Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace. This hot new topic which is the focus of this conference, is best addressed by someone who has extensive experience in management coupled with an education in the humanities and a particular interest in the human relations aspect of organizational life. As our leader for this conference Susan de la Vergne brings all of that and more. After twenty-five years of management experience in the information technology industry, Susan shifted her interests to the development of innovative education and training methods. She now teaches such courses for major companies, gives lectures, recently authored "You Can't Manage Time - But You Can Manage Many Priorities," and has a new book coming out in the fall of 2008. We are fortunate to have someone with her credentials to lead us through this emotional maze.

Interview with Carlos Campbell
Carlos Campbell is a man of many accomplishments. He is perhaps best known as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development and the Administrator of the Economic Development Administration in the Reagan administration. But he is also an urban planner, having written a well received book on the subject of New Towns and having held a high post in HUD. He was also an active naval aviator during the Cold War and the Cuban missile crisis, and then an analyst in the Soviet Navy Branch of the Defense Intelligence Agency. In recent years he has served on the boards of several corporations including Geolink Advisors, LLC, Strategic Advisory and Asset Management; Member of the Board of Directors, Resource America, Inc., Pico Holdings, Inc., and Laidlaw Global Corp. A man of many talents and interests we are very fortunate to have an opportunity to interview Carlos Campbell.

Commentary—The Importance of Being Hillary by Gloria Feldt, As the former president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America from 1996-2005, Gloria Feldt was eminently successful. She was also a founder of the Planned Parenthood Leadership Institute, and by the time she left, the organization's total combined affiliate and national organization annual revenues approached one billion. Her call to "fight forward" scored insurance coverage for contraceptives and accessible emergency contraception. She initiated the Prevention First Act and the reintroduction of a new, improved Freedom of Choice Act. She understands politics from the ground up and served as president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, which she grew into the largest nonpartisan pro-choice action fund and Political Action Committee.

Vanity Fair magazine named Gloria one of America's "top 200 women legends, leaders, and trailblazers". Glamour magazine honored her as Woman of the Year, and she was one of Women's e-News' 2007 "21 Leaders for the 21st Century".

In her commentary "The Importance of Being Hillary", Gloria provides a brilliant examination of what it means that Hillary Clinton came within a whisker of being the first woman nominated as a candidate for President of the U.S. only to fall short just short of victory.

From the Editor
To some of us the term "Emotional Intelligence" might seem an oxymoron as we were taught that emotions were anything but intelligent. Susan opens the conference by observing that "Emotional realities in the workplace have long been downplayed, even denied. It's considered "professional" to be matter-of-fact, dispassionate, left-brained, unsmiling. These are characteristics we encourage on the job. How people feel about work about co-workers, clients, goals, process, and all the rest, we don't examine very often, and when we do, it's usually to put them in their proper place: In the background."

Preview Next Issue
Our next conference, The Future of the Corporation, will be led by ILF Fellow Douglass Carmichael. As many of you know, Doug is a psychologist, psychoanalyst, organization consultant, and extremely well read. Doug is very much in touch with the most advanced thinking around, especially when it comes to human organization. He has just completed a book, Garden World, which outlines a possible future in which our civic aspirations are wedded to our environmental resources. In this book, he deals extensively with the corporation..... its history, its function, its strengths, its problems, and its future.... so he is well qualified to lead us in this journey into the future.

Special Announcement

The International Leadership Forum is pleased to announce its debut into the blogosphere with the launch of the ILF Post. In 1981, long before the advent of the Internet, WBSI used computer-based conferencing technology to create policy discussions among leaders from all parts of the world, launching the field of online distance education. This experience led to the founding of the International Leadership Forum, where for the past five years its eighty distinguished Fellows have deliberated together on a wide range of pressing policy issues. With this new outreach effort, we are pleased to present the personal thoughts of several of our ILF Fellows on a wide range of public concerns.

The ILF Post features regular commentaries by a core group of Fellows of the International Leadership Forum and will also include commentaries from selected guests. The blog format being employed is an experiment in including a spectrum of voices. This format enables readers to write their own comments in response to any article that has been posted. We hope you will find the articles stimulating and that you will be moved to add your own reactions to the ideas of the authors.

To date, the ILF Post includes articles from former US Ambassador to NATO Harlan Cleveland, author/filmmaker Michael Crichton, anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson, psychoanalyst Douglass Carmichael, Biospherian Jane Poynter, survey researcher Daniel Yankelovich, former president of Planned Parenthood Gloria Feldt, actress and former Chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts Jane Alexander, Yale economist and political scientist Charles Lindblom, author Ralph Keyes, former FCC Commissioner Nicholas Johnson, and other ILF Fellows and guest experts, plus highlights and policy reports from the ILF conferences

These authors are regularly contributing articles on economics, education, politics, the environment and other contemporary issues. In keeping with the blog format, each article is short enough to read quickly but they are all packed tight with thought provoking insight and information.

Archives of Previous Issues
If you missed a past issue or simply want to review something of interest, please visit our archives where you will find links to all of our past Conference Digests, Interviews and Commentaries.