Dana H. Born 

Music. Well, welcome to
another HOW conversation on moral leadership. We have an incredible guest with
us today, the former governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, so governor, do
we still call you Governor? Governor Deval Patrick, welcome back. We’re looking
forward to this conversation. Thank you. It’s great to be with you. Former
governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick is an American politician, but he’s
also a civil rights lawyer, author, as well as a businessman with an incredible
background, and I’m going to share a little bit of your background. I’m sure in
our conversation, we’ll unpack this and add a little bit more to the tapestry
of your life and your leadership, raised by a single mother in the south side
of Chicago who moved to Massachusetts as a teenager and earned a scholarship to
the prestigious Milton Academy in Massachusetts at eighth grade, and the first
in your family to attend college and also went to Harvard College and Harvard
Law School, appointed by President Bill Clinton to be the Assistant US Attorney
General for Civil Rights in 94 and then general counsel to many businesses,
including Texaco, which later merged with Chevron and also Coca Cola. Your
governorship, you were elected in 2006 two terms then through to 2015 and the
first black governor of Massachusetts briefly ran for president in 2019 and
currently is a professor of practice at the Harvard Kennedy School of
Government.

Deval Patrick 

Thank you so much, Dana. It’s
great to be with you.

Dana H. Born 

Great to have you here. Let’s
journey into our conversation now to go back a little bit into your upbringing,
share with us a little bit about your upbringing and the people and experience
that shaped who you are today and the leader you have become, and maybe even as
I know you as a learner and a leader are becoming.

Deval Patrick 

Well, to go all the way back,
you mentioned that I grew up on the south side of Chicago, and I’ve talked many
times about how at that time, in the 50s and the 60s, every child was under the
jurisdiction of every adult on the block. So you know, you messed up down the
street in front of Ms. Jones, she’d straighten you out as if you were hers and
then call home. So you got it two times. What those adults were trying to get
across to us was that membership in a community is understanding that you have
a stake in your neighbor’s dreams and struggles as well as your own, and that
lesson in community has been incredibly important to me, more meaningful
frankly, as I have gotten older And as I have taken leadership opportunities
that we are stronger together when we turn to each other rather than on each
other. And that’s the kind of leader I have tried to be. I think the other
lesson is one every one of us gets from our grandparents, right, that we’re
supposed to do what we can to leave things better for those who come behind us.
Whatever it is, it doesn’t have to be the, you know, the grand gesture. It
doesn’t have to be the big, elected office or anything like that. It has to be.
It has to do with how you not so much, what you do, but who you are, how you
behave.

Dana H. Born 

Well, you honor your
grandparents, and you know, you share that they’re refugees from the Jim Crow
South, and they really embedded in you how you are inspired to see the humanity
in everyone, which is one of the principles of moral leadership. You know, how
did that influence your public leadership journey through? You know, many
avenues, including your co director role now.

Deval Patrick 

First, of all, let me just
say that you’re telling me that I honor my grandparents as one of the nicest
things anyone can say. They were extraordinary people who in the 1930s I think
it was left Kentucky, where they had grown up, and moved to Chicago, as so many
people did in the so called Great Migration, so many black people did. And I
think what I took from my grandfather’s way of living was that he saw the
dignity in every living soul, everyone it didn’t mean even frankly, you know,
when we would take our monthly drives over a weekend back down to Louisville to
visit family, and in those days, you know you had to bring enough food for the
trip and a slop jar, if you know what I mean, because you didn’t know where you
could stop to go to the bathroom, even the folks who treated him. You know,
this grown man with a lack of dignity, he responded with dignity. And I think
it’s so many cases I can think of, he seemed to draw that out of other people
that it was there was power in his example. So many different kinds of in.
Influences of that, of that kind around the importance of human dignity that
that I took from him. And then, of course, there were other adults in the
neighborhood, Miss Jones, like I talked about teachers in the in the schools
who loved us and helped us raise our expectations of ourselves.

Dana H. Born 

Yeah, I want to share another
wonderful quote that you have shared publicly, and it’s the quote, if you think
about the big challenges that face humankind today, some have their roots and
shortcomings in leadership. We have people in many senior positions who have
thought hard about how to become a leader, but not how to be a leader. How do
you become a better leader, one who’s more focused on moral leadership?

