AS FORMER MAYOR OF CHARLOTTE, North Carolina, and transportation secretary in the Obama administration, Anthony Foxx has spent a lot of time thinking about the importance of leadership in a time of political divisions. Now co-director of Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership, Foxx, the Emma Bloomberg Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership, will focus on helping a new generation prepare for leadership in a turbulent time. We spoke with Foxx about his new appointment, his Culture and Politics Lab, and how to create “win-win” scenarios.
Q: How do you see your role at the Center for Public Leadership?
I’ll be a leader among leaders. I bring a tremendous passion for service, experience in a variety of public roles, and a strong desire to help other people succeed. What we do at CPL can have an outsized impact on the world, and I believe it is not only a matter of what I can do, but what we can all do, individually and collectively, at CPL. I am thrilled to lead CPL with Hannah Riley Bowles, the Roy E. Larsen Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Management. I cannot think of anything more important than working with the outstanding team at CPL to groom a new generation of leaders. Democracy is in crisis, and leadership matters more now than perhaps at any other time. We have a privilege and unique responsibility at the Kennedy School and especially at CPL to cultivate young people hungry to take up the mantle of leadership.
Q: What is leadership to you?
Leadership is taking responsibility for making the world a better place. But there is no one type of leader. Leaders can be unassuming or boisterous. They can be funny or serious. What I have found to be most true is the best leaders have a degree of comfort with themselves. They’re not trying to be someone else, and believe it or not, that’s one of the hardest things to achieve. If we can help students build knowledge and skill around their own strengths, they will be so much mo