Leaders Lead
A portrait of Mahatma Gandhi, a man whose leadership skills, born out of his conviction, character and inner strength, shifted culture. (The Center for the Study of World Religions, Cambridge, MA)
“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”
A year ago on December 6, 2023, I set out with excitement to attend the annual Seasons of Light: Praying for Peace event at Harvard Divinity School (HDS), advertised as an “annual multireligious service honor[ing] the interplay of holy darkness and light in the world’s religious traditions.” This evening, I had been told by others in the community, was the highlight of the school’s event calendar, an opportunity to pause from the endless cycle of shame and blame outwardly manifesting on campus between special interest groups who were reacting to the October 7th attacks and the fighting in the Middle East. Campus activism was making national headlines for Harvard, drawing the country’s attention towards the unrest within this prestigious institutional space and particular attention was being directed towards HDS, known as the center for social justice activism on Harvard’s campus. The candlelit event was, my fellow students told me, a chance for diverse religious groups to stand side by side for peace in the darkest moments of the year. Great idea, so very needed and perfect timing, I thought. I was in!
But once I arrived I saw very quickly that something strange was afoot. We were told that the service was cancelled and, while standing together around some refreshment tables, a group of anti-Israel, pro-Palestenian protesters was allowed to take over the room, using the school’s microphone and podium, as if coordinated ahead of time, to shout passionately at the attendees. I stood towards the back of the room alongside a young Jewish student who was visibly shaking and, while considering my best course of action, I looked around the room to locate the leaders of this learning community—the interim dean, the school’s longtime chaplain and organizer of the event, and other longtime administrative members and staff who were quietly inching backwards towards the outer edge of the other side of the room, cowering silently, trying to blend in with the crowd, and watching as these young students—well-meaning, passionate individuals in their twenties—shouted at me and others, holding us hostage and essentially blocking the exit doors with their presence.
Well-meaning and passionate pro-Palestenian student activists take over a then-cancelled Seasons of Light event at Harvard Divinity in December 2023 while administration officials watch from the sidelines.
In life, leaders lead.
But I was a guest in this space, not the host, and my ethiquette of awareness of the host-guest relationship allowed me to maintain my calm, make it through to the end of their demonstration and then promptly leave to head home and process what I had witnessed firsthand. What I saw there was the leadership of the school’s community complicit in allowing intimidation to run rampant inside the halls of the building, even inside a school-sponsored event billed as an inter-religious candlelit service for peace.
Hard stop.
In early January, after my family and I had enjoyed our holiday together in Vermont, I sat down to review the school’s student handbook. As a 43 year old entrepreneur and former small business owner, I had worked diligently with attorneys in the development of my own business’s employee handbook and had emphasized the importance of training my manaagers to create a culture of awareness of my business’s social norms and expectations, working to set very clear expectations for our employees that held myself and us all to a high standard, a standard reflected in the excellent work we did together. In addition to my research, I sent Harvard Divinity’s handbook to my father, a Harvard Business School graduate and Phd in education who for years served as the headmaster of a private school in Atlanta, Georgia. Together we investigated the language of the handbook and discussed it. It was very clear in the written language of this text that at no time were outside groups allowed to storm into educational spaces within the school without permission and that disciplinary action would follow breaches of these rules.
I emailed the school’s student life director and chaplain to get clarity about what I had seen the month before and to ask them if this kind of behavior and breach of the school’s student handbook was going to be allowed moving forward into the spring semester. If it was, I told them in writing, then I would not be attending school events for the remainder of the year. My conscience would not allow me to sit idly by and be complicit in allowing Jewish students to feel unwelcome inside the school’s walls. Of course protesting should be allowed in a free society but it should be done in accordance with permits and in permitted spaces. As an isolated incident, this breach of school standards wouldn’t be such a big deal but allowed across the board within the institution, I was noticing how a lack of leadership was adding up to an environment of unnecessary hostility that was impacting the mental health, communication systems and academic work of the school’s students, not to mention the ability of the staff and faculty to work with them.
“My conscience would not allow me to sit idly by and be complicit in allowing Jewish students to feel unwelcome inside the school’s walls. ”
The response I got back in writing was very clear: I was told by these administrators that the school would not take any proactive steps to prevent this from occurring again and that it was at the discretion of the new dean whether or not disciplinary action would be taken after the fact when breaches occurred. This email and many other incidences I witnessed firsthand with my own eyes on campus showed me that the school’s leaders, from admissions staff to some tenured professors, clearly encouraged and condoned behavior amongst student activists (some of whom were being upheld as heros in community while being under serious investigation for antisemitic bullying already) that demonized Israel and intimidated Jewish students openly.
Leaders lead; they lead, and culture follows.
A snapshot of my prayer request after spending time in meditation at Harvard’s Memorial Hall in summer 2022.
As a community builder and someone who cares about all people being treated with dignity and respect, regardless of their background, I would have been equally concerned and called to action if I had seen anti-Palestinian activists being allowed to bully Palestinian students inside the walls of the school’s building at a sponsored school event. I would have taken the same course of action to review policies and contact the school, not wanting to be complicit in sitting idly by while Palestinian students were intimidated and made to feel unwelcome. When in community, people who care show up for the vulnerable on any side—regardless of political position or affiliation.
“I would have taken the same course of action to review policies and contact the school, not wanting to be complicit in sitting idly by if Palestinian students were intimidated and made to feel unwelcome. When in community, people who care show up for the vulnerable on any side—regardless of political position or affiliation.”
