncheon I’ve attended since the group has been gathering over these years and it is amazing to see that we really do just fill up this Regency Room. It’s very, very rewarding. The activities I know you’ve been doing have been really important to the University. I know they’ve been important in individual lives, but congratulations Gleaves and the whole staff of the office – Maribeth for your leadership as well. This is a wonderful program for Grand Valley and I just would like you to up here your goals a little bit. I do think, just the nation. You know, I mean we could be the leadership university in the galaxy. So let’s just do that. Well, you will have a series of speakers this year, as you have other years. Thanks, please, for inviting me. I’m really honored to be here. And with a topic as big as leadership, I think you probably have a wonderful selection of areas of leadership that people will touch on. We have about a half an hour, maybe a little bit more for questions and things and so there’s not any time to talk about this huge topic in any great detail. But I know that the entirety of your program will do just fine with covering those. Bookstores are filled with books and DVDs of how to be a leader, what to do when you are a leader. You can read and read and read about leadership and sometimes get very good insights from those readings. Lots of the books are more about management, more about, well, the famous ones are always about like how to deal with difficult people or, you know, stuff like that. But when it comes to leadership, it’s a little bit less operational and more visionary. It’s a little bit less operational and more the big picture. And so there’s a dividing line in those professional books about leadership and management and so on that you can recognize pretty clearly. I think one of the things that I want to talk about today is how it really would be hard to write a book about leadership specifically because from my point of view, leadership – for all of the books and DVDs related to that subject – is largely a personal matter. How one leads is a product of a whole life to date and how you lead can change as you grow and develop over the course of your lifetime, hoping that you keep learning that whole time. So I want to talk about leadership from that personal point of view. And that is, how do you get people to want to work with you toward common goals. Simple definition. There are lots of definitions, too, but I’m going to stick with that one. When I say that leadership styles evolve over time and are a product of your whole life, you know, as well as I, that conditioning as a little kid even – even just the gender, race, part of the country you’re born in – influences you so much. And those influences are everywhere – from cradle til now, whatever now is in your development at this point. All those together, if we’re open to learning, can result in if we become a leader and how we lead if we do. And that’s the kind of thing I want to focus on today. So if I had to give this talk a title, I guess I would say: “Leader – Know Yourself.” And that’s where I’m going to start to ask what are your values? And now I guess, I’m talking to the students mainly, but since we have lots of leaders in the room, I think you can be great resources


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in these conversations as well. What are your values? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are your preferences in human interaction and so on? In addition to knowing yourself, you have to also understand others. Leadership is a lot about empathy, about emotional intelligence, awareness of social dynamics – those so-called “soft skills.” It’s really hard to write a book those soft skills. But there are some. Don’t worry – there are some. How does your gender, age, race or ethnicity, sexual orientation, level of able-bodiedness or other inherent characteristics affect the expectations of you that others will perceive? There will still be traditional expectations of who should and shouldn’t be a leader in our culture whether we like it or not. We all need to work with that. So knowing yourself, your place in the social dynamics and gender role culture of your world, knowing where you are in the generation you’re in and how to deal with those and others – all of those skills will become important. But I still think it begins with knowing who you are. To illustrate this personal basis of leadership, I want to share with you some of my own experiences. I was saying to Provost Niemeyer over there – this is kind of intimidating because there are a lot of people in here who know me and so I’ll be talking about things more personal then I generally bring to work with me – but I want to invite Glenn and everyone else in this room to think about those same sort of things as we talk about the influences on leadership that I’d like to share. So for today, let’s say you’re a leader in an organization. You’ve mastered the basics – you know the knowledge of your field. You know the skills and requirements of whatever the goals are of your organization. You can communicate clearly, you’re serious, you’re dedicated, you work hard and you’re interested in the good of the organization. Let’s just say that’s a given as the leader. To structure our discussion from here, I want to focus on three things. First I want to tell you about some of the influences in my life – just big nature ones. I promise I won’t get down to gossip or anything. And then I want to show you, from those experiences, what I think have been influences on the way I try to lead and I think most of the time I think that I do lead. Second, and maybe interspersed with the first – we’ll see how easy it is to talk together in this big setting – I want to invite you to think of yourself and do the same analysis as I’m going along. We’ll take a little time to share some of your thoughts and it could be while we’re talking, feel free to chime in and I’ll ask you for your thoughts. Or it could be in what we’ve set aside for question and answers – we may blend the two. We’ll see how this all goes. And then third, I want to just wrap up by talking about why it’s important that you have this information in mind in order to be effective as the leader over time. How knowing yourself helps you see what you can develop for even greater effectiveness as you move forward. So, I sort of divided up the influences I want to talk about into family background, formal and informal education and work experiences – just to give some parameters to this whole thing. So first let me tell you about my family background, at least as far as my place in the family goes. I was the younger of two children and the only girl. They actually used to call me “Gayle Baby.” Don’t tell anyone else. It was a blue collar family. I had an absolute hero brother and he and I were the first to go to college from our families and with no particular support to go. We weren’t discouraged; we just never were encouraged. If we wanted to go, we’d go and both of us paid our way through with scholarship stuff and all of that. But our family didn’t have the money to


