Page 167 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

THE LESSONS

to campaign for Ford’s election. Schenk’s first meeting with Rockefeller came
just one week after the close of the Republican convention. “He called me
into his sitting room, and he said in that gravelly Rockefeller voice, ‘Look,
whatever happens in the fall, I’m not going to be vice president, but I’m still
going to campaign for my party between now and November. If you come
on the campaign trail, we’ll keep you busy and you’ll learn a lot. Will you
come on the campaign trail with me?’ I told him I was a Democrat, and he
said he suspected that but still thought I ought to go on the trail. It took
me a quarter of a second to say yes, and I spent the next two and a half
months on the campaign trail with Nelson Rockefeller for the Republican
ticket even though I had just come from the Democratic convention. The
vice president was right. I learned a lot. Being in Nelson Rockefeller’s office
for my Fellowship was the turning point in my life.”
Although the polls indicated that Ford’s campaign was faltering,
Schenk was impressed by the way Rockefeller kept a positive outlook; his
enthusiasm never wavered. His boundless energy filled every room he
entered, and in Schenk’s words, “he just blew energy and enthusiasm into
the room. You came away buoyant as if you’d been filled with helium. He
had an incredible spirit and belief in what he was doing.” Although some
might have questioned Rockefeller’s wisdom in allowing a passionate
Democratic supporter such as Schenk to tag along on the trail, he still
included her in everything. “From the beginning he had me sitting in on
senior staff meetings. He would have a lovely catered lunch for senior staff,
about eight or ten people. They sat around the dining table in his office,”
Schenk explained. “He made it clear to everybody that he wanted me to
be there not by saying, ‘Include Lynn,’ but rather by bringing me in himself.
He would say, ‘Lynn, come sit here by me.’ When others saw that I was
sitting at his left arm, it made them unconsciously more inclusive of me.
He was larger than life but as open and welcoming as your uncle.”
In January 1977, President Jimmy Carter and Vice President Walter
Mondale assumed office, and Schenk made the transition to a new principal
and a vastly different leadership style. Although she admired Mondale
greatly, he did not include her in higher-level functions. “Mondale was new
in the office and at a different stage of life than Nelson Rockefeller,” she
said. “Rockefeller was older and at the sunset of his political career. He had
been governor, a statesman, and a vice president, and he was just more
open. He left a trail of enthusiasm wherever he went.”

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