Jeff v2.0

Takeaways from My Role Model: Warren Bennis

This evening I had the pleasure of partaking in a Coro Executive Fellows Group Interview from one of my role models, Dr. Warren Bennis. Here are some takeaways from our 2.5 hour interview.

• Ralph Waldo Emerson used to ask people he hasn’t seen in a while - ‘What has become clearer since we last spoke?’
• Intellectual Curiosity developed through Acquisition/Ambition, Bonding, Comprehension, Defense.
• Dr. Bennis intellectualizes as defense. There are benefits to that, but people who intellectualize tend not to get emotional/visceral.
• Freud wrote about 6 methods of defense. A great leader has a great repertoire of defense mechanisms.
• Know who you are, know the affect you have on other people, and know what roles call on you.
• The boundaries of authenticity - one is a limit of the norms of the culture, but there is also a personality factor.
• Be authentic to your role.
• An increase of sources of news will make transparency easier
• On what advice you would give the current administration - ‘Obama has to call on shared sacrifice; there is a hunger for it from people who live in this generation. Be specific. Ask for sacrifice’
• Bennis thinks that the people need the voice that FDR provided through fireside chats.
• How do you mobilize communities? Through great groups or individual leadership? It has to be both.
• Any structure will work if the people want it.

He has an earnest interest in everyone in the room. He remembers intricate facts about his childhood, people he’s meet, passages he’s read. He ties Freud’s philosophies with the news of Jim Tressel retiring with ease. When he thinks, he closes his eyes shut tight, as if he’s pulling an idea from the deep crevices of his mind. And he makes eye contact with every single person in the room, for an extended period of time, as if looking into your very soul. This man is exceptional, and different than anyone else I’ve ever met.