Spring Break
CEOs: They're Just Like Us!
Important Leadership Lessons Imparted at Centennial Business Summit
Elana Green (NI), Associate Editor
Issue date: 10/20/08 Section: News
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Despite their illustrious résumés, the panelists at the Leadership in the 21st Century plenary session on the second day of the Business Summit interacted with each other informally and addressed the crowd as if they were students in an Aldrich classroom. They delivered important lessons on leadership and potentially controversial opinions on financial and political affairs, all of which were enhanced by the note of candor that resonated throughout the conversation.
Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, CEO, Ayala Corporation; Jamie Dimon, CEO, JP Morgan Chase; Orit Gadiesh, Chairman, Bain & Company; Rick Wagoner, CEO, General Motors - an impressive array of names and titles, to be sure. Yet, despite their illustrious résumés, these accomplished individuals spoke informally and with a note of collegiality as they espoused their views on leadership during the Leadership in the 21st Century plenary session on the second day of the Centennial Global Business Summit. They were in spotlights on a stage in front of 2,000 people in the large tent erected on Baker lawn, but the panelists engaged with each other and the audience as if they were students sitting in an Aldrich classroom.
The moderator, Professor Nitin Nohria, opened the session by asking each panelist to describe the experience that most defined him or her as a leader. I was immediately jolted back to the long hours I spent completing business school applications last fall. Nohria's opener sounded suspiciously like question 3a on last year's HBS application. "Ha!" I thought, "These CEOs have to answer those questions too!"
Each panelist gave an answer that would have impressed even our own Dee Leopold. Rick Wagoner recounted how he was able to manage his own business unit for the first time when he was assigned to run GM's operations in Brazil. Jamie Dimon described being fired (his words) after 17 years at Citibank and how the experience made him realize that CEOs should be personally invested in their jobs and, as a corollary, care deeply about their organizations. Orit Gadiesh said her most defining leadership experience probably occurred when she was in the Israeli military but went on to describe reigniting employees' pride in their firm during tough times at Bain in the early 1990s. Jaime Augusto Zobel spoke of the moment he realized that a social development agenda could be integrated with business strategy.
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