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support us anyway, so it wasn’t like they were withholding something – it’s just not in their, not on their gaze…or in their gaze. My adult role models were, unfortunately, dysfunctional parents. We had abuse in the family, we had divorce and remarriage and I took on, as the girl, next to the slightly older, a little bit moody, very serious boy, my brother, I took on the role of mediator, caretaker, policer – I smiled a lot, right? I was the one who was supposed to be perfect and help the family figure out all these sort of twists and turns they were taking. So I got really good at listening, at mediating, reading the social dynamics of the family so that I would know what to do to stay safe. And that’s all been good. Given that it was not a happy family, I’m glad I can say that now. But what resulted from all of this? Well, in just thinking about leadership now, girls in women’s traditional roles can be real trouble if you have a bad husband – I learned that. And when I think about traditional roles, I realize that while they can be problematic as they were in my family, they also can teach really strong skills in help and cooperation, admiration, nurturing and so on. What I do find is that the red flag for me, but knowing this stuff as a little girl, is that people who are sexist really get under my skin. And as a leader and living in the world we live in, women are going to run in to that occasionally. Thankfully, much less often than my mom did, let’s say. So that’s my red flag. That’s my lesson, that’s my red flag. Very important for a teacher to know that since we teach young men and young women. Another thing that this resulted in is that I am a real self-started. I’m independent, nobody has to tell me what the next opportunity – I work hard. And back then, in contrast to that unhappy family that I’m afraid I had to start this conversation off with; I knew that people really should be helping each other, so I tend to be nurturing to other people. Big lesson: do not be like your parents are. Now, sad lesson on one level, but a big, strong, good lesson as well. Are you following me when I say that? I don’t really mean to be trashing my family… They no longer are with us, but I still don’t want to be trashing my family – they couldn’t do any better themselves. But what I find is that that lesson also sends up some red flags in my professional life as a leader. And that is that, traditionally, leaders haven’t been seen as particularly nurturing or particularly personal in the stereotype. Now, you know, just imagine the stereotype from, I’m hoping, quite a few years ago. So people don’t necessarily know what to do with me. When I was new at Grand Valley it was really a problem. I think they thought it was up to something. It was interesting. So, two big lessons from my family – now, I’m just going to pause right here for a minute. I actually heard a lot of these lessons or one of these situations from Maribeth today as we were eating lunch today and I don’t know if you want to share what you were talking about, but think about what your family life was like and where you were in your family and if you had encouragement toward leadership or if, in spite of the situation, you learned some things that would be helpful in leadership as you were growing up. What were your circumstances? And this is really the value of this exercise is for you to look internally, to see what happened in your life. Anyone want to share? Maribeth, do you want to? Have I put you on the spot too much? Maribeth Wardrop: I can do that for sure. I came from a family of seven. Some of you have already heard this. I had…it was a cultural thing. My father did not believe women should go to college. My mother was meek, sort of did everything. She was very submissive – much like I am (laughing). Anyway, my parents didn’t believe I should go to college. And my father and I…my mother


