Chris Lesner
Morris, thank you so much for joining. I'm so excited for people to just hear your story, hear a little bit about your background. I remember when I first heard your story, you were ambassador at large for global criminal justice, which I thought was the coolest title I've ever heard. What's been your journey to get to this point? How did you even get that title? What are you doing today? Give us some background.

Morse Tan
Happy to join you!

Morse Tan
hahahaha

Morse Tan
Sure. So, you know, I remember a media source asking me, was it your dream since you were a kid to serve as an ambassador to the United States? And my honest answer at the time was no, I just thought those positions were for other people, not me. And so for me, I really see the hand of divine providence upon the whole process. I mean, I even had people in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff.
of the same party as the president, look at me and in a bewildered sort of way say, how did you get here? And so, look, I mean, the truth is most ambassadors, and I don't know if people realize this, I didn't before, but ambassadorships are, it's the highest position in the federal government for whatever the person's ambassador for, minus the president of the United States. So if you're the ambassador to Britain,
you are the lead person for the United States of America in regards to anything to do with Great Britain, right? Or what have you. And so that makes it higher than a four -star general position. And I didn't even know that. And so, you know, it was really during my first interview that I was asked, would you be willing to be considered for this position? And I kind of, there was a whole string of things that went through my mind that I think was,
a reminder of how even unwittingly I was being prepared to serve. Because most people get ambassadorships either by giving a lot of money to whoever wins the White House or being a career State Department person, a career diplomat. I was neither. I've given a grand total of zero dollars and zero cents to any political campaign. I worked a grand total of zero days inside the US State Department. So...
extremely unlikely that I would get this. Hopefully had something to do with expertise and background and relevant sorts of things along those lines and whatever else they saw in me. But I'll tell you, when I was down to three candidates, one of my predecessors said to me,

Morse Tan
When he told me that I was chosen and he told me who the other finalists were, I was kind of flabbergasted because I would have understood if they chose either of the other two finalists over me. I would have been like, yeah, I understand. Don't worry. You don't even have to explain. And I said, I was kind of bewildered. I said, why was I chosen among the three finalists? And the answer was one I'd never heard up to that point in my life. And the person said,
Well, the other two candidates were deemed to be too self -promoting and you were considered to be humble enough to handle this position. And I was kind of floored to hear that on a number of different levels. And so, you know, there's a well -known person if I named, you would know, you recognize the name, but I don't need to name the person, but he was...
Asking me at one point, what would you want to do in the administration if you got selected for something? And I was like, gosh, I'm not sure. What do you think? What do you think I'd be good for? And his response was like, seriously? Really? You don't know what you want to do? People angle their whole careers to be in one of these positions? You don't even know what you want to do? And so I was unconventional in many ways. My...
when you fill out the generic application and it gives you lots of space to say, why do you want to serve in this administration? I actually wrote one sentence. People thought I was either stupid or crazy or I'm not taking this seriously or what have you. I literally wrote that I wanted to help the administration succeed in pursuing justice, period. That's all I wrote because that's actually what I really wanted. Now I really want to contribute. I didn't list any position in particular.
There was a professor who had me guest teach in his class, in a law school class, and he said early on, he took the moderator's prerogative and asked me in the beginning, what is it like to have a superhero position? And I was kind of joking, I don't have the cape or the spandex, or I don't quite have the outfit for it. But this is a unique position.

Morse Tan
in world history, literally the United States of America is the only country in the world that has this position. And as I said in my opening statement in my second confirmation hearing, I said, the fact that this position even exists is a testament to the goodness and greatness of this country. And I believe that then, I believe it now. And it's literally a unique position in the world dealing with mass atrocity crimes, genocide, war crimes.
crimes against humanity and being able to seek justice for people who are being trampled through those crimes around the world was really a journey of a lifetime. I mean, it was amazing to have that mission and to wholeheartedly devote myself from beginning to end to that mission.

Chris Lesner
How did you see yourself personally grow? What were some of the things that you learned in that role? And how did you see leadership play out in that role? Because you would have been around some of the world's most powerful leaders in that role, and you yourself were a powerful leader and still are.

