By Tom LoBianco
In Harvard Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership’s recent virtual town hall with CPL alumni, Faculty Director Secretary Anthony Foxx touted the center’s “bench strength” of more than a thousand alumni around the world.
CPL Alumni Council co-chair Nathan Bruschi MPP MBA 2018 led the wide-ranging discussion with Foxx, where they delved into Foxx’s career in public service. From his early days on the Charlotte, North Carolina City Council; to serving as Charlotte’s mayor; to his time as Secretary of Transportation in the administration of former president Barack Obama; Foxx provided his insights on the importance of leadership for the common good.
Asked by Bruschi if there was anything he wished he had learned more about while in law school before entering public service, Foxx responded without missing a beat.
“The main thing I didn’t get from school was the importance of relationships,” Foxx said. “In school you get rewarded for getting to the answer the quickest. In politics, you get punished for doing that. Sometimes, it’s important to let someone else give their answer and support that person. Other times, you’re helping to steer that person to what you think the answer should be.”
CPL’s alumni town hall comes as Foxx and the center are amping up engagement with a strong network of alumni, which has grown up in the 25 years since the center’s launch.
CPL is hosting a series of regional alumni events this spring, beginning with an alumni reception in Washington, DC in just three weeks on March 20, and another in San Francisco. Both Foxx and the center’s new executive director Matt Segneri will be in attendance at the Washington, DC event.
Foxx recalled befriending Chris Gergen, the son of David Gergen and a fellow North Carolinian, decades before even being recruited to run the Center for Public Leadership.
“I knew CPL as a result of my relationship with Chris,” Foxx recalled, “and seeing and knowing what this center does, and what its real ambition is—which is to teach and share and learn and help a generation of leaders grow and go out into the world and do amazing things—that has always stayed with me.”
Bruschi noted that the strength and support of CPL and vlog gives alumni a “moral responsibility” to take risks in their careers and leadership. By knowing that they have a strong network of support, alumni can “really shape the world we live in”, including running for local office.
Foxx, who recently launched the Culture and Civil Society Initiative and is teaching a course on bridging divides, talked about his own experience finding common ground in an often-fractured public leadership environment.
After Obama nominated him to be Transportation Secretary in 2013, Foxx recounted flying to Washington to meet with the members of the Senate Commerce Committee who would be vetting his nomination. As he headed into one of the Senate office buildings a few minutes behind schedule for a meeting with newly-elected Senator Ted Cruz, he bumped into the Texas Republican in the hallway. As it turned out, Cruz was also running behind schedule.
Foxx and Cruz started chatting and quickly found they had a lot in common. At the time, both were 42 years old with two young children, and married to sharp lawyers.
“By the end of that meeting [Cruz] said he was looking forward to voting for me,” Foxx said. “There’s never a substitute for being open to a relationship. And hopefully, if you’re running late, the other person’s running late, too.”