Deval Patrick 

I think, first of all, in the
political world, although I don’t think these lessons are limited to politics,
but in the political world, one of the phenomenon’s I’ve observed, is, is that
there are an awful lot of folks who have spent a lot of time thinking about how
to be, how to become this or that, not why they should not, not what it is they
want to actually accomplish. And the there’s so much premium placed on, you
know, kind of harvesting and storing up your political capital. But if you
actually want to do something, you have to spend that political capital. You
have to be willing to lose, it seems to me. And I think while I honor folks who
have made a career of public office, particularly elective office, and there
are some remarkable people in service today who bring a servant leadership
approach to it. But I will say, I have to tell you, when you think about the
big challenges that face us today, from the climate crisis to loss of
confidence in democracy itself to sectarian and religious and racial division,
to frankly, you know, I’m a capitalist, to the loss of confidence in
capitalism. So many of these challenges have their roots in, as I said, and as
you quoted, or are touched by a lack of leadership and unwillingness of the
folks who have a chance to reset the tone and the dialog, to call us to a
higher and better place and to work for it, not just to hope for it, but to
work for it. As my grandmother would say, there is risk in that right? There is
risk of ridicule. There’s risk of you know, being overwhelmed by the cynicism
that is all around us today. There’s risk of failure, being called to that
higher place and then not being able to actually achieve it. But when they do,
and when they believe the leader believes they have it in them, amazing things
happen.

Dana H. Born 

What are some pieces of
advice to people in those fields of education, business and elected leaders
that you would provide in terms of advancing our shared democracy? Some maybe,
uh, top, top things that they can do and be to advance shared democracy?

Deval Patrick 

Well, I think, I think, I
think you start with listening, you know, there’s, there’s a, I’m a great
believer in grassroots campaigning, and that’s, that was our approach when I
ran for governor, partly because it was the only way practically to break into
a Very tight and inward looking political establishment here in Massachusetts,
but also because philosophically, I believe there are an awful lot of people,
as I was saying earlier, who have checked out, who feel left back and left out
of their own civic and political future and showing up not with all the
answers, because nobody really has all the answers, and no one person, no one
party, has a corner on all the best ideas. But to ask questions, to engage
people, there’s power in that right. In addition to real information, there is
power in inviting people to see their stake in their own civic and political
future. And I think that’s true in business as well. I used to say, you know, I
learned, to some extent, how better to manage a large state government having
worked in large corporations. Because, you know, if you don’t go talk to middle
management and get their understanding and influence on the agenda you think
you have that you think you want to drive and have them refine how to do it, or
tell you all the reasons why it was tried a decade ago and didn’t work then and
won’t work now, and why there are other things that are more important then you
just miss the opportunity to get, um. Um, real success out of your agenda, in
the very best, out of what, out of what the lead the followers have to have to
offer.

Dana H. Born 

I’m going to take us back
now, if you don’t mind, to 10 years ago, in 2013 when you were the governor of
Massachusetts, and we had the horrific Boston Marathon bombing. You know that
was obviously a critical time for your leadership, and an aspect of trying to
lead during crisis and tragedy. So what did you get right looking back and
also, what are some of the things if you were to do it all again? You know, you
might do differently or what you learned leading during that difficult time.

Deval Patrick 

There was some element of
kind of stepping into a void and doing it in a way that was again about servant
leadership. What do other people need? Right? We had, we had the law
enforcement folks who were trying to solve the crime. We had the medical
community that was trying to save the hundreds of life threatening injured
who’d made it to hospital. And then we had a community that was reeling and
afraid in circumstances where often people will turn on each other rather than
to each other, right? And it’s a natural thing, and it happens. And so I think
trying to sort out all the different ways we had to respond and assure that we
had the right leaders in the room for those lanes, and that they felt supported
by me. So the question I was always asking is, what do you need? What do you
need? How can I help? What can we cut through? And then, you know, I had some
great advice from my Chief of Staff at the time, who said, you know, every
other emergency you’ve managed, you have given information to the public, but you’ve
also asked the public to look out for each other, right to check in during a
blizzard on their elderly neighbor or a power outage or some other kind of
emergency. And he said, you know, you ought to do that here too. And so we
started after the very first press conference, to call out the acts of grace
and kindness that people were showing the ways that folks would bring runners
into the into their homes when the race was called who were disoriented and
dehydrated, and get them water and get them warmed up and explain what was
happening and help them get reconnected with their families. There were all
kinds of acts like that through that whole week that we kept elevating. And as
we elevated them, they prompted other people to show those acts of grace. And
in fact, I think that has as much or more to do with Boston Strong as anything
else.

