president there abruptly
resigned, the univer-
sity didn't even do a job
sea rc h—m a k i ng Ono
interim president and
then hiring him outright
in 2012. He attracted
attention in Cincinnati
by, among other things,
giving up any bonuses
due to him (in 2015,
s o m e U S $ 2 0 0,0 0 0)
and putting the money
into student scholar-
ships. That is just one
manifestation of his
aith-grounded approach
to life, says one of the
priests at his former
church, The Episcopal
Church of the Redeemer,
in Cincinnati.
"I'm pretty impressed with what he did at
our church, with all the other demands he
had," says Nancy Hopkins-Greene. "When he
talked about his faith, he wove in often that
Jesus had said, 'The first will be last and the
last will be first.'" Hopkins-Greene says Ono's
humbleness constantly shone through. Although he was most
often a lay reader for the service, if the high-school student who
was supposed to carry the
cross didn't show up, he
would take on the role
with much delight.
Ono's move to admin-
istration, despite a strong
track record as a research
scientist, can also be
explained by his faith.
"I'm not attracted to being
a boss. It's an opportu-
nity to serve," says Ono,
who has been on a diz-
zying array of academic,
community and business
boards and committees,
from the Cincinnati Sym-
phony Orchestra board
to the executive commit-
tee of the
NIH Training
Program in Molecular
Causes of Eye Diseases.
"That's really what makes
me tick. If you have
a position as a depart-
ment chair or a dean or a
provost or a president, you
have an incredible privi-
lege to make decisions, to
make the dreams of those
in that unit or in that insti-
tution come true. It's about
building things."
That is the philosophy of
servant leadership—an idea
that has ancient origins but
was rebooted in the 20th
century by former
AT&T
executive Robert Green-
leaf. Greenleaf founded a
centre in 1964 and then
wrote several books in the
'70s that all focused on
creating a new culture of
leadership quite different
from the authoritarian and
soulless ones he had expe-
rienced. "Our view is that
you absolutely see servant
leadership rooted in Chris-
tianity," says the current
CEO of the Greenleaf Center
for Servant Leadership in Atlanta, Patricia Falotico. "Jesus Christ
is our role model, although in many modern religions, you see
34 BCBUSINESS NOVEMBER 2016 PAUL JOSEPH; TWITTER
ONO ATTRACTED ATTENTION IN CINCINNATI BY, AMONG OTHER THINGS, GIVING UP ANY BONUSES
TWITTER KING
Ono tweets,
retweets and
responds to tweets
to an unprecedented
degree
T
CAMERA-READY
Ono poses for a photo
with students at UBC's
Imagine Day
