Page 12 - How We Lead Matters

Davos, Switzerland, and was only the second woman to serve as co-chair of
the forum’s annual session.
Anyone who has had the privilege of hearing Marilyn’s speeches
knows that she often inserts a personal story . . . stories you aren’t used to
hearing from a CEO. Stories about how she nearly flunked an assignment
in college economics, how she “fixed” her Sunday school class, how she
won over the Super Bowl committee and how she has navigated the tra-
vails of motherhood including an invasion of gerbils. But the unifying,
underlying message in all her speeches is: How we lead matters. And as
you’ll see in the stories in this book, she is a passionate champion of peo-
ple at all levels, one who encourages others to step forward and lead. It
comes as no surprise, therefore, that she is deeply involved in the develop-
ment of our future leaders.
In 2007, it was my privilege to participate in the launch of the Center
for Integrative Leadership at the University of Minnesota which Marilyn
helped found. It was her vision and leadership which inspired the teaching
and research needed to develop a new kind of leader for the 21st century:
leaders who can work effectively across the public and private sectors to find
new solutions to complex, societal problems; leaders who can connect the
dots. As she says, “Some look at the sky and see just stars, but others see pat-
terns. ‘Look, there’s a hunter, there’s a goddess, isn’t that a bear?’ And, we’ll
never see the sky in the same way again.”
As they look back, many business and political leaders write long,
ponderous memoirs recounting every title and milestone of their careers
while masking their inner feelings. Thankfully, Marilyn has given us just
the opposite. Here, in these brief remembrances, she reveals who she is at
her core, what she treasures, and how her values have guided her on her
journey. She wrote this, as she says, so that her grandchildren could know
her more fully. But it deserves a much wider audience because it contains
timeless wisdom for others as they make their own journey, hoping to leave
a trail.
When I think of Marilyn—and I have been privileged to know her as
a friend for several years—she always strikes me as the walking embodiment
of the credo that she has so energetically promoted at Carlson:

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