Originally published in Carroll Capital, the print publication of the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. .Ìę
For Parvati Shallow, four seasons as a contestant on the TV series Survivor were master classes in leadership. Negotiation, strategy, and listening to her intuition (or, sometimes, ignoring it) taught her a lot, but one thing stood out: Becoming a leader isnât a solo game. It is honed in relationships.
âYou canât fail when youâre building relationships. There is no right or wrong or good or bad, because youâre either winning or youâre learning,â she told an audience of students last fall as part of the Winston Center for Leadership and Ethicsâ Brennan Symposium lecture series.
The Winston Centerâwhere students learn, practice, and research skills in leadership and ethicsâmarks its 20th anniversary this comingÌęacademic year. One of its missions is to bring an eclectic variety of leaders to campus to share what theyâve learned traveling different paths. Recent examples have included an admiral, an alumnus ambassador, an NGO founder, two Nobel Peace Prize winners, and Shallow, among others who spoke at lecture programs also including the Clough Colloquium and Chambers Lecture Series.
A recurring theme in the talks is that effective leaders navigate relationships skillfully. Many demonstrate the Jesuit servant-leader perspective, says Winston Executive Director Monetta Edwards.
âWhen a lot of people think of leadership, they think of the person at the top,â Edwards says, noting that leadership can arise from anywhere on the organizational chart and from unlikely places, like a remote island on a reality TV show. âAnd for us itâs more about putting service to others above self, about leadingÌęwith empathy. Those are the values we really home in on.â
Shallow encouraged students to develop their leadership skills as âexpanders,â people who offer genuine connection and want to work together, rather than as âcontrollers,â who need to do things their own way and create an atmosphere of fear.
Parvati Shallow speaking at the Brennan Symposium.
âCommunication is not a megaphone; itâs a bridge,â echoed retired four-star US Navy Adm. James Stavridis. âNapoleon said a leader is a dealer in hopeânot in fear, not in anger, not in chaos, but in hope. Be that kind of leader. Be that kind of citizen.â
Stavridis, former commander of the US Southern Command and later the NATO Supreme Allied Commander, also cautioned against framing leadership as merely strategy.ÌęGlobally and personally, it also means being willing to talk to your opponents, even if you donât see eye to eye, and forging unconventional partnerships.
Competitors, when their interests align, can achieve goals through cooperating, said Nicholas Burns, MCAS â78, H â02, P â09, â12, former ambassador to China and professor of diplomacy at Harvard University. He spoke about the US relationship with China this past fall.ÌęâWeâre not enemies. Weâre competitors and rivals,â he said, underlining the need to cooperate on issues such as climate change and the next pandemic. To lead internationally, the US must also temper its own internal discord first. âA country cannot be powerful and effective overseas if theyâre divided at home,â he said.
A sense of purpose is an important ingredient in the leaderâs inner lifeâand it tends to grow outside of their safe spaces, said Barbara Bush, former CEO of Global Health Corps, a leadership accelerator that aims to reduce health inequities. âI found it liberating to realize there is no perfect step forward,â she said in the spring of last year. âIâve grown most when Iâve had hard experiences, or when Iâve been completely out of my comfort zone.â
Nicholas Burns, MCAS â78, H â02, P â09, â12, speaking at the Clough Colloquium.
For some speakers, following their convictions has meant truth-telling at great personal risk. Journalist Dmitry MuratovÌęcofounded and is editor in chief of Novaya Gazeta, a Russian independent newspaper that reports on government corruption.ÌęJournalists at the newspaper have been murdered while covering human rights abuses. A 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner who spoke a year later, Muratov sold his medal to raise money for children in war-ravaged Ukraine.
Human rights activist NadiaÌęMurad spoke of experiencing the genocide of her Yazidi community in northern Iraq at the hands of ISIS.ÌęMany were forced into physical and sexual slavery, herself included. After escaping captivity, she began speaking out, determined to advocate for survivors around the world through her nonprofit, Nadiaâs Initiative. Awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2018, she said she had to learn that politicians and other powerful people will let you down.
“ âThis is why we do the work, for our students to graduate as conscientious and ethical leaders. Our work is really to be part of their journey, their story. ”
âWhen that happens, you have to keep advocating over and over again,â she said in 2024, âuntil the actions of one become the actions of many.âÌę
Sometimes leadership is thrust on people. For Liz Cheney, the former Republican representative from Wyoming who spoke in 2023, leadership took on new meaning after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Famously breaking with her party, she served as vice chair of the House select committee investigating the attack. She was eventually ousted as a House leader.
Edwards said Cheney showed her overflow audience of students that leadership calls for courageâeven when it bumps up against your own expected trajectory. âFor our students to see that sometimes you have to take those risks, that was a story I thought was really important,â Edwards says. âHow are you going to live the rest of your life knowing you didnât take that risk?
âThis is why we do the work, for our students to graduate as conscientious and ethical leaders,â she adds. âOur work is really to be part of their journey, their story.â
