Remembering Frances Hesselbein

When leadership coach and major award winner Marshall Goldsmith describes you as the greatest leader he has ever met, that’s saying something. Frances Hesselbein was one of the last of a generation that included Peter Drucker, a group of influential thought leaders who created much of what we know as great leadership today.

Hesselbein, born in 1915, passed away at the age of 107 in 2022.

I first met Frances Hesselbein some years ago, before she passed her 100th birthday. While she was well beyond Octogenarian status even then, I vividly remember her downing glasses of champagne and teasing the CEO’s gathered around her at a dinner hosted by well-known executive coach, Marshall Goldsmith.

I had no idea who she was. Perhaps you don’t, either. Some background follows.

Career highlights

When she was a young woman, women were not encouraged to be ambitious, and she was laughed at for some of her more outrageous ideas — that she could possibly be a pilot, for example.

She grew up in Johnstown, PA, a town well known for the disastrous 1889 Johnstown flood, and perhaps less well known for its role in establishing one of the most significant modern non-profits, the American Red Cross. Her father died when she was 17, and she needed to go to work to support her family. She…