Speeches and Transcripts

Leadership Principles and Practices: Examples from U.S. History
Speech to students of Korean Minjok Leadership Academy

Alexander Vershbow
U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea
Korean Minjok Leadership Academy

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Principal Lee, thank you for that warm introduction.  It is a pleasure and an honor for Lisa and me to be here at Minjok Leadership Academy.  We have heard great things about Minjok from our friends and colleagues, so we are excited to finally be here in Hoengseong. ì €í?¬ë¥¼ 초대해 주셔서 고맙습니다.  Thank you for inviting us.

We are living in some exciting times.  I know you are some of the finest students in Korea and I know you are well on your way to becoming the next generation of Korean leaders.  The world is changing so quickly, but the direction and quality of these changes will depend on you and your leadership.  Are you ready to meet the challenges that we face in the 21st century?

Today I want to talk about leadership and share with you examples from American history.  I will share some principles and practices of leadership and talk about a few individual stories of justice, innovation and initiative.  I will also talk about how leadership is everyone's duty, and not just something to be left up to middle-aged folks like myself.

A famous American father once said, "If at first you don't succeed, give up."  This is a quote from Homer Simpson, the patriarch of the cartoon family The Simpsons.  Note: Do not follow Homer's advice.  Instead, take it from former First Lady and social activist Eleanor Roosevelt.  She said, "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.  You must do the thing you think you cannot do."  Are you ready?

Wanted: Leaders with a Sense of Justice

What drives you to do the things you once thought you couldn’t do?  Whenever I am faced with a question that tests my leadership skills, the first thing I consider is the moral dimension of my decisions.  I ask myself: What is the right thing to do?  How will my actions benefit my family, my country, and humanity in general?

These questions drove great Americans like Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  When they saw injustice, their leadership was tested.  When the United States was being torn apart by the question of slavery, Lincoln realized the moral injustice that it placed upon all Americans -- blacks and whites.  More than 200 years ago, United States Constitution was written to help Americans "to form a more perfect union."  President Lincoln's belief in the Constitution and its principles of justice and equality led him in his struggle to abolish slavery.  However, he did not come to this decision lightly.  Lincoln weighed the consequences with a heavy heart, but he felt a deep conviction in his belief that all men are created equal.

These same principles guided Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the American civil rights leader who fought for the rights of black Americans.  In 1955, Dr. King was a young minister who had just received his Ph.D. from Boston University.  He was new to his Atlanta church.  He could have lived his life quietly and without controversy.  But Dr. King chose a different path because he asked himself if his inaction would affect others.  He answered the call to form a more perfect union by leading Americans to rethink their views on racial discrimination and the denial of equal rights for people of color.  As with Lincoln, there were consequences.  Dr. King was arrested, his house was bombed, and his family received constant death threats – and, in the end, he was assassinated.  However, Dr. King relied on universal principles of nonviolent civil disobedience to guide his leadership.  He persevered in his conviction to end racial segregation and he achieved many victories before his life was cut short at the age of  39.

Abraham Lincoln and Dr. King did the right thing, and as a result Americans continue to admire their leadership and the legacy they left behind.  I salute them for their wisdom and their commitment to justice -- and for doing things they thought they could not do.

Take a Walk on the Wild Side: Unintended Consequences of Innovative Leadership

The American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

Indeed, our exciting and challenging times also demand innovative leadership.  To keep up with our ever-changing world, Americans have always needed new ways of thinking, new ways of production, and even new ways of banging the same drum!  In the 1970s and 80s, that's what the experimental American rock band The Velvet Underground did.  The underground democracy movement in the former Czechoslovakia idolized them.  Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright and the first president of the Czech Republic, was integral to this movement.  The Velvet Underground's sound and style so impressed Havel and his cohort that they named their peaceful revolution in 1989, The Velvet Revolution, after the group.  How's that for innovation?

The Velvet Underground, a small, commercially unsuccessful, and experimental American rock and roll band from New York City, changed the world, and the rockers didn't even know it until after the party.  The Velvet Underground's innovative spirit transformed Czechoslovakia and they helped to create positive, democratic changes in the entire region.  They showed leadership by recording one experimental song at a time.

What drove The Velvet Underground to create their unique sound?  What's the lesson here?  Follow your passions, do what you love, and do it better than anyone else.  Find new ways to learn, create better ways to communicate, and have a little fun while doing it.  You might change the world along the way.  Are you ready?