Dana H. Born 

The culture of kindness, I
can share a personal story. I’ve shared with you also where my former executive
officer when I was active duty Air Force was killed in Afghanistan and in an
insider threat situation, and was an immigrant from Venezuela. His wife was
running in the race that day, and was just short of the finish line and had
some traumatic experience based on that experience, and was swarmed by kindness
to help her through that double trauma that she was experiencing. So I owe that
to you and your leadership, that you created that environment and difficult,
right? Because being a moral leader during these times where you know, it’s not
just doing the next thing right, but doing the next right thing, oftentimes
it’s pulling you in two different directions, which is probably why being torn
and tired is a natural part of being a moral leader.

Deval Patrick 

Dana, such an interesting
thing. I made this point in my class. I think that we have a we have a
marvelously talented group of students at the Kennedy School who are of a
generation that frequently confuses cynicism with sophistication, and they
think that there is something incompatible with kindness and generosity and
tough mindedness as a leader, mental discipline and having to make the hard
choices. And I just don’t think that’s true. I think that there, in fact, I
don’t think there is such a thing as Leadership Without ethical or moral
leadership. There is, and it’s not the same thing as being righteous, but it is
about being right. It is about having a true north. It is about struggling with
conflict. Ethics that you will always find as a leader, as a human being, for
that matter, between the thing you think you need to do that’s expeditious or
seems convenient at the time and the right thing over time.

Dana H. Born 

And, yeah, I love how you
phrase that as kindness is sort of, you know, it’s part of your centering. You
know, when you are being pulled in directions where you’re having to decide
where somebody’s not going to be happy with your decision, but what is your
prevailing value? And you know, you’re affiliated with the Harvard Kennedy
School Center for Public Leadership, co director, also a great friend of our
founder, Dov Sideman, and also the how Institute for society and moral
leadership, and we talk about effective public or effective moral leaders
having a very strong moral courage. I love the word cur, because courage is
heart. Heart, maybe kindness go together, but there’s also this sense of being
not just having moral courage and strength, but also being humble and
recognizing our own vulnerabilities. So how have you integrated the desire to
portray strength and expertise and courage along with that desire to maybe
listen and ask for help? You know, what’s your playbook for how you challenge
this? You know, dynamic and how does that? How do you, I guess, follow your
compass in that being strong, but also being humble.

Deval Patrick 

I love that question. I love
that question because I think humility is one of the handful of key qualities
of a successful leadership. And I will say that every of a successful leader,
and every time I’ve gotten in trouble, it’s because I’ve, you know, I’ve forgotten
myself and gotten a little a little carried away. I had a great teacher at
Milton Academy. I think of him every single day, an English teacher named Mr.
Smith. You know, he’d ask us to recite a passage from a poem or a novel that we
were studying, and if we didn’t, if we really didn’t get it, or it was clear we
hadn’t read it, it would make us stand up in the class and face the class and
say, I am ignorant, Mr. Smith, and you know, it was a small class, but it was
still embarrassing for a bunch of 14 year olds and he explained. He said, You
can’t learn until you acknowledge what you don’t know. And there is power in
acknowledging what you don’t know. What I have found, he did not say this, but
what I have found is that in any number of settings, when you acknowledge you
don’t know, people come right forward to help. You know they do step up.

Dana H. Born 

That’s fabulous. And you
know, we’re humans, and everybody knows humans are imperfect, and so if we try
to project perfection, people look for the chinks in our armor. Well, let’s
move into the fact that you are devoted to developing principled public leaders
at the Center for Public Leadership and with our fellows and the Kennedy
School, and also invested in the development of next generation leaders and
moral leaders here with the how Institute for society. So my question has to do
with a piece of additional advice. What would you like to leave for developing
moral leaders in the next generation of key maybe some things that you haven’t
shared yet, or maybe it’s re emphasizing some of the things you’ve shared in
this how conversation on moral leadership, some advice for the next generation
emerging leaders, moral leaders?

