Fareed Zakaria on the rarest combination in leadership

What does three decades of interviewing the world’s most consequential leaders teach you about leadership itself?

In this episode of Navigating Leadership, host Admiral James Stavridis sits down with Fareed Zakaria — the journalist and host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS (Global Public Square) — at the International House in New York for a wide-ranging conversation on the leaders who have shaped his thinking.

Navigating Leadership - Season 2 - Episode 3 - Fareed Zakaria

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Chapters

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• Introducing Fareed Zakaria, selected
• The leaders who stood out
• Communication as a leadership superpower
• Angela Merkel’s rare gift for connection
• Are great leaders born or made?
• Why great leaders read
• A lesson on leadership from The Godfather

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Fareed points to Lee Kuan Yew, the founding leader of Singapore, as one of the rare figures who paired deep strategic vision with the discipline to execute it — building a nation, in Lee’s words, out of a sandbar. The conversation turns to Franklin Roosevelt, whose mastery of radio, Fareed argues, offers a model for how leaders should think about communicating today: less performance, more presence.

Stavridis and Zakaria also discuss Angela Merkel’s gift for complete engagement in conversation, and how FDR’s own experience with adversity may have shaped the empathy that defined his leadership. The two close with a reflection on courage — the quality Fareed sees as decisive in leaders from Winston Churchill to Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

This is a conversation about the difference between leaders who can imagine the future and those who can actually build it.

Key topics covered in this episode

• Lee Kuan Yew and the rare combination of strategic vision and execution
• FDR’s mastery of radio and lessons for leaders communicating today
• Angela Merkel’s gift for complete presence in conversation
• How personal adversity can shape a leader’s empathy
• Courage as the quality that sets leaders apart, from Churchill to Zelenskyy
• The books and biographies that shaped Fareed’s thinking on leadership