By Matthew Kredell
Students from the USC Price School of Public Policy had the opportunity to engage directly with one the nation’s most decorated military leaders — retired four-star general and former CIA director David H. Petraeus.
Petraeus, a Judge Widney Professor with a joint faculty appointment at USC Price, returned to campus during the week of Nov. 3, participating in roundtable discussions on Mexico and China, answering questions from Price students about career planning and passing on his expertise in leadership. He also took part in an early morning run around the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum with ROTC cadets.
Petraeus sat down with 14 Price graduate and undergraduate students, fielding questions about his academic interests, how future changes in defense will affect policy analysts, how to effectively prepare for public service careers and how to deal with decisions that produced negative outcomes.
He advised students to have measured expectations early in their careers.
“There are situations where people are really fired up, thinking they’re going to work at the Department of State or be a foreign service officer, and then they realize when they join that the first three years are going to be spent stamping people’s passports and doing consular activities, or something like that,” Petraeus said. “So you do have to earn your spurs. You do have to get through periods of investing in these careers.”
He called graduate school a time to experiment and challenge one’s beliefs. After completing undergraduate work at the United States Military Academy, he embraced the varied viewpoints he found in the academic world while pursuing his master of public administration and PhD at Princeton University. He would even deliberately take courses with professors who held opinions different from his own.
“You should always seek experiences out of your intellectual comfort zone,” Petraeus said. “That’s what graduate school was for me big time.”
Petraeus’ advice was well received by the students in attendance.
“I think it says a lot that he wants to put himself down on the front line and make that impact on us as we’re getting ready to go out into the field and take what we learned at the Price School,” said Jeff Wolf, a second-year MPA who served 14 years with the U.S. Coast Guard and is currently an active reservist. “It’s great to see someone who was at the pinnacle of what I would like to accomplish be able to sit down with us and say these are the tools you need to be successful, but you need to be realistic that it may take time, that your goals may not necessarily be met and to prepare yourself for an alternate strategy.”
China and Mexico are both countries undergoing reform. Since Xi Jinping took over as president of China, at least 11 ministerial and provincial-level senior officials have been arrested in a campaign to root out corruption.
In a discussion with USC Price Professor Eric Heikkila, USC Dornsife College Professor David Kang, USC U.S.-China Institute Director Clayton Dube and post-doctoral research associate Chin-Hao Huang, Petraeus explained how he thought Xi’s goal in attacking corruption was to take an issue of great concern to the people and use it to strengthen his position as party leader.
“It’s certainly helped him consolidate his power very quickly, getting rid of some challengers,” Petraeus said. “Whether it has truly improved the legitimacy of the party remains to be seen. Years from now, we’ll see whether this is pursued in a way that is viewed by the people to be fair and equitable or just seen as another tool to sustain political power.”
Petraeus also addressed the reforms being instituted by Mexico president Enrique Pena Nieto in a discussion with Carlos M. Sada, the Consul General of Mexico in Los Angeles, and USC Dornsife professors Pamela Starr and Gerardo Munck. He asserted that in passing 16 constitutional reforms in a single year and pushing through energy implementation legislation, Pena Nieto accomplished more than his three predecessors did during 18 years in power.
“I think it is at least arguable that President Pena Nieto has been the most effective political leader in North America maybe since Bill Clinton,” said Petraeus, who later in the day met with the former U.S. President, who was speaking on campus as part of the USC President’s Distinguished Lecture series.
However, Petraeus warned that it’s time for Pena Nieto to focus on the rule of law issues that significantly shape the context in which all of the positive developments in Mexico can flourish.
Speaking to students of the USC Price Executive Master of Leadership program, Petraeus stressed using different leadership styles depending on the situation.
“One of the biggest takeaways that I will offer you would be that leadership style has to vary and you have to be sufficiently adept, flexible, adaptable and perceptive to realize what leadership style is required to bring the best out of each individual and the organization overall,” Petraeus said.
He told a story about starting at the CIA and finding out that the director was not personally swearing in new agents. He crafted an inspirational speech to welcome them and called on them individually to ask him a question, make a provocative statement or tell him something about themselves.
“You have to really understand your people, and you have to spend time with them to do that,” Petraeus said. “There’s no substitute for that.”
“The thing that really came across to me is he personified what we’ve learned in class,” said Simon M. Flores, an EML student who works for the USC Alumni Association. “Professor Bob Denhardt talks about leadership as energy, and that energy really came through in the general’s presence here and how he describes his leadership style. It was that energy that enabled him to lead such large organizations.”
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