Morse Tan
Well, you know, the thing is, I'll tell you maybe some lighter notes first and then maybe again to other things. But I don't know. When I thought you were getting an intel briefing, maybe I'd watched too many movies. I thought there'd be like some screen that would, you know, go up and some hologram that would appear and then the message would destruct, self -destruct after that.
It wasn't like that at all. I had like a binder full every week, you know, about this thick of written Intel that I'd be furiously poring over for hours and trying to get the... That was my usual regular Intel briefing was a binder full of paper. So, you know, there was a time where I had...
I had a name only Intel thing. That's kind of like, you know, you have unclassified sensitive, unclassified classified secret, top secret, compartmentalized subcompartment, compartmentalized and name only. That's kind of like the highest level of Intel to get. That means they're just naming certain people by name to do that. And, you know, you would think that it was some snazzy place where I was like reviewing the name only Intel.
No, it looked like a storage closet. It looked like, I mean, it was like, there were things like lying all over the place and some, you know, bored looking, nondescript Intel officer sitting there with me, you know, not even paying attention to anything that I was doing, but just kind of like spacing out. And there I am reviewing the name only Intel. But then again, maybe it's brilliant because who would suspect that that's where name only Intel would be reviewed, right? So I say that.
Kind of on a lighter note. But I learned a ton. I gained a lot of opportunities to learn and develop in that role. Boy, where do I start?

Morse Tan
I think one thing that I'll start out with here is the need for tenacious, determined perseverance for things to get across any finish line. To navigate a bureaucracy like the State Department,
I think there are those who consider it the swampiest part of the swamp, so to say. But you do have some people who are there for good reasons and trying to do good work. But gosh, if you are batting 200, like one out of five things that you're trying to get across the finish line, actually get across the finish line, you're actually doing quite well. If you're a high level...
appointee because for various reasons it was very difficult inside the US government for things to get done. And so it required, you know, when somebody on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff said to me, do you have the tenacity to do this job?
I didn't necessarily know what all the person was referring to at that time, but boy did I know how important that would be when I was in it as well. You know, there was a certain high profile matter that I was involved in and I kept getting so many mixed signals from within where it was, go, stop, go, stop, pause, wait, no, yes, no.
And I had, it was almost like, reminds me of when my dad was first learning how to do stick shift and we were driving off the lot and the car was like going back and forth and like lurching this way and that as he didn't know at first how to use the stick shift. It kind of was like that, that experience, but that actually ended up getting across the finish line. This was the mass atrocity determination.

Morse Tan
for genocide and crimes against humanity against the Chinese Communist Party, it was called by certain media sources to be the greatest human rights accomplishment of the whole administration. And that got across the finish line literally the day before the next administration was gonna come in. And so when I was working on that, I couldn't even tell my wife what I was doing.
And I was saying, you know, I can't tell you what I'm doing, but if this gets across the finish line, it will be on new sources all over the world as soon as it comes out. And so it was. But I'll tell you something a little bit maybe revealing in a way that one might not consider. But I was being interviewed by the New York Times and the Washington Post and, you know,
newspaper and media sources like that. You know what's sort of revealing is that they did not quote, even though our policy shop was the lead on this whole matter, they did not quote a single word that I said. Why? Because what I said didn't fit their politicized narrative at that time. And so I told them a bunch of things.
They didn't include it in anything that was published because it didn't fit their narrative that they wanted to put forward in regards to what happened. So I actually went into it with the presumption that anything I said or did could become public. And that turned out to be a pretty good presumption to have.
You know, when I would talk about something to two people and neither of those two people leaked and then it ends up being a news story. I think that was a pretty good presumption to have. Or when there was a leak in regards to the Chinese Communist Party, mass atrocity determinations beforehand. And I'm on the red phone contacting the Secretary of State's office in regards to this leak.

Morse Tan
even as the secretary was giving this major presentation that night as well. So, gosh, I could go on and on. One of the things I'll mention, in case this is a benefit to someone, is that there was...
a situation where people in my own office were anonymously throwing all sorts of wild accusations against me to the executive secretariat of the State Department. And then the head of the executive secretariat ended up talking with me about it. And he said, well, we got all these accusations against you and we examined every single one of them.
and found them all entirely without merit. Not only did you do what you were supposed to do, you went above and beyond what you were supposed to do. And there were certain things that were in question where I had anticipated the possibility that people in that office could do something like this. And so I literally did go above and beyond what was required in order to...
in order to make the process as pristine and maybe more than pristine as possible, in order to make the decision which I knew would be an unpopular decision amongst people in the office as well supported as possible. And so the head of the executive secretary went on to say, oh, and by the way, these sorts of things are happening.

