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"Leadership is not control, but understanding people ... not being right, but doing right," said Prof. Harry Kraemer at TEDxUNPlaza.

Harry M. Jansen Kraemer

Kellogg at TEDxUNPLAZA

Harry Kraemer delivers his four value-based leadership principles at TEDx event organized by Kellogg student

By Brigitte Rene and Paul Dailing

9/19/2013 - On the road from the airport to the first TEDx event held at the United Nations, Kellogg School of Management Clinical Professor of Management & Strategy Harry M. Jansen Kraemer saw other drivers texting, eating — even shaving.

It reminded him of how some people approach business.

"In this speed, in this race, have we somehow confused activity and productivity?" Kraemer asked the crowd of global thought leaders at TEDxUNPLAZA on Sept. 16 at the United Nations Plaza in New York.

TEDxUNPLAZA co-curator and executive producer Kunal Sood invited Kramer so the audience could experience the passion and expertise Sood saw in Kraemer’s classroom. Sood is a student in the Kellogg Executive MBA Program.

Kraemer, also an executive partner at private equity firm Madison Dearborn, gave four leadership principles he developed while chairman and CEO of the $9 billion global healthcare company Baxter International Inc.:

  1. Self-reflection: "I think we can start to separate noise from what really, really matters."
  2. Balance: "Seek to understand before you're understood."
  3. True self-confidence: "You surround yourself with people that are much better than you on the things you're not that good at."
  4. Genuine humility: "Remember the cube. Most of us, when we started in a cube, whenever that was, we knew how we wanted to be treated."

Watch Kraemer's 15-minute talk


Sood hopes the event, themed "BRAVE: United in Action," will "begin a dialogue to not focus on what is wrong, but what is right.

"Just fixing problems is not enough. We must start to do better what we already do well," said Kellogg’s Sood, who has been asked to return to the UN to speak before the General Assembly about sustainable development.

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