Whitehead Urges MBAs to Become Lifelong Leaders
WHITEHEAD (with moderator George):Because "the world cries out for leadership," HBS students must lead not just in their companies but in their lives.
Photo by Neal Hamberg
John C. Whitehead (MBA 11/ ’47), one of HBS’s most distinguished graduates, is a powerful role model for younger generations of leaders. His résumé includes the following positions held: cochairman (and 38-year veteran) of Goldman Sachs; deputy secretary of state in the Reagan administration; and board president of many prominent nonprofit organizations. Founder of the Committee to Encourage Corporate Philanthropy, Whitehead is currently chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC).
Whitehead is also the founder of HBS’s Social Enterprise Initiative (SEI), dedicated to generating and sharing knowledge that helps organizations and individuals create social value in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. At a December event hosted by the SEI and several student clubs, Whitehead spoke with HBS students at a session titled “John Whitehead: A Life in Leadership,” moderated by HBS professor of management practice Bill George.
George asked Whitehead about his belief in the importance of consensus-driven decision-making. “If you are able to achieve it, consensus works best because there are no losers, and people don’t feel alienated from the organization,” Whitehead explained. But he acknowledged that consensus isn’t always realistic, as with the efforts of the LMDC, where “there’s never consensus among the public, somebody is always opposed. But that’s the exception. On other occasions, consensus is worth striving for.”
Asked by a student about moving from the private to public sector, Whitehead said, “I found the transition much easier than you might expect. If you’ve been doing something in a leadership way in one sector, you can move to the other rather easily. You’ve learned a style and a way of operating that is very useful in the other sector.”
Whitehead concluded by saying, “The world cries out for leadership. In business, politics, religion, and education, we no longer have great leaders, and the reason is that people drop out and don’t aspire to be great leaders. The penalty to them seems too great, the reasons for saying no seem too heavy. My message to you is, ‘Don’t quit.’ You’re expected to be a leader, not just in your company but in your life.”