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thought I should be a lawyer because I had a tendency to speak my mind and I said, “I am going to college. There is value. I will make something of myself.” And I did. And I did it against all odds. So I can relate to where you came from. I think the lesson to be learned is you have to believe in yourself and not have belief in the negative feedback that you get. And I would say she continues to be feisty. It’s different for all of us. What about some of the rest of you? Do you have things you’d like to share? I don’t want to pry, but if you feel like sharing. How did your family feel about leadership? Fred Antczak: I think this along the lines of what you were saying – my dad was a firefighter. He had a ninth grade education, and came out of the war. Basically worked at firefighting from then on. And so with each succeeding degree, he had less and less of an idea of what I was doing and more and more amazement that people were paying me for it. But I think that I am like him in my own way. There’s dissonance and consonance. My dad was not an educated person. He ran into burning buildings and did his best to save people and he saved about six people. He was in some terrible accidents and I remember him being in the hospital several times when I was growing up. What I take from that is not to run into burning buildings, but to be unafraid of doing the right thing and to see what can come of that. And if you fail, you do the right thing the next day. I think that there are other lessons that I can learn that he would not recognize, but I would say that in any way my father…I’m different from him in some very similar ways. Provost Davis: Thanks. That’s very interesting. I love hearing people’s stories. Anyone else? Okay students…I’m going to get on your back. Heather Mantovani: So I was raised the oldest of four, so kind of a second mom. And my parents raised us Christian, which I’m really grateful for, but that does sometimes come with agonizing about what women should and shouldn’t do. What’s interesting is that my dad’s a psychologist and when we were kids, he did his dissertation on power structures in marriage and which ones lead to the happiest marriages. He was expecting that those in which the male was dominant would be the happiest, but what he actually found was that the happiest was when they’re shared equal. I’m really grateful that my dad was open enough to really take a look at that rethink his ideas about religion and gender roles. And never once did I ever feel like he felt like I would need to step back. He was very encouraging that I should do whatever I could do. Provost Davis: Good. What is bound to affect you when you’re in a leadership position now? Heather Mantovani: I don’t consider my gender very much, actually. It’s nice. I’m kind of surprised when other people do.


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Provost Davis: That’s good. So a lesson that’s a very happy lesson, your dad released those findings after you had that. That’s really neat. And you know, unfortunately, stereotypes aren’t always confronted for factual proof and we go along and we have those influences. Maybe the less or the red flag for you might be not everybody will see you as unaware of gender as you are in a leadership position. But you’ve got the right side of it, so that’s good. Petra Alsoofy: [unable to hear beginning remarks clearly] But also for me, a big one is the culture difference. I came to the US when I was a little before 12, so I grew up in a different, completely different culture, religion, that kind of thing and I came to the US and my dad was out of the house the whole time working to support us and my mom, being illiterate in both in Arabic and English, so I kind of had to step up and become the mom to my three younger sisters who are very close in age anyway. So I had to deal with the different culture than mine, both my sisters and myself. I mean, like no knowledge at all as a mother. So that helped me to just go where I want to go. I always want to go places. I don’t know when that is, I just know that I can do something. And the aspect of culture – is a big deal. Big, big, big deal. And I feel, it’s frustrating when I can see people, you know, either in the Arab culture or whatever culture I see, I feel frustrated with it and have to step back. And also women role and like how people view gender as a very hard to thing to fit in a hole. I have people who support me to do whatever it is I want to do and I have people who just tell me, “This is not your place.” For me, I never it was an issue. I see a person who’s capable of doing whatever – just go for it. But obviously, you have to fight the obstacles you see in your life and you just have to deal with it. Provost Davis: Good. So that challenge for you and your family really did lead you into some very strong leadership skills themselves. Happy endings – that’s good. One thing that’s true generationally – and I’m real aware of it now, so I speak to you because things really have changed for women so much. And I would say things really have changed for people of color, for people of different sexualities, for all kinds of people of differences in our world. At least we talk about diversity and appreciate different perspectives these days. Sometimes, those of you who are younger than I am will be dealing with generations of people who were raised in those traditional values and you will feel the push and pull of the transitions in our culture. If you’re aware of them, they won’t surprise you and I guess that’s one of the reasons why I even am talking about the subject. Thank you for sharing that. I’m going to move on to topic which is formal and informal education. Much happier topic, in my point of view, for my life. When I was in college, I studied French – and have insert this just because of what we’re talking about – I studied French because my mother had always wanted to be a French teacher. Guess what? I never even realized that’s why I was studying French as a first generation college student until I was like 25 when I didn’t really much care about teaching French. Isn’t that weird what we can do with conditioning and socialization? Anyway, when I got to my own work, I was an interdisciplinary student and my doctorate is in American Studies, as Gleaves mentioned, which combines history, social movement theory, art history – a bunch of humanities kinds of disciplines. Then I became a faculty member in Women’s Studies at Wichita State University – the second oldest Women’s Studies program in the country, not the


