Renewal: From Crisis to Transformation in Our Lives, Work, and Politics

Speaker(s):

Anne-Marie Slaughter

Date of Event:

December 18, 2021

Associated SMA Project

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Speaker(s): Slaughter, A. (New America)

Date: 14 December 2021

Speaker Session Summary

SMA hosted a speaker session with Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter (CEO, New America) as part of its SMA General Speaker Series.

Dr. Slaughter commented that a country that truly allows its citizens to take risks and be entrepreneurial should also provide enough support for them to fail. For a country to make advancements, it is important for leaders and citizens to be able to receive and listen to criticism, understand and accept a country’s true history, and look forward to future opportunities. In fact, if a country creates a standard security net that allows citizens to fail, then it will create a more entrepreneurial culture. For example, the entrepreneurial culture in California’s Silicon Valley is mostly driven by individuals who took massive risks but also had family resources that could provide a safety net.

Leadership is a deciding factor of whether individuals in an organization or country will take risks. Dr. Slaughter commented that there are two main styles of leadership: a) leading from the top, and b) leading from the center. While both styles of leadership work in different organizations, it is important for leaders to understand what is occurring at the at all levels of an organization. Also, encouraging individuals to face their fears and realize that they can fail if there is a security net will increase risk acceptance. People will also remain risk averse if their leaders continue to focus on issues that do not affect them directly. National leaders are often too focused on great power competition (GPC); however, GPC does not affect average citizens in most countries. National leaders should instead focus on collaboration relating to global issues that affect citizens, no matter what country they reside.

Note: We are aware that many government IT providers have blocked access to YouTube from government machines during the pandemic in response to bandwidth limitations. We recommend viewing the recording on YouTube from a non-government computer or listening to the audio file (below), if you are in this position.

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Anne-Marie Slaughter Biography

Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter is the CEO of New America and the Bert G. Kerstetter ’66 University Professor Emerita of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. From 2009-2011 she served as the director of Policy Planning for the United State Department of State, the first woman to hold that position. Prior to her government service, Dr. Slaughter was the Dean of Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School) from 2002–2009 and the J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law at Harvard Law School from 1994-2002. She has written or edited seven books, including Renewal: From Crisis to Transformation in Our Lives, Work, and Politics(2021), “The Chessboard and the Web: Strategies of Connection in a Networked World”, “Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family”, and “The Idea That Is America: Keeping Faith with Our Values in a Dangerous World. She is also a frequent contributor to a number of publications, including The Atlantic, the Financial Times, and Project Syndicate. In 2012, she published “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” in The Atlantic, which quickly became one of the most read articles in the history of the magazine and helped spark a renewed national debate on the continued obstacles to genuine full male-female equality. She is married to Professor Andrew Moravcsik; they have two sons.

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NSI Contributors

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Region

North America

USA

Methodology

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National Security Topic

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Outcome

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