‘Stand up and be counted.’ Q&A with Bill George on Moral Leadership
By Tom LoBianco
This week, the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Center for Public Leadership (CPL) announced an expanded commitment to training the next generation of leaders with a new $1 million gift from the George Family Foundation.
This gift will extend and expand the George Leadership Fellowship over the next five years. In addition to scholarships for select students in their third year of the HKS/Harvard Business School (HBS) joint degree program, CPL will launch a significant expansion of co-curricular programming and support, making authentic leadership development a fundamental component of the entire three years of the HKS/HBS joint degree program. This co-curriculum programming focuses on character formation and purpose-driven, ethical leadership across the private, public, and non-profit sectors, providing these talented rising leaders with opportunities to deepen their leadership experience through reflective, experiential learning. Through the George Leadership Fellowship, students discern their purpose, develop the ability to mentor others, and explore their own policy and leadership interests.
Bill and Penny George, co-chairs of the George Family Foundation, have been committed to moral leadership for years now in their philanthropic work. Currently an executive fellow at HBS, Bill George is the former CEO and chairman of Medtronic and a graduate of HBS, where he also served as a professor of management practice at HBS. George is a widely recognized expert on leadership studies and author of eight books, including his most recent, True North: Emerging Leader Edition.
During a recent visit to the HKS campus, George talked with the Center for Public Leadership about how leaders find their moral compass and follow it in difficult times. Speaking with George Leadership Fellows and students in the David Gergen Summer Fellowship, George said leaders must recognize difficult times as moments to step forward and not shrink from challenge. He called on other leaders to support bedrock Constitutional and ethical principles, sharing how he is proud to work with CPL in training the next generation of ethical leaders.