What qualities do you expect to see in a highly effective leader?
I think probably the single most important characterization I think is characterized in a lot of different ways, trustworthiness or set of characteristics that really talk about focus on being an effective leader. You have to be focused on what is best for the organization, people in the group that you are leading. Without that, my view, anything else, charisma, intelligence, emotional intelligence, everything else that you may have, I think comes secondary. I do think it is important to be self-aware, know yourself, and know your strengths. Know how you interact with people and what you are good at or not good at and these days, of course, is a growing body, academic study literature that tells you that to know yourself you have to have strong emotional intelligence or EQ, phraseology that is being used for that..-Don Lents
Don Lents, Chairman,
Bryan Cave LLP
LSL Class of 1978
DON LENTS is Chairman of the international law firm of Bryan Cave LLP. He specializes in corporate, mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and commercial law, and is the co-author of the leading treatise on Missouri corporate law. Lents has served at various times as the head of Bryan Cave’s mergers and acquisitions practice, manager of the firm’s International Practice, chair of its Corporate Department and as head of the London office. He has had principal responsibility for the firm’s strategic planning and development activities and has served for a number of years as a member of the firm’s Executive Committee (which is responsible for policy matters and is the firm’s senior governing body). Lents is listed in several honorary directories, including Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who of American Lawyers, has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America since its inception and is a member of the American Law Institute. He has served on the Board of Editors of the Missouri Business Law Quarterly, and has authored articles which have appeared in the Journal of the Missouri Bar and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Lents is a current board member and the past Chairman of the Board of Grand Center, Inc., which oversees St. Louis’ arts and cultural district, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Regional Commerce and Growth Association, the United Way of St. Louis and the St. Louis Council of the Boy Scouts of America. He also is a member of the National Council of the Olin Library system of Washington University in St. Louis and on the advisory board of a student managed investment fund sponsored by the university’s Olin School of Business. He previously has served as a regional director of the Harvard Alumni Association; as president of Leadership St. Louis, Inc., St. Louis Volunteer Lawyers and Accountants for the Arts, the Harvard Club of St. Louis and the British-American Project sponsored by the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University and the Royal Institute of International Affairs; on the Steering Committee of the U.S. National Senior Olympics Foundation and the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission; and as chairman of the Human Subjects Committee of the St. Louis Heart Association. Mr. Lents was a participant in the Danforth Foundation’s Leadership St. Louis program in 1977 to 1978, was an instructor in law at Washington University Law School from 1976 to 1977 and an adjunct professor in 2003 to 2004.
Lents was raised in Independence, Mo., graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1971 and received his law degree, also magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1974.
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