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We all have that obligation to serve. And I’m so glad that Capella has now started
this advanced, new program on public service, community service. You know, people keep saying
well how do we fix this problem, how do we fix that problem? What will the government
do? What will somebody else do? What will Bill Gates do? The question is what will each
and every one of us do to make our community a better place? So I congratulate Christopher,
and all of his associates.
I've been in public service for over 50 years. And I have been privileged to manage organizations
and lead followers in every imaginable capacity: small groups of 40, armies of a couple of
million. I've had to leave troops in war, lead troops in peace. I have been in diplomatic
and political service as a manager and leader and I have been in the profit world and in
the non-profit world. And people are constantly asking me, "what's the difference between
being a chairman and being Secretary of State with respect to leadership?" And the answer's
very simple. It's the same. There are some basic principles of leadership that I have
used throughout my life and there is a consistency to them. And everything I learned about leadership
began with my first assignment to the infantry school at Fort Benning, Georgia. We've got
some others! When you drive onto Fort Benning, Georgia, you see the motto of the infantry
school. Me is me, but the predicate, the operative word is follow. And everything that flows
from follow: followers. And what they drilled into us is as a leader, as a leader your major
role in life is to take care of followers and get the most out of followers. Leaders
don't really accomplish anything themselves. They only accomplish things through their
followers. And so, if you want to be an effective leader, you have to have effective followers.
And everything they drilled into us was to how to create an environment, an organization
of two people or two million people, how to create an environment where the followers
do what you need them to do, what you want them to do. And it begins with the leader
always having a mission, a set of goals. But the word I have been using increasingly is
leaders have to create within an organization a sense of purpose. We're not here just to
make a profit; we're not here just to expand our market share. We have a purpose. An existential
purpose that is above these kind of hygienic things like market share and profit and salary.
And our purpose is to produce a product or produce a service, but the purpose really,
the fundamental purpose is to improve our society.
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