Deval Patrick 

Well, I think, you know, I
taught a course this year, this past spring, that one of the newly graduated
students helped me design that we called Principles and politics when running
for office. And it was not a how to course. It was more about how to center
your why as a would be candidate, really focus on what it is you want to do
with this or that elective office, and how to come back to that when the sharp
elbows of politics come out, and one of the most poignant classes in that
course was about opposition research, and people talking about how this or that
in their background made them ashamed of stepping out and having that thing,
whatever it is, be made public. And you know, in a class of 100 people, it’s
hard to get people to be that intimate. But we, we, we had amazing
conversations, trusting conversations within parameters we’d set down on the
first day of class. And people told all kinds of stories, and I told some of my
own. And I say. You know, we’re all broken. We’re all broken. Maybe one way to think
about your brokenness is to make that a part of your story, because it’s not
just our leaders who are broken, it’s the lead. It’s the followers who are
broken too, and maybe the healing is something we do together. Maybe that’s
also an element of our civic life. You do that. I think we’ve talked about this
of both mental toughness, your sense of what’s right, and also humility,
because, as I said, No, no person, no party, has a corner on all the best
ideas, and so I think there is a way to think about principled, effective
public leadership. I want conviction. I don’t want just people who are polling
to figure out what they care about, but who allow for surprise, allow for the
insight that that you get because you made a point of engaging most especially
with the people who are so often left out and left back and who aren’t feeling
like they are heard, which, it turns out, I think, is most people nowadays.

Dana H. Born 

And I’m wondering if we can
go back to what I hear from you, and maybe it’s some of your grandmother coming
through, who you honor of hope for the best and work for it. I think is what
you said that she said to you. So what gives you hope for the future, and what
are you working towards for that future.

Deval Patrick 

Well, I, you know, it’s,
it’ll sound a little like a cliche to say that young people give me hope, but I
have, I remember, like everybody else, or so many of us, being stuck inside or
in one place during COVID, which is funny, it was either a couple of years or a
decade. It’s, completely messed with time. But after the George Floyd video
that so many people from so many different backgrounds in so many different
places in this country and around the world were out in the streets, day after
day, overwhelmingly peaceful. Sort of putting their collective foot down and
saying, you know, we don’t have to do this the same way in the in the future.
And I think the what was particularly striking, in addition just to the breadth
of empathy for the for the tragedy we saw was that it was sustained and in a
place of famously short attention span, that I think gave me tremendous amount
of hope. Because I think that the point was not just about how to reimagine
this, you know, kind of old fashioned notion of consistent professionalism from
the police, but the notion that, you know, actually, there is humanity and
dignity in everyone, including George Floyd, and that we can see that and honor
that, and we can behave accordingly. So I’m encouraged. I’m encouraged by that.
I will say, I worry too that the strong conviction we hear from so many of the
students at the Kennedy School, for example, which is so is so inspiring, I
sometimes tease them that they have more certainty than they do actual
experience. But that’s okay that they don’t always leave room for folks who
don’t already agree with them that they aren’t. They feel some tension, some
conflict, between the strength of their convictions and their and their
curiosity about other people’s views or how they how other someone else may
take the same set of circumstances, the same facts and reach a different
conclusion. And I worry about that, because I think politics is supposed to be
about how you manage those differences in a society, how you work those out,
and you work those out, not in not just through power, I get that part, but you
also work those out through persuasion and the willingness to engage across
differences is, is, is a. Story, alongside the hopefulness that that so many
young people are calling on so many of the rest of us, each other and the rest
of us to be and do better.

Dana H. Born 

We are so grateful from the
how Institute for society and for your dedication to developing moral leaders
and be an example of moral leadership, recognizing we’re not perfect, but we’re
on this journey, and it’s really worthwhile, and for creating a wave together
with us, we salute you. We honor you, we thank you for the time and the wisdom
you’ve shared with us today. Thank you.

Deval Patrick 

I’m so touched that you would
include me. I appreciate it.