Exploring Leadership With Anne Stevens
Exploring Leadership is a series of conversations hosted by Kathryn Goldman Schuyler, which introduce viewers to leaders who dance with possibility and whose creativity, depth, and vision bring leadership to life — people from many arenas whose lives add vitality and meaning to our planet.
In this episode, Kathryn interviews Anne Stevens, arguably the most influential woman ever in the U.S. auto industry. As Ford Motor Company’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for the Americas, Stevens’ leadership helped Ford survive a troubling time for the auto industry in the 2000s. Her work led Motor Trend magazine to name Stevens to its annual “Power List” of the 50 most powerful people in the auto industry and Fortune magazine to include her among their most powerful women in corporate America. Anne’s lifelong love of cars and racing as well as her deep interest in quality as it relates to factory management principles (she knew W. Edwards Deming personally) served her well during her tenure at Ford. After leaving Ford, she became CEO of a UK-based global engineering company. In this interview, she shares her experiences with leading in male-dominated industries — and what’s important to her in life.
Kathryn Goldman Schuyler has many years of experience in leadership development, organizational consulting, research, and somatic learning. She has helped hundreds of executives to cultivate healthy organizations and is Professor Emeritus of Organization Development at Alliant International University. Kathryn has published widely on leadership and change and is the author of Inner Peace – Global Impact (IAP, 2012) and the lead editor of Leading With Spirit, Presence, and Authenticity (Jossey Bass/Wiley, 2014), and Creative Social Change: Leadership for a Healthy World (Emerald, 2016). Her recent research focuses on awareness and mindfulness at work: her published work in this area highlights how being fully present enhanced participants’ connectedness with others and with the natural environment and renewed their sense of purpose in their work. In addition to earning a Ph.D. at Columbia University (NY) as a sociologist, she studied with Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais who developed a sophisticated approach to somatic system learning. As a somatic educator, she helps children and adults with moderate to severe neuro-motor challenges to move, learn, and live fully. She has studied mindfulness and awareness with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Mingyur Rinpoche, Lama Tharchin Rinpoche, and other masterful teachers of meditation. Kathryn and her husband, a composer, live overlooking San Francisco, a view that encourages them to pause and appreciate gleaming sunsets and foggy mornings, the calls of ravens and the circling of hawks, and the sparkling city lights.