Ep. 140: The Making of Great Leaders with David Gergen

“The idea of national service is to get people in urban America to live in rural America, and vice versa. I think people who get exposed to that want change. People want to be proud of what their generation does. They want to be able to look back thirty or forty years later and know they made a difference while they were in power.”

David Gergen joins the podcast. Advisor to four presidents in both parties, he has had a front row seat to fifty years of American politics and international affairs. He is now turning his attention to the idea of leadership with his new book Hearts Touched with Fire: How Great Leaders are Made. As he points out, when our country was founded and had a population of three million people, we produced six world-class leaders: Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, and Madison. Now in 2022, we have 330 million people and we do not seem to be able to produce one great, charismatic leader. What is happening? What is happening with the nature of civic life in this country? Is it time for baby boomers to step aside and pass the torch to a younger generation?

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David Gergen is a professor of public service and founding director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. In addition, he serves as a senior political analyst for CNN and works actively with a rising generation of new leaders. In the past, he has served as a White House adviser to four U.S. presidents of both parties: Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. He wrote about those experiences in his New York Times best-seller, Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership, Nixon to Clinton (Simon & Schuster, 2001).

In the 1980s, he began a career in journalism. Starting with the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour in 1984, he has been a regular commentator on public affairs for some 30 years. Twice he has been a member of election coverage teams that won Peabody awards, and he has contributed to two Emmy award-winning political analysis teams. In the late 1980s, he was chief editor of U.S. News & World Report, working with publisher Mort Zuckerman to achieve record gains in circulation and advertising.

Over the years, he has been active on many non-profit boards, serving in the past on the boards of both Yale and Duke Universities. Among his current boards are Teach for America, The Mission Continues, The Trilateral Commission, and Elon University’s School of Law. 

David's work as director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Kennedy School has enabled him to work closely with a rising generation of younger leaders, especially social entrepreneurs, military veterans and Young Global Leaders chosen by the World Economic Forum. Through the generosity of outside donors, the Center helps to provide scholarships to over 100 students a year, preparing them to serve as leaders for the common good. The Center also promotes scholarship at the frontiers of leadership studies.

A native of North Carolina, David is a member of the D.C. Bar, a veteran of the U.S. Navy, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the U.S. executive committee for the Trilateral Commission. He is an honors graduate of Yale and the Harvard Law School. He has been awarded 27 honorary degrees.