Members of the senior class of the Park Scholarships Program presented the chief executive of a major software company one of the University’s highest awards Wednesday night.
Park Scholars presented Jim Whitehurst, the CEO of Red Hat, which is an open-source software company based in Raleigh, with the William C. Friday Award.
The William C. Friday Award is named after the former president of the University of North Carolina system. Friday was the president of the UNC system for 30 years.
Established in 2000, it is annually presented on behalf of the Park Scholarships program by the senior class of Park Scholars. The recipient of this award demonstrates the values of scholarship, character, leadership and service, Ross said.
“Mr. Friday lived a life of service and leadership,” Thomas Ross, the President of the UNC system, said.
Red Hat is one of the world’s leading providers of open-source enterprise information products and services, Ross said. Since joining the company, Whitehurst has doubled its revenue, according to Ross.
Whitehurst spoke about what leadership means to him. He discussed three components of leadership, which he considered the most important.
The first component of leadership Whitehurst discussed was inspiration.
“The first job of any leader is to inspire, inspire the people who are working for you,” Whitehurst said. “People follow leaders who inspire them. Job one: do something you are passionate about because you start to exude that passion.”
The second component of leadership Whitehurst mentioned was engagement.
“Engaging people is making sure they understand your strategy, why you’re doing what you’re doing, and their role in making that successful,” Whitehurst said. “The most fundamental, in terms of core greatness in leadership, is getting people to believe what you want them to believe.”
Whitehurst said the third component of leadership is being true to one’s self.
“It’s amazing how much more effective you can be when you are who you are,” Whitehurst said. “There is no right way to be. There is no typical anything. There is no model that you need to fit in to lead in any kind of role.”
Whitehurst said that a leadership’s ability relies strongly on his effectiveness.
“When you read biographies and autobiographies, don’t read them and say, ‘Oh these are some character traits that I want to adopt,’” Whitehurst said. “Read them and say, ‘Let me think about how that person used their strengths to be successful, and are there any lessons learned in that for how I apply those to make my strengths successful.’”
Whitehurst holds degrees from Rice University in Texas and from the London School of Economics. Whitehurst also has a Masters of Business Administration from Harvard. He began his career as a corporate development leader at the Boston Consulting Group. Whitehurst then moved on to be the chief operating officer at Delta Air Lines. He is currently the president and CEO of Red Hat Incorporated.
In 2012, Red Hat was ranked 4on Forbes’ list of “The World’s Most Innovative Companies”.
