FOREW
ORD
6
FORTUNE.COM // MAY.1.
THERE IS SOMETHING remarkably powerful about listening. Those who
know Melinda Gates well—and even some of those who have met her just
once—remark at how good she is at this skill. Geeta Rao Gupta, a former
staffer for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, who is now at the United
Nations Foundation, vividly remembers the first time she met with Gates
in her office, way back in 2010: “She was literally leaning in, listening very
attentively, not interrupting, but acknowledging that she had heard. You
know how sometimes people just have a blank face and you don’t know
whether you’re being heard?” It was wholly different with Melinda, Rao
Gupta says. “She acknowledges, she nods, she listens—and without inter-
rupting, she asks really astute questions.”
I thought about that description a lot as I was reporting my feature
story on Melinda and Bill Gates for our annual World’s Greatest Leaders
list (please see page 44). Listening, after all, may be one of the most un-
derrated and least acknowledged leadership skills. A few other qualities
that sources used frequently to describe the Gateses might join that list
as well: data-centrism, the ability to forge lasting partnerships, and one
notion that came up more than any other—optimism.
“Bill and Melinda have always insisted on being optimistic,” says Helle
Thorning-Schmidt, a former Prime Minister of Denmark who is now
CEO of Save the Children International. “And that language of optimism,
dier, too. Consider Los Angeles
Rams coach Sean McVay, who
turned his underdogs into Super
Bowl contenders—and University
of Virginia basketball coach Tony
Bennett, who rebounded from a
mighty NCAA loss last year to reel
in a big win in March Madness.
Hardiness, as our cover profile
suggests, also means moving fast
to help others, without waiting
for permission: Consider José
Andrés, who gets to disaster
zones with his World Central
Kitchen team, sometimes before
the NGOs are even set up.
They’ve served nearly 4 million
meals in Puerto Rico since Hur-
ricane Maria. “We don’t sit wait-
ing for someone to tell us what to
do,” he shares with Beth Kowitt
(page 58).
Kapil Mohabir, meanwhile, is
helping small farmers in Guyana
band together to make a living
wage. And Ellen Agler is seiz-
ing the initiative to coordinate
people’s work on neglected tropi-
cal diseases.
But don’t stop there. You can
get the full master class by read-
ing entries one through 50 on
the list.
I think, has been extremely important because
it also shows that if you do something, you can
change the course of the world.”
Kathy Calvin, CEO of the United Nations Foun-
dation, brands the Gateses’ variety: “unabashed
optimism.” It’s a “kind of relentless optimism,” she
adds admiringly.
You’ll find that same driving, upbeat sentiment
in Geoff Colvin’s marvelous introduction to this
year’s list (see page 54), though he calls it by a dif-
ferent name: hardiness. As Geoff writes: “Hardy
individuals don’t see the world as threatening or
see themselves as powerless against large events;
on the contrary, they think change is normal, the
world is fascinating, they can influence events, and
it’s all an opportunity for personal growth.”
It should go without saying that such hardy-
souled stock tend to make the people they lead har-
CLIFTON LEAF
Editor-in-Chief, Fortune
@CliftonLeaf
Bill Gates’
first cover for
Fortune, just after
Microsoft’s IPO.
HOPE AND COUR AGE
MOVE THE WORLD
