Leading by Example and Design: The Joseph St Geme Jr Leadership Award, 2016.

Abstract

* Abbreviation: HO-1 — : heme oxygenase-1 Leadership begins not by being out front or within a team but by first learning how to follow someone else and then trusting them to lead you with your best interests at heart. Indeed, most leaders are following the direction of some other person or group of people; for example, a chief executive officer reports to a Board of Directors, and a university president reports to a Board of Trustees, or at least they follow the advice of other people who might offer them wise counsel. Such nascent leadership thus entails deciding whom to follow, which means being a good judge of people. For some, the ability to judge other people seems to be innate, but it can also be learned by observing leaders making decisions and witnessing the consequences of their choices and actions over time. As an undergraduate at Stanford, I met John D. Goheen, professor of philosophy, who served as chair of the Department of Philosophy in the 1950s. He was a student of Alfred North Whitehead at Harvard, steeped in the teachings of 1 of the most challenging thinkers of the 20th century. Whitehead was a mathematician and philosopher. His “process philosophy,” for which he is best remembered, describes the world as a network of processes of which people are an integral part.1 His thought reflects the importance of process and connectedness (reality is a web of processes) and thus changeable environments, or contexts, for successful decision-making in the world. Applications of his thought exist in many fields, including the physical and life sciences, but also in the social sciences, particularly education. John Goheen, evolving his own thought from Whitehead’s innovative philosophical musings, taught me that logic can prove things, but it cannot invent them. He observed that imagination is as critical to paradigm-shifting philosophy … Address correspondence to David K. Stevenson, MD, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, 1265 Welch Rd, Room X157, Stanford, CA 94305. E-mail: dstevenson{at}stanford.edu