Faces of Leadership

What does being a “current or future leader” mean to you?

It’s energizing to be around people who are courageous and creative when it comes to finding new pathways out of what seems to be a dead end. We all make mistakes or fail every now and then, but courage and creativity help us avoid reproducing established patterns of action and decision-making. Good leaders are not afraid to explore new avenues and think beyond what has worked in the past. A great leader, however, is able to encourage and nurture a community or a team [with a] sense of exploration and willingness to break ground in a new direction together, rather than with one person leading the way.

How do you, as a current or future leader, help to shape a better world?

Reading and writing have always been passions of mine, but I refuse to read or write something simply because it aligns with particular narratives or is part of a canon. All facets of my work encourage various manifestations of storytelling. I believe that by sharing non-traditional stories and giving those who surround us a chance to engage in storytelling we reach a more meaningful understanding of what drives us and of how to best navigate shared spaces to create change together.  

What is the biggest challenge you’ve overcome in your professional life?

The biggest challenge I faced was being able to look at what is going on in the community from beyond my own perspective, to learn what challenges of the community aren't being heard, and help to find a solution.

What does being a “current or future leader” mean to you?

Being a leader to me is making sure that you've got an eye on the future and that you have a long-term plan. I see a leader as someone who creates a solution that does not create another problem... I've got two kids. My 12-year-old is a little social justice monger. It is amazing to see how her generation is. They have problems, prejudices, and socioeconomic issues, but they always choose to do something to make the world better. It gives me hope for the future. 

What or who inspires you in your work?

The person who inspires me is not an academic—it is my father. My father was a diplomat who traveled to many different countries and helped to improve India's image in many different parts of the world. When I had a chance to live and travel with my parents in these many different countries, I became very interested in politics, political life, and economics. So, the person who inspired me and in fact still inspires me is my father.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve overcome in your professional life?

The biggest challenge I had to overcome was to expand the way I think about political science and think about it in sometimes more quantitative terms and use certain tools that I was trained in—economic econometric tools—to evaluate policies and to gather evidence to evaluate things that I found interesting. So, the biggest challenge was to essentially change the way I thought about research and be exposed to certain kinds of training that I was not exposed to before.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve overcome in your professional life?

I'm a black woman in a very elite space where there are very few of us. When I started teaching at the University of Chicago in 1994, I didn't think about the fact that I was the first black woman to be hired there at the University of Chicago Law School and what that would mean. When I was tenured there in 1999, about six weeks after my first child was born, I didn't understand the importance and implications of that at the time… the challenges are really about being a person possessing identities. You know, I'm black, I'm a woman. When I started, I was incredibly young. That was really hard to do. I think the really interesting thing about those experiences is that they were challenging at the time, but I didn't consider them the biggest challenges. You know, they were just things I had to overcome and I did. It's looking back on them when I realize the immensity of them.

What does being a “current or future leader” mean to you?

"...If I were going to say it in a nutshell, being a leader is about facilitating collaboration. It's about helping the people I work with advance their own work and be the best they can be, and about preparing the next generation to solve the problems of the world..."