So in response to the climate on campus and out of a desire to build community, I joined in with other students to organize a supper club called Pots and Pals that brought students together at my nearby home in Cambridge. We decided to do off campus what the school’s leaders weren’t successfully achieving on campus: create the conditions in a warm, loving space that allowed for natural conversation and connection during this tumultuous time. While my fellow students put together and spearheaded the details of our first evening, a celebration of the Chinese New Year, and our other events, I acted as the host of the space, encouraging them and being a cheerleader for their ideas, maintaining a spirit of togetherness and intentionality in what we were co-creating together.
At our first event, thanks to their hard work in warmly inviting fellow Harvard Divinity students of all stripes into the space, we had between 60 - 100 students show up throughout the night for food and fellowship. A birthday was celebrated, food was cooked together and the emphasis of that evening was squarely on peaceful inter-religious fellowship. We sat crowded together in the living room and listened while students played the piano, sang, read poetry and beautiful mantras from Chinese sacred texts, and celebrated being together across difference in a natural way. The swamis, monastics and religious leaders in attendance brought a sense of calm with them from their deep meditative practices, and their presence soothed those students around them whose nervous systems and emotions were stirred up by the hostility manifesting out of control on campus—hostility, I believe, resulting from a lack of leadership, guardrails and expectations on campus. The evening was truly apolitical, moving above and beyond the current moment’s very real challenges and allowing us to fellowship in a way appropriate for a group of religious scholars—around our common interests in spiritual and theological teachings—not emphasizing our differences in the political sphere.
“We decided to do off campus what the school’s leaders weren’t successfully achieving on campus: create the conditions in a warm, loving space that allowed for natural conversation and connection during this tumultuous time. ”
Swami Sachidananda, generously sharing his warmth, joy and natural leadership skills as he brings people together at our first Pots and Pals event.
Leaders lead.
What that evening and other events together with Pots and Pals showed me was something already clear to my design mind: in cultivating an ethiquette of civility, showing up appropriately with principles of consideration, empathy, respect and care, these diverse and talented scholars could ease naturally into fellowship together. And this fellowship over time opened up the doorway towards relationship and trust. Without trust in the leadership of institutions to act to protect all students, doing the hard and often unpopular work of upholding standards and maintaining order, people of true difference—not just those who all agree with each other—cannot feel safe to really get to know each other, to dialogue, to listen deeply and to find belonging and common ground together in community. Leaders must earn this trust through their actions by showing up with consistency and clarity, creating high standards for social norms over time.
Trust in leaders is earned. My entrepreneurial brother Chip’s 5:1 rule for leadership and life is: SAY LESS, DO MORE.
Today’s leaders are called to difficult work. Leaders have to stand up in the midst of intimidation, fear and chaos, not cower in the corner, giving way to the trends of the moment or calculating out of self-interest so that they personally won’t get cancelled on the internet or lose their professional titles and personal gain. Yes, this is extremely challenging work, and it’s not for the faint of heart or self-interested. The internet has made it possible for someone to lose their career and all they’ve built up over a lifetime of hard work at the click of a button, making those who should be speaking out and leading afraid of the very people who most need them for mentorship and guidance.
“Without trust in each other and trust in the leadership of institutions to act to protect all students, doing the hard and often unpopular work of upholding standards and maintaining order, people of true difference—not just those who all agree with each other—cannot feel safe to really get to know each other, to dialogue, to listen deeply and to find belonging and common ground together in community.”
I am proud to be from a family who has attended Harvard over the course of multiple generations in both undergraduate and graduate schools. Our family deeply values education, critical thinking and the open exchange of ideas that safeguard and maintain this open society. I want to see Harvard as an institution continue to be a leader and change maker for good in the world, and I’m proud to know many kind and brilliant people who have made it what it is today. But sadly, last year I witnessed too many community members at Harvard shrinking, lacking character and strength, when they should have been leading.
They were floating, as G.K. Chesterton notes, like “dead things” going downstream, focused on protecting themselves, their jobs and their reputations—hiding in plain sight when their experience, wisdom and guidance was most needed. I get it: it does take inner strength, courage, grit and the ability to go beyond doing and saying what is popular to be a leader, and not everyone has that capacity for greatness. It’s incredibly difficult and requires taking enormous risk on behalf of something greater than just ourselves. But these are difficult times that demand that to whom much has been given, much is expected. In other words, it’s time to act to uphold standards for civility and good conduct, even when it’s difficult.
Attending a lecture during Harvard Business School’s alumni weekend with my family in June 2022.
“It does take inner strength, courage, grit and the ability to go beyond doing and saying what is popular to be a leader; not everyone has this capacity for greatness. ”
In my final oral exam at Harvard I was asked by one of the most impressive gentlemen I’ve ever met, Harvard Business School and Harvard Divinity School’s John Brown (the incubator of the brilliant J-term course The Spiritual Lives of Leaders) what I meant by using the word “popular” so much in my final project, An Archive of Home.
I told him and the other senior professors in the room, individuals whose scholarship and lifetime of commitment to their academic fields was truly impressive, that I knew what it was to be popular. A natural people person who makes friends easily, I had been popular with very little effort my whole life in most spaces I had entered by just being myself: someone who was born naturally friendly, open and empathetic towards others. But, shifting my tone to one of seriousness, I added to this acknowledgment that I believed that the true character of a leader is visible when they stand up, saying and doing what is not popular when it needs to be said or done.
Leaders lead, and culture follows.
In building community and an ethiquette of care in the coming year of 2025 the biggest challenge I see in society is the need for those in positions of power to be bold—stepping up and taking on the mantle of adulthood, stating clearly what needs to be said and modeling right action—leading the way and upholding a higher standard for ourselves, our communities and our young people, especially when doing so is not popular.
Are you a leader? What are you willing to give up? Can you stand out from the crowd?
And are you able to swim upstream?
Yours truly,