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universe. I saw in that discipline, and there was a lot of support in those days in the ’80s when I was there, to look at organizational hierarchies as one of the problems of people trying to lead from wherever the are in an organization. In other words, leadership doesn’t depend on a title; it depends on your qualities and motivations and so on. So when we looked at top-down hierarchies of those old, bad kinds: those ones that really were not only top-down, but control was centered in the top, information was held at the top. All the things that leave workers in a very narrow range of involvement with the organization. Women’s studies would have said that leaves out a lot of people and good ideas, minorities in particular, and all kinds of talented people who might have been contributing to the cause, whatever the organization was. I was very heavily influenced by the anti-Vietnam war – that’s how old I am – and women’s movements of the late ‘60s and the decade of the ‘70s. For the past 25 years I’ve been a Quaker as my religious affiliation. A religion that favors consensus over voting, pacifism, human equality, social justice – all of those things. The results in my leadership? Well, these are easy. I tend to be an integrative thinker and I watch for the big picture. My red flag in that identity is that it’s hard for me to suffer people who think narrowly or in silence. Unfortunately, we have some of those problems in higher Ed as we all divide out into disciplines and so it’s hard to think that way for me. Inclusiveness and transparency are two of my biggest values. I believe everyone has a leadership role at different times in their life, regardless of the title you own. It may be that the title identifies you in advance to people as someone who ought to be a leader, but it’s really your actions who make you one or not, not your title. I can get really impatient with passive people or ones who just fold. “I’m so unhappy, I’m so unhappy, I’m so unhappy…but I won’t do anything about it.” I’m really – I have to watch my patience with that. That’s my red flag. Do you see what I’m trying to do here? This is what happened in my life and what stuck, the impact of different values and experiences. And none of that goes away when you’re working with a large group of people. The larger the group of people, the more it’s likely to raise it’s head as both positive and one that you have to note yourself about. Is this making sense to you? Okay – hope so. I said before, because of my family, but also because of the Quaker religion, I honestly believe we are here on earth to help people have better lives. So I have a hard time with people who sort of have the habit of being cranky. You know, feeling best when they’re in the middle of an argument. It’s not, you know…I have a hard time with that. But arguments are good. Anger is productive sometimes. You know, I need to make sure that I can deal with those kinds of things given my value system. I have a tendency to try to seek consensus and input on an issue when there are some people who just want a decision right now. Just do it. I’m very decisive, but I also do a lot of up front work. And there again, that’s backwards in some organizations. Let me stop there. In your education, maybe think about what discipline you went into as a student or as a professional. What does it say about you, how you were educated, and what does it seem to indicate is likely to happen for you when you’re a leader, when you’re in a leadership position? They always say, “Are there any people who are majoring in psychology in the room?” Good, then I can say this. No, I’m not serious about that, but they do say people go into psychology who really want to help something that had gone wrong in their lives. I would have


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been a perfect psychologist. That happens real regularly. And there’s even data about it – usually it’s when there was something wrong with your mom. It’s true – I don’t know what to say. Male speaker: It’s our biggest major. Provost Davis: It is our biggest major. Well, people who want to help… Go ahead – what would you say? Sandra Meyers: Hi, I’m Sandra. I’m getting a masters in social work. Today, language is – I could not read or write until I was nine years old. Education was not something… Education was not something that was important to my family. When I was accepted to college, I wanted to do something that would look nice on my wall. Not social work, obviously, but physical therapy, nursing, teacher – something I thought, you know, made me sound smart. When I got to Grand Valley, I got in the Social Work program and I know that I’m not going to make a lot of money, but I know I can make a lot of change and that’s something that’s important to me. Provost Davis: How has that background going to change the way, but not change the way, but just affect the way you are a leader? Sandra: The background of reading/writing? Provost Davis: That and changing your mind between what sounds like something that society may have valued, but you wanted to do something different. I’m sorry – I’m putting you on the spot and I don’t mean to. I wondered if your background that you’ve just described affects your values in leadership. Sandra: It supports my values… Provost Davis: So you’re going to do what’s right for you now? Sandra: I think so. Provost Davis: Yay! Anybody else want to share? Yes?


