Redesigning Leadership

When designer and computer scientist John Maeda was tapped to be president of thecelebrated Rhode Island School of Design in 2008, he had to learn how to be a leader quickly. He hadto transform himself from a tenured professor--with a love of argument for argument's sake and thefreedom to experiment--into the head of a hierarchical organization. The professor is free to speakhis mind against "the man." The college president is "the man." Maeda has had toteach himself, through trial and error, about leadership. In Redesigning Leadership, he shares hislearning process. Maeda, writing as an artist and designer, a technologist, and a professor,discusses intuition and risk-taking, "transparency," and all the things that aconversation can do that an email can't. In his transition from MIT to RISD he finds that the mosteffective way to pull people together is not social networking but free food. Leading a team? Thebest way for a leader to leverage the collective power of a team is to reveal his or her ownhumanity. Asked if he has stopped designing, Maeda replied (via Twitter) "I'm designing how totalk about/with/for our #RISD community." Maeda's creative nature makes him a different sort ofleader--one who prizes experimentation, honest critique, and learning as you go. With RedesigningLeadership, he uses his experience to reveal a new model of leadership for the next generation ofleaders.

John Maeda is President of Rhode Island School of Design and former Associate Director of the MIT Media Lab. In 2008 Esquire magazine named Maeda one of the 75 most influential people of the twenty-first century. He is the author of The Laws of Simplicity (MIT Press, 2006) and other books. Becky Bermont is Vice President of Media + Partners at RISD and has partnered with John Maeda, the current president, since his time at the Media Lab in efforts to bridge design, academia, and business.