Initiative: Leadership is Practice, Not Position

A sense of justice and the spirit of innovation are key leadership traits.  But these alone only get you halfway to your goal of becoming leaders.  To round out your leadership toolkit, you need initiative and a simple belief in yourself.  In other words, Carpe Diem!  Seize the day!  Don’t be the solitary genius lost in endless games of Starcraft and Kart Rider.  Retreat from the shadows of the PC bahng cave and follow your dreams.  As the humorist Woody Allen famously said, "Seventy percent of success in life is showing up."  What he meant is that you cannot be successful if you do not try; you cannot be successful if you don't take chances.

I know many of you harbor a passion to master English and other foreign languages; when I was your age, I had a similar passion for Russian.  When I was a 17-year-old high school student, I had the opportunity to study in Russia (then the USSR).  I am grateful that I took the chance to live and study abroad.  It had a profound impact on my life and my career.  I developed language skills and a belief in the importance of reaching out to people who were different from me.  Are you ready to do the same?

Time magazine thinks so.  Two months ago, for the first time in its history, Time magazine's person of the year wasn't a person at all.  It was a pronoun.  They proclaimed that the person of the year is … You.  That's right, you.  For the first time in history, you are the person of the year.  Congratulations!

Why did they do this?  Time magazine said that new technologies have created new opportunities for worldwide communication and cooperation.  It's true.  At no other time in history have individuals had more potential to change the world than now.  Young, independent filmmakers and musicians, for instance, post their work online to the delight of millions -- all without the filter of professional critics and record companies.  Imagine the powerful potential of using these person-to-person technologies for other social purposes?  (Somewhere in the world, the next Vaclav Havel is listening, and planning.)  Indeed, with the advent of blogs, YouTube, and Korea's own Pandora TV and Cyworld, whose members now reach an amazing 20 million, you, now more than ever, are in command of your future -- our future.  Are you ready?

I think you are ready.  I think you are ready because leadership is a practice, not a position.  Leadership is something that everyone can and should do.  You can practice leadership in small, everyday ways.  Define leadership in the broadest possible sense.  Leadership is not just for men in suits.  The famous American football coach Vince Lombardi once said, "Leaders aren't born, they are made.  And they are made just like anything else, through hard work.  And that's the price we all have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal."  To add, Abraham Lincoln remarked, "You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was."  That's some statement coming from a man who was 193 centimeters tall.

Risking Enchantment: Take a Chance on You

Leadership opportunities abound in business, diplomacy, the arts, education, or within your circle of friends.  Take a leadership role in, say, helping your friend on his calculus homework.  You can practice leadership on a larger scale as well.  We need new ideas and projects to help humankind, so start an NGO and create a campaign that helps other people less fortunate than you.  Whatever you do, focus on solutions, not just on the problems.  To move society forward, we need to identify and focus on good leadership principles and practices.  Big or small, it's up to you to ensure that you practice leadership in various ways.  Take it from the great American inventor Thomas Edison, whose inventions include the light bulb and the first phonograph.   He said that "Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.  The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." 

Tomorrow, Lisa and I look forward to visiting the Thomas Edison Museum in Gangneung.  Thanks to the passionate, tireless efforts of its founder, Mr. Son Sung-mok, Thomas Edison's story can be told here in Korea.  Edison always said that genius was overrated and that hard work was underrated.  "Great ideas," he said, "originate in the muscles."  You are strong and capable young students.  Are you ready?

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, one more piece of advice: Don't be afraid to make mistakes in practicing your leadership.  Indeed, don't take it from me.  Take it from George Washington, our first President.  Washington was born exactly 275 years ago, in the year 1732, on this 22nd day of February.  He said, "To err is nature, to rectify error is glory."  As students engaged in the creative world of principles and practices, you will sometimes make mistakes.  That's natural.  Great rewards come with some risk.  But don't be afraid to make mistakes.  Learn from them and grow from the experience.

In closing, in 10 or 20 years, when Lisa and I return to Korea to visit Seoraksan or participate in the Gangneung Danoje Festival, we look forward to seeing the many fruits of your leadership here in Korea and around the world.  We take to heart what the great American Anthropologist Margaret Mead observed: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever has."  George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Edison, and The Velvet Underground are counting on you to do no less.  Thank you.