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Dorothy Sewe: When I grew up, I was in the middle – I think I was number five in our family. But I was so, so smart. I knew how to read and write before I left home and then I had a brother who was the only son my mother had. And in Kenya, those days when I grew up, they favored boys over girls. So every time I was ahead of my brother and when we reached high school, it was even a chance to go too high and it grew so there was not enough money and I felt so bad about it because I was smarted than he was. So I got married when I was very young, but all along I really wanted to go to school. So when I got a chance, we came to the United States as refugees. I’ve got two grown up kids – 18 and 19. So I got them into school so there was a lady next to me on the sheet, paper and filling out the form and she ended up signing it and I signed for my two kids and this guy told me, “you can’t sign for your kids because you say one is 18, one is 19.” And I said, well that lady signed for her kid and she said no, she’s coming to school. And I said, “Can I come to school?” and she said yes. So I go to the class and then I went for my diploma, we couldn’t believe they laughed at us. So last year I got my diploma and my mother came to my graduation and she was so happy to see me – I was the first one to go to university in my family. And so this year, my mother came to visit me and she told me, “I always wanted to go to school,” so I signed her up (laughing, applause). She’s so happy she’s going to start school. Provost Davis: What a story. Oh my gosh – well, you just took a leadership role with your mom right there. Dorothy Sewe: Yeah, because I think now that they realize that it’s not about going to school. I believe she thinks it’s great, getting a chance to go to school. But I’m so blessed I came to the United States where I had accessibility to go to school. And then because of that, she never went to school because she could not go, in those days, women never went to school. And now she gets the chance, so she’s going back to school at 72. Provost Davis: Wow. That’s very interesting. Thanks for sharing that. Did you think when you’re in a leadership position – I’m trying to get you in my exercise here – when you’re in a leadership position, do you think those experiences have influenced the way you lead? Dorothy Sewe: Definitely because I work with my children, I have convinced so many kids who I believe there’s some traditional values, some people whose traditional values of women – I don’t know how to say it, but that’s my mission. There’s a girl in my neighborhood whose marriage was already arranged and through my going to school and raising my kids, she’s refused to get married so she’s continuing with school. Provost Davis: So you recognize when you’re with people who are in a situation similar to what you had that you have a role? Dorothy Sewe: Yes.


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Provost Davis: That’s cool. That’s very cool. Anybody else want to talk? We’re going to run out of time here in just a second, so let me move on for one last thing. I said that I would talk about work experiences and this is shorter and it may also mean that the students in the room have a little less experience to think about this from, but I’ll go through this anyway. The best thing in work is that you can observe all kind of leaders when you’re starting out or when you are a leader and see different ways of approaching the work. You can learn what not to do as well as what to do and both are valuable. In the past, I was mostly surrounded by traditional views of leadership – those stereotypes where the boss was aloof and stern, demanding, scary, very competitive, non-negotiable. You know, you got the stereotypes. Usually males, white, heterosexuals, Anglo-American – that pretty effectively cut out a viewpoint that you could conjure up on your mind about a leader who was anything different. A lot of people talked about women in politics, when women run for the President of the United States. We talk about their role issues with this kind of thing. When we think of an authoritative person who is a minority, we don’t have nearly the number of role models as you were mentioning just a second ago. Or of people of authority who don’t overstep something about the gender role expectations that make people mad. Hillary Clinton is probably the very easiest one to see this in. Just so many people have such trouble with her. And I don’t know if it’s just about gender roles, but it always comes out “woman this or that.” Barack Obama is facing lots of stuff now because of his race as well as lots of other differences of opinion. So there, you know, we don’t have a lot of models that we just automatically forget about those inherent human characteristics and accept them as the leader they are, unless we’re looking at that tradition and that’s why so many times what turns people around toward leadership is seeing that there’s a problem, is experiencing something like that. Another big influence on me when I was growing up professionally, if you want to put it that way, in academics, is that I preferred collegiality and that environment of shared governance that we have in higher education where it is kind of flattened hierarchies. It is collegial. There is a need to make a decision at some point, but you also work with a lot of input and so on. I know that I prefer non-aloof, non-stern, non-punitive leaders not because they’re easier to work with, but frankly, because they get more done. When all the rest of the people come engaging with that leader to move forward on a project, I think that this is another place where it’s possible for a leader with those values – in my case, they came from a number of areas you can probably recognize now as you’ve listened to some of my story. But there are others who will think unless you’re ruthless, you don’t have much respect for them. Then I think we only respect the ruthless – it could be a bumper sticker. Maybe not. That somehow, that decisive, scary person is the one that people respect out of fear or some other way so that a softer style sometimes feels non-leader-like. And I know that’s a red flag in my life. My interviews here for this position were just peppered with the question, “But can you really make the hard decisions?” because here I am soft voice, smile a lot, say hello. “But can you really make the hard decisions.” I can, by the way. I’m going to summarize here just for a minute while you’re thinking about this stuff. I hope you’re thinking about how your own life is influencing you. I really do see lots of what I do now