Chris Lesner
Yeah.

Morse Tan
every week against appointees. So the thing is, leadership is something where it almost attracts blame, it almost attracts accusations, whether false or not, or things along those lines. And so to me, it was really important.
to be pure in what I did, unselfish in what I did, mission -focused in what I did, and to stick to that regardless of what was coming down and what sort of opposition there was, and learning to navigate that opposition. And so that was a challenge.
There was a time where a media source was looking to do a hit piece, but they didn't tell me that it was a hit piece in advance and wanted to get my answers to things. And honestly, the people who were advising me, I won't say who, gave very bad advice and basically said, oh, just don't say much of anything, it'll go away. Well, I sort of took their advice. I didn't say much of anything and it didn't go away.
And I think a better response would have been to have given fuller answers to things to address what they were going to do. But part of the challenge is I didn't know where they were coming from. I didn't know what their agenda was. They didn't tell me where they were coming from. They didn't show me a draft of what they were putting together. But back then, I'll credit my deputy who recommended a fuller answer at the time.
And I did not go in the direction that he was advising and I went in the direction that other people were advising, but he actually had the better advice in that particular situation. It's not a one size fit all sort of lesson to extract from this. And there are times where discretion is the better part of valor and wiser in certain situations. But in that situation, it would have been better to have given a fuller answer.

Morse Tan
But it was challenging. It was challenging. It's not like that was the only thing going on as well. So I'm literally driving along the highway trying to deal with this along with all the other things that are going on at that time, which there was no lack of, you know, and this, what people go, what's an ambassador at large anyways? Like I know what a country ambassador is. I know what an ambassador to an international organization and what's an ambassador at large. And.
All it means is you're applying that particular subject matter, in this instance, mass atrocity crimes, seeking justice for them, all around the world. It's not bounded at all geographically. And so I was literally dealing throughout with mass atrocity crimes going on literally around the world, some of them unfolding as I was trying to deal with them in real time. And...
juggling many things. It was important to prioritize because time was always at a premium. I was burning the candle at both ends and working very hard along these lines. And there's always unexpected things too, or unfolding as you're there. For example, I was dealing with the situation in Nagorno -Karabakh and if you were to say, where's that? I've never heard of that. That was me.
back during the Master ship. I was like, where's that? What is that? And apparently it's this region that is 90 plus percent Armenian in makeup, but was being invaded by the Azerbaijan. And they were committing some serious atrocities as they're waging war in this place called a region called Nagorno -Karabakh. And I was, I got,
various briefings. Some of these were cooler than what I described earlier, but... And I was dealing with it and I had this... I was addressing a major press conference that was held on location over there except COVID prevented me from being there in person. And so I was doing it virtually and I was denouncing the atrocities that were taking place in no uncertain terms.

Morse Tan
And I think the Russian involvement actually was the primary reason, but the following week after the press conference, there was a ceasefire. And I'd like to think that maybe I played a little part in that. I don't know. Maybe I didn't even play that, but I did my best in the opportunity that was given to address the injustices that were happening. And that ceasefire held for a while.

Chris Lesner
That's amazing. How in your in your tenure there in that role, how many cases come across your desk? Are you talking tens, hundreds, thousands?

Morse Tan
Yeah. So I would say dozens, plural, and I would make things tier one, tier two or tier three priorities, depending on the gravity, depending on how much of an opening we had to make a difference. So like the feasibility of being able to make a difference, the urgency in terms of if something was more urgent than something else.
The importance of it, these were all factors I used in determining whether something was a tier one, two or three priority. But at a given time, I was dealing with a whole array, a whole myriad of things. Whether it was in Syria, whether it was Burma, whether it was, I mean, just on and on, there's so many different countries, Nigeria.
There was a whole range of countries and a whole range of situations that were going on. I also was running the War Crimes Rewards Program, which gave authority for the US government to give up to $5 million in rewards for information leading to the apprehension of those who were on our list for the War Crimes Rewards Program.
and the person who was my number one target, his name is Felicien Kabuga, he was the mastermind, primary insider, and supplier of the Rwandan genocide. He had been at large for over a quarter century.
And on my watch, he was captured in a suburb outside of Paris, France. French gendarmerie sweeping in to his apartment and capturing him. And I will not forget when I was at the Swiss embassy to the US, Ambassador Pete Lude, he said, thank you. I had Kabuga in my custody over a quarter century ago and I lost him.

