Deval Patrick, former Governor of Massachusetts

[Archive Interview from Jun 15, 2023]

“I don’t think there is such a thing as leadership without ethical or moral leadership,” Deval Patrick tells Dana Born on this episode of HOW Conversations. The Honorable Patrick served two terms as the governor of Massachusetts, the first Black person to serve in that role. He is now a professor of practice and the co-director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School.  

Watch the discussion with Governor Patrick and Distinguished HOW Fellow, Dana Born, that touches on leading during crisis, the need for moral leadership in a democracy, and why he believes that leaders can be kind and generous but still have the tough-mindedness to make hard choices. “It is about struggling with the conflicts that you will always find as a leader, as a human being for that matter, between the thing you think you need to do that’s expeditious or seems convenient at the time, and the right thing over time.”  

READY TO START YOUR MORAL LEADERSHIP JOURNEY? Moral leadership is more imperative today than ever before. The HOW Institute for Society was founded on the belief that those in positions of formal authority should also have moral authority.  We are creating the tools leaders need to make principled, ethical and values-based decisions.  We are a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a world rooted in deep human values and trust in our social fabric. The Institute channels philosophical reasoning to address modern problems. Today, HOW we do what we do matters more than ever and in ways it never has before.  

Learn more at https://thehowinstitute.org/