Global Change Agents

Last week I was privileged to attend a course at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government with the title Global Change Agent and although I was not sure what to expect, I am still absorbing the material and reviewing some of the amazing people I met.

The course was run by Harvard’s Dean Williams who appears to have made a career about working with political leaders in places like Madagascar, East Timor, and U.S. Public School Districts to practice what he calls Real Leadership.

Real Leadership

Williams believes that the purpose of Leadership to improve the human condition and make progress and that anything less than that might be called Management but should not be confused with Real Leadership. Simply putting forth a bold vision and getting people to follow is, in Williams view, counterfeit leadership and is at the root of many of the world’s problems.

Professors on the course included Marshal Ganz who started his career in the U.S. Civil Rights movements and has been organizing and training organizers ever since as well as Jamil Mahuad who was President of Ecuador!

Amazing People

Even more impressive than the faculty were the other 60 participants on the course and space only allows me to give a few examples:

• Dr. Arwa Yousuf Al-Aama: Deputy Mayor of Jeddah and one of the few women in Saudi Arabia to hold public office
• Riad Alameddine: General Manager of a foundation in Norther Lebanon who is trying to build social services despite the disruption of the Syrian civil war
• Kevin Brooks: An English Professor from Fargo who is involved in helping refugees from Eritrea and other places settle in North Dakota
• Dr Atilano Guzman: A University Director dedicated to finding social justice for Manila’s poorest citizens
• Dr. James Kendall: A scientist who is responsible for the U.S. government’s efforts to map and monitor the Arctic
• Mary Waceke Muia: one of a number of Board members from Kenya’s central bank
• Justine Mbabazi Rukeba: A Lawyer who works for the U.S. State department and wrote a book about her work to rebuild Rwanda
• Ewa Wojkowska: An entrepreneur in Indonesia developing business at the bottom of the pyramid

What all these 8 people have in common with the others on the course is a true commitment to making the world a better place and a willingness to devote significant time and energy, if not their life itself, to do so.

If not now, when?

Professor Ganz quoted Hillel the elder, a Jewish rabbi from the time of King Herod. Hillel said:  If I am not for myself, who is for me? And if I am only for myself, what am ‘I’? And if not now, then when?

More than 2,000 years after Hillel, the saying is a important as ever and all of us must first be sure we look after ourselves. Then we must also be sure that we also spend time and energy engaging with the world around us and trying to make it better and that we must do this at some point in our lives like my colleagues on the course in Cambridge!