Morse Tan
And I've never been able to forgive myself for that ever since. Because he said he was in Rwanda. He saw atrocities happening. He saw children being burned to death. He saw horrific things that were in his nightmares that he could not get out of his head.
Finally, Felician Kubuga was apprehended. And so he thanked me for that. If you want to watch something about that story, Netflix has an episode of The World's Most Wanted that features Felician Kubuga. It features a couple of my predecessors. I don't mind that it doesn't mention me by name at all. That's okay. But it tells you the story of how slippery Kubuga was.
and how when there were those who were apparently sources through the War Crimes Rewards Program, how they were assassinated and how Kabuga would go from place to place. And he was one slippery character. He was also the wealthiest man in the country as well. And so that was tremendous for that to happen on my watch during my time.
who got what for the war crimes rewards program is classified, so I cannot delve into that. But for, I hope, understandable reasons, right? You don't want people like that assassinated. Because if these people have been involved in mass atrocity crimes, what's another life or two that you kill, right? If they are involved in mass atrocity crimes, in the case of Rwanda, we were talking about around a million people in less than a year.
And so that is, it was amazing to be able to serve in that capacity. One of the people in my office said I was the purest leader she had ever seen in Washington, DC. And when somebody else heard that, he said, well, that's a low standard. But there are, shall we say, a lot of different agendas flying around.

Morse Tan
and various agendas that oftentimes do not have anything to do with what is supposed to be the mission of what one is doing. To me, I was single -mindedly focused from beginning to end on pursuing justice. That's what I was there for. I'd have a hard time looking myself in the mirror if that's not what I was doing. But that's what I believed I was there for, that I was called there for. And so...
I'm amazed at what all transpired in a relatively short amount of time. I've written about some of it in an article that either just came out or is about to come out in the American Ambassadors Review. But yeah, it was an amazing experience.

Chris Lesner
I'm at a whole different level. People probably can relate to dealing with red tape in whatever circumstance they're in, right? Politics takes it to a whole nother level. And when you're mixing not only American politics, which can get sticky just in and of itself, then you're mixing in other global political opinions, let's say.

Morse Tan
I'll see you next time. Ciao.
Yes.

Chris Lesner
How did you navigate that as a leader and how did you interact with leaders from all over the world and how did you see servant leadership? If you think about servant leadership, how did you see that play out? If at all.

Morse Tan
Yeah, that's a great question. And it's kind of funny in the academic position in which I'm serving right now, somebody was telling me early on, you've never seen a bureaucracy like this university. And I was kind of like, well, actually, I think I have. And so it was challenging to deal with. So I'll give you an example.
There was an ambassador to a particular country where there had been a long -standing civil war where all sorts of war crimes had taken place. Hospitals were attacked. Schools were attacked. Prisoners of war were summarily tortured and executed. And some of the people who had been responsible for the worst and greatest number of...
war crimes were in the highest positions in that country. So here's the ambassador, our ambassador, the US ambassador to that country, sitting in my office, basically pleading with me not to move forward with more justice measures in regards to that country and against the leadership of that country, whom this ambassador had to deal with, right? Because...
You know, it's very important to diplomats to have access to the highest levels of the government of the country to which they're the ambassador of, for example. There are other people who said to me more cynically that, you know, this person wants to keep getting invited to the, you know, dinner parties and things along those lines. Bidasime. When that person was in my office, I tried to be as empathetic as I could.
to the challenges that this ambassador faced as our U .S. ambassador and some of the really difficult things that the ambassador had to deal with and dealt with previously in that country. And so I was as empathetic as I could be. I was listening. I was trying to have as much common ground as possible.

