Leadership and humanities — an important combination
The Institute for Leadership in Technology seeks to incorporate humanities — such as art, literature, philosophy, religion, and history — into the creation of a higher level of leadership among individuals. This institute’s students are not 18-year-olds or even faculty members, but rather rising technology leaders from around the world.
Two years ago, after a career spent working first in the nonprofit sector and later for technology firms, including two prominent companies in Silicon Valley, Rishi Jaitly made a move into the world of higher education.
Today, the technology advisor, former entrepreneur and high-ranking executive at Twitter, now called X, and Google serves as a professor and, perhaps more interestingly, a passionate proponent of the humanities.
Jaitly’s passion fuels his latest endeavor — starting and overseeing the Virginia Tech Institute for Leadership in Technology.
“This feels, in many ways, like my fifth startup,” Jaitly said.
The Institute for Leadership in Technology seeks to incorporate humanities — such as art, literature, philosophy, religion, and history — into the creation of a higher level of leadership among individuals. This institute’s students are not 18-year-olds or even faculty members, but rather rising technology leaders from around the world.
In fact, the inaugural class of fellows — 11 this year — features executives from Fortune 500 companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Boeing who all completed a rigorous application process. While much of the coursework takes place virtually, the group of fellows gather in person three times per year. Before receiving their leadership credentials, fellows will have completed readings, written papers, and presented creative writing.
“I think the humanities are the answer,” Jaitly said. “They teach you meaning, which is an important element of leadership. They teach you an ability to see across differences. These are all the essential elements of reflective leadership.
“A lot of the debates about the future of technology tend to be about policy and rules and controls and governance. The question I’m asking is, ‘Well, who’s in the room where things happen? What kinds of experiences are people bringing to those rooms? Are they living in bubbles? Or are they living boldly in the human other?’ … When you’re selling a product to customers, when you’re designing products for new markets, when you’re imagining product market fit, when you’re thinking about hiring and recruiting, when you're thinking about employee retention, the ability to live in the human other is a superpower.”
Jaitly came to understand the importance of humanities during his career not long after reading “The Fuzzy and the Techie: Why the Liberal Arts Will Rule the Digital World” by Scott Hartley. Most leaders in the technology sector possess the STEM skills prevalent in academic curricula today, but Jaitly found that the most inspired also possess a differentiated human element when making critical decisions.
More importantly, Jaitly realized that the humanities had played a powerful role in his own impact across his various roles.
“There was this underground feeling I had in me that the humanities had actually played a disproportionate role in powering my own leadership across sectors, across communities, and across a wide range of contexts,” he said. “This feeling was building in the late 2010s, and I wondered why our culture didn't hold up a lifelong commitment to the liberal arts as a North Star. Why weren't we connecting the dots between the role that humanities might play in addition to the role of technical skills, the role of traditional business skills, in fueling a higher leadership?
“A couple of years ago, a current colleague of mine at Virginia Tech, said, ‘Rishi, you're so passionate about the humanities, and you're a practitioner and leader in technology. It seems to me Virginia Tech would be a wonderful stage on which you might advance this story and advance this mission.’”
Jaitly and Sylvester Johnson, associate vice provost for public interest technology and founding director of the Center for Humanities — where the Institute for Leadership in Technology resides — aren’t seeking to replace the STEM skills of those in leadership positions within the technology sector. Nor do they seek to replace the experiences that allow leaders to put what they know into practice and learn from mistakes. They seek to be an additive to skills and experiences.
“There's been a desert, and I was staggered when the idea dawned on me that this didn't exist in the United States and perhaps the world,” Jaitly said. “I still haven't heard of a program like this that systematically offers rising stars, rising practitioners in and around the technology landscape, an ability to cultivate skills in and around the humanities.”
Future plans for the institute and this program are in development.
“Looking ahead, I would hope we were catalytic for other efforts like this that maybe didn't just aim at the technology industry, but at other portions of our world and community,” said Jaitly. “Hopefully, we can all reimagine how the humanities dress up and go to market.”
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