Welcome and Remarks
Student Leadership Conference Luncheon
Saturday, January 31, 2004 —Daniel. F. Sullivan

• It’s great to be here with you, even if just for a few moments, as part of what has grown into a huge annual Student Leadership Conference. Peg Cornwell told me the other day that more than 150 students were signed up. All I can say is “wow, and congratulations,” because while surely a few leaders are born, almost all leaders are made—that is, they learn to become leaders either by watching and learning from good leaders, or by systematic, thoughtful, and self-reflective study about leadership. They also learn by assessing their own successes and failures. If you show me a leader who hasn’t had failures, I’ll show you someone who isn’t really a leader. That’s why this leadership conference, along with lots of other things you do and we help you, is so important to your development. So again, congratulations for seeing this opportunity and taking advantage of it.
• My role today is not to be your keynote speaker, or so substitute for the keynote speaker who didn’t make it here because of the weather, but to add just a little to your thinking about leadership, and to the discussions you are having about leadership. So let me try to do that.
• For openers, though, I can’t resist sharing with you this story about leadership that came over the wire just yesterday from my St. Lawrence classmate and now university trustee David Laird, President of the Minnesota Private College Council. Hopefully you’ll get a chuckle:

It was October, 2003 and the Indians on a remote reservation asked their new Chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild.

Since he was a Chief in a modern society he had never been taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky he couldn't tell what the winter was going to be like.

Nevertheless, to be on the safe side he told his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect firewood to be prepared.

But being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, "Is the coming winter going to be cold?" "It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold" the meteorologist at the weather service responded. So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more firewood in order to be prepared.

A week later he called the National Weather Service again. "Does it still look like it is going to be a very cold winter?" "Yes," the man at National Weather Service again replied, "it's going to be a very cold winter."

The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find.

Two weeks later the Chief called the National Weather Service again. "Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?"

Absolutely," the man replied. "It's looking more and more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters ever."

"How can you be so sure?" the Chief asked.

The weatherman replied, "The Indians are collecting firewood like crazy."

Just what you should take away from that about leadership I’m not completely sure, but I thought you’d enjoy it.

• And last year on the Friday before Student Leadership Conference I was listening to Garrison Keillor’s Writers’ Almanac—the part where he recalls the birthdays of famous people. That day’s list included George Burns, an actor well known to my generation, but not likely well known to you, who lived to be 100. Keillor quoted Burns on the matter of honesty. Burns said: “Honesty is one of the most important things in being a successful actor: if you can fake that, the sky’s the limit!” I chuckled, but of course the message we take away from that story is just the opposite. If you’re not being true to yourself—if you’re not being honest—people can smell it, and you’ll never be a successful leader. At the same time, candor in your dealings with others, more than any other thing, leads ultimately to the development of the kind of trust that is necessary for any organization to function well.
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• I attended a seminar on leadership for college presidents at a national meeting a couple of weeks ago. In preparation for the seminar, we re-read Plato’s The Cave, some sections from Machiavelli’s The Prince, and some current research on what are the characteristics of the most successful business leaders—those who led their companies over a long period of successful and sustained growth, not just short bursts of success before moving on to something else. The results of that research were really surprising to the researchers: the most successful business leaders were those who combined a profound humility with a fierce determination to find a good strategy and stay with it. The success of their companies, they articulated constantly and confirmed by their own demeanor and approach, was not about them, but about those in the organization who made it happen. You hardly ever heard them use the word “I”, but often heard them use the word “we.”
• As we move from a manufacturing age into an information age, more and more of leadership is about team-building, getting the most out of people by giving them a place in which to work that is challenging and rewarding—a place where their efforts are noticed and rewarded, a place where they are made part of an inclusive group—about emotional intelligence, and less and less about standing forth as the champion against the odds.
• Recently, as many of you know, St. Lawrence was involved in a contentious issue within the NCAA regarding our Division I hockey program. A presidential colleague I have known for a long time made an impassioned speech on the floor of the NCAA meeting against our position. He said: “For me, the issue involves a choice between conscience and collegiality. When such a choice is thrust upon me, I always have to choose conscience.” Let’s deconstruct those sentences:
• First there is the assertion that anyone who holds a position different from his is doing something “unconscionable”, because he’s making a decision based on conscience.
• Second is the assertion that the only reason one might hold a position different from his is collegiality—friendship, special relationships, without principles other than those.
• Third, he uses the “I” word—he is the decision-maker, he is the leader, he alone makes the decisions at his institution.

It was a powerful speech, and by the time he was finished, we had perhaps another 25 votes, for his colleagues rejected the false dichotomy of conscience versus collegiality. The issue at stake, and most other issues all of us deal with, usually involve values in tension—conflicting goods that we must somehow find a way to balance or decide between or among. The other presidents of Division III institutions in the room knew their lives and the nature of decision-making at their institutions were far more complicated. And they were rejecting also the arrogance of “I”. Our institutions involved a kind of shared governance rather than decision by fiat from the top.

So good leadership is not about “I.”

• Of course, I don’t know how to critique my own performance as a leader in this regard. You will have to do that yourselves. But I nonetheless do believe very strongly that great leadership does involve a combination of humility and fierce determination to have one’s organization succeed.

The St. Lawrence alumni body and today’s St. Lawrence student body are full of outstanding leaders. They got that way by thinking about leadership, learning from good leaders, and being systematic about developing themselves as leaders. Again, congratulations to you for spending some of your time today in that way. Thank you.