Morse Tan
But at the end of the conversation, I maintained, but I will continue to pursue the mission that I'm called to pursue. And I said it in a quiet voice. I said it gently. I reserved that statement for the very end of the whole conversation, but I still said it and I still did it afterwards.
It was disappointing some of the tactics that were employed to try to delay or obstruct the justice measures that we were pursuing. There was a time where the acting assistant secretary of state for this country that I'm referring to was in that region. And I was going to a meeting. It was supposed to be only principals, which means like the heads of the offices and things along those lines. And...
I had an expert with respect to that country in my office I thought would be helpful to bring. And so I bring that person in and it was sincerely done not to embarrass the acting assistant secretary or anything along those lines. It was genuinely because I thought this person can help in that meeting and can contribute things in that meeting and brings a wealth of knowledge that this meeting would benefit from.
That was genuinely where I was coming from. And immediately, the Acting Assistant Secretary says, I said there are no seconds in this meeting. You are not allowed to be in the meeting. That is what the person said to the expert that I brought. And that person was not going to back down apparently and says to the Acting Assistant Secretary, Ambassador Tan outranks everyone in this meeting. And if he wants me here, I can be here.
And that person stayed in the meeting. I actually wasn't planning on being as what shall I say direct and as confrontational as the person I brought was, but that person was in the meeting. And I thought it was important to back up the person in my office who could contribute the most.

Morse Tan
I wasn't trying to pick a fight with Acting Assistant Secretary, but I just thought it would help the meeting to have this person in there. But, you know, it's tough and the Acting Assistant Secretary resigned the following week, you know. That was not what I was aiming for. That was not because I was personally on bad terms with this person. I wasn't. In fact, one of my former students had worked for this person.
and had told me all sorts of really positive things about this acting assistant secretary. But, you know, it's a lot of times it's challenging. It was challenging to deal with things. I had a situation where I was in a, I was leading a interagency meeting that included, you name it, I don't remember, 15, 20 different FBI, CIA, Department of Defense, you know, you name it, they're all there.
And I was in this conference room, the Holbrook Center of the State Department, where they have this sort of capability to have a virtual conference with all these other departments. And literally, there's somebody from the Legal Advisors Office who in the midst of that meeting says the opposite of what the Secretary of State's position was.
And this person knew it. And I said, has the Secretary of State's position changed on this issue? Well, no. Then we will proceed with the meeting in accordance with the views of the Secretary of State. And so the meeting got back on track and continued along those lines. But when you're dealing with an oppositional bureaucracy, it's not just ordinary red tape that you're dealing with.
you're dealing with people who are like openly defiant. And when they have a tenure system that allows them to have job security in the midst of that, it's pretty challenging. It's pretty challenging. And so it does take a certain firmness, but I also had a reputation of being kind and friendly as well. And I genuinely tried to be kind and friendly as well. From the external side, there was a time where I was dealing with someone,

Morse Tan
who from a country that I'll leave unnamed, who was not particularly fond of the president of the United States. And that person was just taking it out on me. It's like I never interacted with this person before. It was our first interaction and the person's like going off and being so difficult and things along those lines and lecturing me and sometimes those things irrelevant, like not even part of the agenda. And I was just like,
You know, that was something I had to deal with, right? So in a lot of those situations, do you give tit for tat? One of the things I try very hard not to do is to try not to be vindictive and to be gracious and even to pray for those who make things difficult. And so that is something that I very intentionally try to apply.
and to not let the way certain people were being difficult in various ways, not that, let that dictate my response. And to try to respond in a way that would be better than what was coming at me is generally what I tried to do. And that's not always easy when you're dealing with important things, when you're dealing with...
I mean, these are mass atrocity crimes that we're talking about here. This is pretty intense. It's a very intense subject matter. You know, sometimes you're talking about millions of lives being destroyed, right? And then when people, whether internally or externally, are being difficult about this or petty about it or oppositional or things along those lines, persuasion, I think, many times is important.
Sometimes it's necessary to have the fortitude to move ahead, even in the face of such opposition. The matter that I was referring to before, where there was a particular leader who had committed all these atrocities and protracted civil war, my predecessor, who was appointed by a president from the other party, he personally said to me that,

