Impactful Leaders Rely on Others

Ask Questions

As a new student at Booth, London signed up for her first-ever marketing class. When she asked her professor how to get up-to-speed on the unfamiliar material, she received the following advice: Ask a lot of questions. “She told me that as a manager and leader, you won’t be able to be an expert in every field,” London said. “What you need to know is how to ask enough questions to get the information you need to make the right decisions.” This lesson has since become a lifelong approach.

Now, as the CEO of a Fortune 25 company, London asks questions that interrogate the business, test its strategy, track market forces, and evaluate her team. She believes questions are incredibly effective at uncovering information and showing how people think. By prompting others to explain their reasoning, asking questions “is one of the most effective management tools in your tool kit,” she said.

But, as London told new Booth graduates, she makes sure to ask the “stupid” questions too. Why? “Because when you as the CEO ask the stupid questions, it gives the entire team permission to be vulnerable, to be curious, and to learn along with you,” she said. “So I encourage you to ask questions early and often and always, and listen very closely to the data that you get because it will be invaluable.”

Challenge Everything

London’s father, fellow alumnus John McGinty, ’70, gave her some advice before she arrived at Booth. “He told me that Chicago would challenge me, and would teach me not what to think, but how to think.” 

He was right, she said. London now credits the school for her personal motto: “Challenge yourself to challenge everything.”

The idea stems from leading with curiosity and asking “why” to better understand any situation. Challenging everything is also a practice of inherent optimism, prompting leaders to focus less on the job title and more on the issues they want to improve. “It means asking, ‘Why not?’ It means you believe things don’t have to be the way they are,” she said. “It implies possibility, a belief that everything can get better than it is today. For me, challenge everything is about asking, ‘Is there a better way?’”

In her mission to transform healthcare for more than 28 million Americans, London has chased after highly ambitious questions and seemingly insurmountable challenges in her career. For instance: How can healthcare be better for everyone, regardless of background or finances? “It is a big thorny problem,” London said. “And that is what Booth prepared me for.”

Find Your Team

Doing big things requires working really hard, and the people you work with make a real difference, London said. “Teams that are full of high-trust colleagues whose intelligence has manifested differently from yours, all equally devoted to solving the same problem—that is where magic happens.”

London works with a team that matches her in passion and dedication. That keeps her from being defined by the hard days—and when you’re asking the big questions and challenging everything, the hard days will come, she said. London even wears a bracelet from one of her teammates that reads, “Don’t let the hard days win.” 

Community is vital when you’re persevering to change flawed systems over the long term, she said. It not only makes challenges easier to face, it helps keep you grounded. London believes the most important lesson of all is to never take yourself too seriously. 

“Keeping perspective is really important to your success and your ability to enjoy that success,” she said. “It is also really important to show up for all of the people who played a role in it.”

This essay is adapted from London’s speech at Chicago Booth’s 2024 Graduation Ceremony for the Full-Time MBA and Stevens Doctoral Programs. For more on London’s leadership insights and career impact, read “Change Starts from the Top.”