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– no big surprise – as a combination of all of these experiences. I think people work best under conditions when the leader is being authentic, whatever that leader’s personal style is. I just think it’s impossible to pretend and not get caught in a trap or not come off as persuasive – you name it. It just doesn’t work very well. I know I work best when there’s not a lot of smoke and mirrors. I know I work best when it’s just direct communication. Can’t always do it. I also know that I work best when there’s room for some kind of playfulness in the workplace. Another thing that wasn’t always okay in some organizations. Well, as I said, I wanted to get to a point where, before we closed today, why this even makes sense at a leadership conversation to talk about these things. But I hope I’m showing you that if you know what your behaviors and preferences are like, you will be able to see where you might need to intentionally add to your repertoire of behaviors. You know, I might – and I do, sometimes – not smile and I do sometimes get angry and, you know, those have not always been those most comfortable things. I still apologize a lot when I think I’ve gotten angry in public. Some day I’ll stop doing that, I hope. Know what behaviors are difficult for you even when they’re needed and that would be dealing with anger – those kind of things I mentioned before. I also, I have trouble rising above criticism that I don’t think I’ve earned. Putting deserved criticism in perspective and forgiving myself for not being perfect – I bet some of you relate to this kind of stuff – all of those things are part of this “be perfect, make everything better” role I have had in my life. I’m not very good at pulling rank. I had a former associate in my office who used to say to me – now this won’t make any sense unless I explain it. Laker Blue? Remember our school colors? Okay. She would say, “Just put on the Blue aura and go out there and act like a man.” She would say that to me. I know – oh goodness. Some of you in the room know who that was I’m quite sure. This pulling rank thing – it’s really tough to do. On the other hand, sometimes it’s not a bad idea. You need to understand the leadership environment you’re in to know what you can and can’t do in a place and no matter who you are, we’re all influencing each other all the time. So I guess I’m just asking that you really think about what you’re like and what makes you most effective as you think about what else you’re going to do in leadership. And that’s really all I want to say unless you want to share some more or if you have any questions. [applause] John Wardop: Well I want to ask you, John Worth, a question – is that okay, John? How do you make the 51/49 decisions? They’re right there on the edge – they can go either way. Provost Davis: I’ll tell you – it’s as corny as it can be. The only thing I know to fall back on if – ironically, you’re asking me on a day when I have to make one of those decisions I’m kind of dreading – I can always say if you can say what you think is right for the organization, humane, etc, etc, I think that’s the only way I convince myself about which side to go on. 51/49 is terrible. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt unless there’s a pattern that can’t, that’s hurting the university. I might do that a little too much maybe, I’m not sure. Do you have better answers to that, John? I hope so.


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John Wardrop: No, but where that comes from is the first boss I worked for after graduating college and teaching for six years was a gentleman that never graduated from high school. And he made that comment in the management team meeting, which we had every Monday night. I guess we were grousing about some things and he said, “Look – my decisions run this business or 75/25. I don’t need you folks in this room. Unfortunately, the ones that lose sleep with and can’t get to sleep about are the 51/49s and I need all of you here for your collective experiences and to help me make that decision the best way I can.” That was an important lesson in leadership for being a young guy growing up. Provost Davis: It’s a great thing to say. It is true – we spend most of our time sort of a small part of the organization when it’s a large one and you have to deal with crucial kinds of stuff. Luckily we have a wonderful president, a wonderful senior management team and I always do have those people – and my office staff as well – to lean on. It’s important. Comments? Questions? Okay then. Thank you. Thanks for your attention today. John Wardrop: I may be one of the oldest people in this room. I certainly am one of the oldest people in this room – I’m 72 years of age. This was a great experience for me. This won’t stop with me walking out that door. You’ve given me a lot to think about and I hope that’ll be true for all these young leaders of today and future leaders of tomorrow. Provost Davis: Thank you, John. That’s very kind. Thank you, everyone. [applause]

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Gayle Davis on Leadership