Morse Tan
you accomplished the greatest step for justice in the history of seeking justice in regards to this civil war in this country. And that was gratifying. But you know, it's amazing how people in DC seem to be able to politicize just about anything. Like even you would think, how do you politicize mass atrocity crimes? Oh, let me assure you there are people who found ways to politicize mass atrocity crimes.
And that was disappointing. To me, I put it this way to reporters and to other people before. I said, politicizing mass atrocity crimes is obscene. And that was the intentional adjective I used because you think about the suffering of those people and then you're going to turn this into some kind of politicized football or game. That to me is obscene. And so, and yet,
That is one of the things I had to deal with. And so it does require a lot of resilience when you feel like you've been what you're trying to do has been smacked down. When when people are going for your head and figuratively speaking, in terms of my being able to continue in the position when you're dealing with people who have committed mass atrocity crimes, right? It's not exactly a walk in the park. And so.
I also had to learn all the different ways of the State Department. Oh, you mean 20 people have to sign off on my speech before I can be allowed to go to a conference to say hi? And they have all this clearance process and all sorts of things along those lines. So I learned a lot about clearance processes, State Department lingo abbreviations, their methods of
doing things, but also there was a need to deal with things that were sometimes underhanded or behind my back or, you know, I had this other experience where I was talking to another ambassador at large about a particular matter and my office gets a call right after that conversation and the person from that person's, from the other ambassador's office is trying to tell me that ambassador so -and -so has such and such position.

Morse Tan
when the ambassador just directly told me just beforehand the opposite position. And so these are the sorts of things that were happening. And to deal with all that was not easy. Being able to bring in all the people that I brought in was not easy or simple as well. And I was added every week to try to bring good people in.
to the office and to see them fired as soon as I leave whenever they could fire someone was also painful to see. But it's amazing how challenging the internal battle was and there were no lack of things to deal with, whether bureaucratic or outright oppositional.
whether it was challenging and extensive processes or whether it's people who are just intentionally trying to undermine what one was doing. All these things were frankly tough, but maybe as a result of going through all those things, maybe I'm a bit tougher than I was going in. And, you know...
gave me actually a wealth of experience in a relatively short amount of time to deal with so many different, you know, as you deal with and as you overcome and find solutions for problems that are parading around what one is doing, I think there are ample opportunities for development and growth, whether in character or whether in knowledge or whether in learning how to deal with things.
All those things are there. Seeking advice and seeking to learn was a constant for me, still is a constant for me, because I think there's always more to learn. There's always more to learn, always more to grow. And so I tried to learn and grow throughout that experience. And just in general, that's, I think, a way I try to live my life. But there were no lack of challenges, bureaucratic or otherwise.

Chris Lesner
I mean, when the administration changed, and obviously your role, you knew inevitably once you knew that the administration was changing that your role would change, right, into doing something else.

Morse Tan (41:1.036)
I submitted my letter of resignation on the day of, I think it was the day of, or was it the day before, something like that, and they kept almost no one from the prior administration. And I didn't have reason to expect that they would keep me. So, it didn't, frankly, it didn't matter how good a job I did or not. I did my utmost, but that was not the basis. It was...

Chris Lesner
Yeah.

Chris Lesner
And the -

Morse Tan
Pretty politicized and pretty much. You belong to the other administration. Goodbye.

Chris Lesner
in that process, then you go from from a government role to now the dean of a major law school. How has that transition been and any any big leadership lessons in that process?

Morse Tan
Yeah, you know, one of the things in both roles is that people with vested interests against the sort of transformative change that one is trying to bring in an organization can end up fighting tooth and nail against such transformative and visionary leadership. And that is something that
Let me put it a different way. When people's sense of security and their sense of their own calculus of their own interests conflict with what it is you're trying to do, people can go to war, figuratively speaking, over such things. And so, you know, it could not matter that you did a bunch of really good things for
the institution as well as for those people. If their basic sense of security or sense of their interests seems to be jeopardized in some way by what you're doing, even if that's not your intention at all, I find it rare to find that person who actually has a bigger vision and is
and a bigger heart than that, who is looking for what is best for the institution, what is best for the mission of that organization, rather than just selfishly being like, oh, this threatens my sense of security, or this goes against interest X, Y, and Z, according to my calculations. My sense is that most people, it is not the common,
leader who or the common person in any organization that is really willing to risk and sacrifice and be willing to move forward to do what's best for the mission and for the institution in the face of those who are much more small -minded in terms of looking out for

