It’s the Number One Thing

I love to know things before everybody else knows things. And so what other job am I qualified to do, if that's what I'm good at? You know, I'm stuck. This is the only thing I know how to do.

Well, you're good at running things, like running the Chronicle.

You know, it's funny, because being an editor is very different than being a reporter. And you have to then manage people. I call it three dimensional chess. Like if I want to start an investigation on something, they don't give me money to do that. I have to find it. And so I realized I'm really good at seeing where all the pieces are, and being able to move them around, so that we get to do what we want. And that is a skill not very many journalists have. And I also like translating what we do to the public, and translating it to the business people.

I think a lot of people are scared by journalists. We're very aggressive and righteous. And I feel like sometimes journalists speak a different language than the rest of society, so I have to translate what the newsroom is thinking, or feeling, or how they'll react to something. I'm a huge translator for journalists. My only bilingual skill.

So, if I'm understanding you correctly, you're good at creating vision, and then figuring out the strategy to accomplish that vision. How crucial is that for a leader?

I think it's the number one thing. You point everybody in that direction and say, "We're going to march that way." And then you give them the skills to learn how to do that. I think that is...that's what your job is. I may do it with such focus sometimes, that it seems like a bulldozer, and that's the things I have to watch and temper and make sure that nobody feels left out, and that you don't have anyone at the end of the pack and that people feel like if they bring you an issue, you'll deal with it and that you're not so focused on this thing that you're doing that they can't speak up. So those are things I'm working on, but at the end of the day if you don't know where you're going, what are you doing?