GW Alum Clay Jones talks about Leadership

In a GLOBE series event hosted by the GW School of Business, Clay Jones spoke to GW’s Global MBA students about leadership. Clay Jones is the Chairman, President & CEO of Rockwell Collins and a GW School of Business alum. His story was both entertaining and educational, but perhaps what stood out the most were his final words of wisdom for us as future business leaders.

1.  Perception is reality.
2.  “Everybody is your friend when you have free whiskey.”  Translation: Everyone wants to be around people who add value. How can you add value to those around you without being high maintenance?
3.  Live by Andy Warhol’s Theory of Success (i.e. everybody will be famous for 15 minutes). Learn to recognize when it’s your 15 minutes, and take advantage of the opportunity.

Mr. Jones emphasized that his successes resulted from a little bit of talent and whole lot of luck. He learned to recognize opportunities to be a leader, and capitalize on those moments to eventually become the CEO of Rockwell Collins, a global leader in aerospace and defense.

Mr. Jones’ leadership tips demonstrated the Principles for Responsible Management Education.  Despite the growing awareness for the necessity of climate change mitigation, leaders are increasingly needed to turn ideas into actions.   In the words of Clay Jones, the job of a leader is to a) set a vision, b) align the people with that vision, and c) motivate and inspire the people to work towards the vision.  Regardless of the industry, the principles of effective leadership remain the same.

Al Gore Speaks about Our Choice

I went to see Al Gore promote his new book, Our Choice, at GW’s Lisner Auditorium on Thursday evening. Mr. Gore gave an overview of the book’s content, which focuses on the main causes of climate change and the decisions faced by Americans to change our behaviors and policies. In his blog, the book is decribed as follows:

Picking up where An Inconvenient Truth left off, Our Choice utilizes Mr. Gore’s forty years of experience as a student, policymaker, author, filmmaker, entrepreneur and activist to comprehensively describe the real solutions to global warming. A co-recipient of the Nobel Peace prize in 2007 for his environmental work, Mr. Gore continues to make sense of the pressing issues we face and Our Choice will unquestionably inspire and rally those ready to fight for solutions that were deemed impossible only a short time ago. (http://blog.algore.com/2009/03/our_choice.html)

Our Choice, and Mr. Gore himself, are great examples of the Principles for Responsible Management Education. In support of the Purpose principle, Mr. Gore commended students who are incorporating sustainability into their educational track.  His book focuses mostly on the principles of Research and the importance of Partnership to make change occur; however, I believe Mr. Gore’s key impact is through Dialogue, and his continued promotion of change through awareness.

In his final statement, he challenged Americans (and particularly young people) to be responsible for making the most important moral decision of our era-to create and implement global solutions to combat the climate crisis.

Introduction

My name is Lara Gast and I’m a first year MBA student at the George Washington University School of Business, concentrating in Environmental Policy & Management. As someone interested in pursuing an environmental career, I was pleased to hear about the Certificate of Responsible Management now being offered through GW’s School of Business. I think the Certificate is a great way to gain a big picture understanding of the elements of social and environmental ethics, while also utilizing those values in real life applications. I hope the structure of the Certificate program will position me to become well-rounded in both classroom as well as practical applications of sustainable and responsible business practices. Looking forward to starting the process…