Morse Tan
me, myself and I and my security and my interests. So, you know, so then how does one handle that? In situations like that, it's very challenging, I think, to deal with because it's easy to be misunderstood. It's easy for there to be suspicions. It's easy for there to be petty opposition.
And most people, it's like if it's me or you, then I'd rather it be you than me who gets canned or who gets demoted or whatever. I'm not gonna take the hit. I'm gonna try to make sure someone else takes the hit, right? And so I find it exceptional when there are people who have that larger unselfish, even sacrificial willingness.
to be a servant leader in the face of such things, then, and you know, another thing is going back to the tenacious, determined perseverance. I think a lot of people just kind of cave in those sorts of situations where they're just like, hey, it's not worth it. You know, I need to look out for my security and my interests and my whatever. I think that's most people.
it from my observation. And if you ever find a leader who is willing to be so missional and so unselfish and even noble in being sacrificial, if not heroic, along those lines, I would say keep, if you're in a position to decide, keep such leaders. You know, that's best for the organization. But I think oftentimes,
I did not see a ton of such leaders in DC. And I don't think it's common. I've sought to be one myself, but sometimes there's a price to pay if you're going down that path. But a lot of times people who are trying to do grand or noble or bigger,

Morse Tan
sorts of things in life, in organizations and for a higher mission and things along those lines. I'd rather think it's common for such people to take hits and to be willing to navigate that as well as possible and also persevere through that is to me a rare leader. I don't see that commonly in leadership. It's the type of leader I
seek to be myself in spite of all of my foibles and feelings that I've had all throughout my life. But it is my aspiration and that's the way I've tried to lead in whatever leadership context I've been in.

Chris Lesner
Well, I could probably spend hours asking you questions, but let me ask you 10 rapid fire questions to finish us off and just say the first thing that comes to mind. Who's the first person you think of when I say servant leadership? Okay, five words that most describe yourself.

Morse Tan
Sure. Uh huh. Okay.

Morse Tan
Jesus.

Morse Tan
Persevering, tender -hearted, kind,

Morse Tan
determined?

Morse Tan
Perseverant. Did I say tenacious? Maybe I'll say odd. Or maybe idealistic. Might be another way of putting it.

Chris Lesner
You said first. Yeah.

Chris Lesner
Favorite author or book?

Morse Tan
Bible.

Chris Lesner
favorite movie.

Morse Tan
Ooh, I don't know. There's a bunch of them that I could potentially name. Favourites, boy. Passion of the Christ.

Chris Lesner
favorite food.

Morse Tan
Korean style marinated short ribs.

Chris Lesner
Yeah, favorite thing to do in your free time.

Morse Tan
Uhhhh, tennis is up there.

Chris Lesner
surprising fact about you.

Morse Tan
Um, I, if there was a certification for such things, I could be a certified clutz. I'm pretty good at tripping over things or stubbing my toe on things or what have you.

Chris Lesner
favorite place you've been.

Morse Tan
In terms of sheer beauty, I mentioned Switzerland earlier, but Switzerland might be the most beautiful country I've been to and as a dairy fan, I like the cheese and such there as well.

Chris Lesner
Where do you want to visit that you have not been to?

Morse Tan
Gosh, I was just talking to someone about New Zealand today. I've never been to New Zealand. I've been to Australia, but I heard New Zealand is beautiful. I guess there's Lord of the Rings tours. I'm something of a Lord of the Rings fan. So that's one out of a bunch of places, but I'll throw that.

Chris Lesner
best advice you've ever gotten.

Morse Tan
You know, I got advice early on as a dad, and this was a much more seasoned couple, and they said, enjoy every stage. And that was something I got right at the beginning of when I think my wife was pregnant with our first child. And I've come back to that advice many times, and I've tried to do so, although...
Frankly, some things about parenting can be kind of drudgery. I still confess that changing diapers is not my favorite thing. More is cleaning up certain things is not my favorite thing. I won't go into some of the unappetizing details. But it was valuable advice I've come back to time and again.
throughout my time being a dad.

Chris Lesner - Servant Leadership General Info (50:48.398)
Well, thank you so much. This has been awesome. Even just, it's not every day that you get to talk with somebody who's such an accomplished person as yourself, who's worked with as many world leaders, who has as much classified information in their head as they do, or as you do. This has been a real pleasure. I literally could have asked you a hundred other questions and maybe we'll have to have you back sometime to ask some of those. So, yeah.

Morse Tan
We'll do that. Let's do that in the future. And thanks for having me on, Chris. And glad to share with you what I could during this time. And would be glad to do so moving forward, too.

Chris Lesner
All right. Well, thanks Morse. We'll talk soon.

Morse Tan
All right, thanks Chris.