View From the Top: An Inside Look at How People in Power See and Shape the World

Introduction

“What? What does that mean, ‘I'm not the job?’” I could hardly hear Price, the search consultant, on my cell phone over the screeching of the subway car pulling in next to me. I was changing trains at the Park Street T station in downtown Boston, on my way to interview Diana Chapman Walsh, the highly successful president of Wellesley College. I had traveled to Boston from Houston—where I worked as a professor at Rice University—for a dual purpose. Not only was I completing additional interviews for my research project, but I had come to be interviewed myself. I was a candidate for the presidency of a Christian liberal arts college north of Boston, Gordon College.

“You got the job!” he repeated. This time I understood. In that moment, surrounded by strangers in that subway station, my life changed forever. I agreed to meet the board chair and the head of the search committee back at the hotel after the Walsh interview, and I hung up in a euphoric daze. I don't know how I managed to find my way to the Cleveland Circle T stop where I met up with Walsh, but I sobered up as soon as we greeted. I had been conducting interviews with leaders like Walsh for years, but now I had an even keener interest in learning from her. What went well for her early on, and what missteps does she wish she could do over? How does she handle her critics, including her inner critic? The lessons about leadership and power that I had been picking up for years were no longer strictly academic ...