Page 66 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

LEADERS KNOW THERE’S MORE TO LIFE THAN WORK

secretary of health, education, and welfare. Nemerovski recalled how
Gardner focused on family life and on a wide variety of lifelong friend-
ships yet at the same time managed to achieve great success in his career.
“He never showed any interest in his personal advancement, and of course,
he had achieved as much prominence and success as anyone could want,”
Nemerovski said. “Other people who had cabinet posts might say, ‘Well,
what’s my next career move, and who is going to paint the portrait of me
that’s going to go up on the wall?’ John never thought that way. He took
me to the State of the Union message in 1966. During the drive over to the
Capitol, he told me that President Kennedy had offered him the job of
assistant secretary of state for international affairs. John said he rejected
that offer of a prestigious post because he didn’t want to leave his family
and didn’t want to leave his then-current position at Carnegie. He believed
there were many other opportunities to accomplish valuable things without
sacrificing time with his family.”
Gardner’s ego was such that he did not worry about reaching the next
rung on his career ladder, and he never resorted to power-tripping devices
such as scheduling meetings to begin at seven at night just to prove his
importance. “He was not a person who was addicted to the symbolism of
power,” Nemerovski recalled. “John’s plate was full of challenges as he
accomplished so many things that benefited society, but he consistently
balanced his time among work, quiet periods of reflection, family, and
friends. He was a different kind of man, totally different from anybody I
observed in that town.”

Indeed, Gardner was a beloved mentor and role model to many, Nemerovski
included. “John’s generosity to his many friends was remarkable. For exam-
ple, he encouraged Stanford University to offer the position of dean of the
business school to a longtime close friend. Not knowing that Gardner was
responsible for the offer, the friend, who was established as CEO of a major
international corporation, sought Gardner’s concurrence in his tentative
decision to remain in his comfortable and prestigious position among Amer-
ica’s corporate elite. Gardner offered a simple refutation that I have repeated
to my friends in similar quandaries many times over the past forty years.
He simply said, ‘Everyone needs repotting every twenty years or so!’”
Gardner’s generosity to friends led to an unlikely but memorable
surmise. On a gray overcast day in 2002, Nemerovski attended Gardner’s

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