LSI Fellow, John Yerger’s vision for contribution, growth, and lifelong leadership.
As a Fellow in this year’s Leadership and Society Initiative (LSI) cohort, John Yerger is several months into a journey designed to spark reflection, fresh perspective, and intentional growth. With the fellowship now well underway, he is beginning to reflect on the early stages of the experience, including what has surprised him, what has resonated most deeply, and how LSI is shaping his thinking about leadership and the next chapter of his life.
We recently sat down with John to explore what has stood out during the first months of the fellowship and how the experience is influencing his thinking about leadership, purpose and contribution.
John: Each person that we’ve interacted with has a unique depth and strength of knowledge that maybe I don’t have. Everybody brings something to this experience, and it’s been fascinating to dive into each person’s individual depth and strength, and try to glean something from that. I’m a believer that when you see really strong people, there’s something that they’re particularly good at, that’s a good place to learn from.
Alongside those relationships, it’s been meaningful to gain a deeper awareness of societal issues and structures I hadn’t spent much time thinking about before. Topics like housing affordability, for example, are far more complex and interconnected than I initially realized.
Engaging with both my fellow Fellows – which is hugely important – alongside faculty in a more peer-like relationship than ever before has been tremendously enriching.
John: It’s reinforced my belief that taking a portfolio approach is a great way to think about purpose and contribution. Some of us have several different areas of interest, and we have to see which ones are going to be relevant and able to move the needle on. Just because you are interested in something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right time and circumstances to drive that change in the world. You want to try to find things where there’s some natural momentum, while also maintaining a mix of short-term and longer-term initiatives. What things can we act on now, and what things are going to take time?
I would compare this to planting seeds: pursuing different things, watering them, and seeing what can grow. The resources and networks that are accessible, from all aspects of this program and from your own personal life, are just tremendous, and it’s really phenomenal to see.
The relevance of community has also struck me. We’re fracturing as a society and heading more and more toward individualism versus community. I think we need to find a way to build community back.
John: I’m on the board of a nonprofit called Social Venture Partners, and we work with individuals on the South and West sides of Chicago to help them implement the things they believe their communities need. We actually learn more from the community-based leaders than they learn from us, but it’s a synergistic collaboration. I’m interested in exploring that work more deeply and in finding ways to engage the resources of LSI and the cohort to amplify its impact. I think we could create better integration from all sides andI’d like to help build those bridges.
As people, we are trying to figure out how to contribute to society. It’s important to actually connect to society and to understand what life is like for somebody else.
This is probably one of the biggest learning opportunities from the LSI fellowship that I want to continue pursuing:how can we build people’s bridges back, restore interaction, and improve the mutual respect we have for each other, no matter our scenario or situation?
Telling isn’t as useful as listening. It has been clear that the LSI team is really intentional about building trust from the beginning, and it has created evident openness, vulnerability, and enthusiasm of just about everybody involved in LSI, the cohort, the professors, the students, and it’s set us up for a powerful experienceIf we want to help society, we have to be able to build trust or we will never be able to help. It’s a valuable thing to work on, to learn, and to practice during our Fellowship year and carry into our next chapters.
The University of Chicago Leadership and Society Initiative (LSI) supports accomplished leaders in successfully transitioning from their longstanding careers toward purposeful next chapters. LSI Fellows immerse themselves in UChicago’s unparalleled environment of big ideas and multigenerational dialogue, gaining frameworks for learning from their past and planning for their futures.
Through LSI’s rigorous and customizable curriculum, Fellows engage with eminent faculty and expert practitioners to explore how their next chapter can be meaningful for them and for society. This Fellowship is a commitment to personal growth, enduring wellness, and dynamic engagement with pressing societal issues.
Contact us to learn more about LSI.
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