Welcome to Below the Line, a monthly question-and-answer column in which Chancellor Bennie L. Harris, Ph.D., of the University of South Carolina Upstate interviews a leader about change, technology, education, and leadership. This month, Dr. Harris spoke with American politician and diplomat Rahm Emanuel, who served as White House chief of staff under President Barack Obama and later as mayor of Chicago. (This article has been edited for clarity, content, and length.)
Harris: I’d like to start with your roots. You were born and raised in Chicago and later returned to serve as its mayor. In what ways did growing up in that city shape your worldview and your approach to leadership?
Emanuel: I grew up in a home that was very, very active politically and socially. My dad comes as an immigrant to America, sets up a pediatric practice, and he wins a landmark case three years after, and he barely speaks the English language. He sues the city for lead in household paint and wins. Then he leads other doctors in this class action suit against the city of Chicago, which if your business model is to establish a medical practice, you probably shouldn’t sue the city you were calling home.
My mother was very involved in the civil rights movement.
Harris: Your mother was also a nurse, right?
Emanuel: My mom and dad met in a hospital. They married within one week of dating. My dad passed away recently, and I said at his funeral, “They were married for 64 years and argued for all 67 of them.”
She was a nurse, but she was very involved in the civil rights movement.
Now my grandfather on my mother’s side came to America, 1914, from Eastern Europe, fleeing the pogroms, and was a 14-year-old by himself. He settled in Chicago on Maxwell Street. It’s a classic immigrant story. And he, age of 15, was a very big man. He starts illegally driving a taxi at 15. And he’s working on Maxwell Street, which is a famous area, and he’s selling scrap garments and all kinds of stuff, and that’s how he makes it. Two generations later, his grandson is the mayor of the City of Chicago.
Now, in Chicago, the mayor is boss. It is not only all aspects of the city. Police, fire, schools, community colleges, public transportation, public housing, public parks, public life — they all report to the mayor. You’re also the president of the city council. So it is a position like none other.
Without mentioning the mayor of another major city, I used to tell him, “You’re just a groom on a wedding cake.”
My faith is very important to me. It was important to the family. It’s also the notion that we’re here to make somebody else’s life better. The politics and the inspiration to go into public service — both came out of that.
When President Obama was trying to convince me to become chief of staff, I didn’t want to do it. I worked for President Clinton as senior adviser. And Obama goes, “What do you want?” and I said, “Well, one day I’m running for mayor.” And he goes, “Well, don’t you think working with me would help you?” And kind of a light bulb went off.
Los Angeles looks to itself and it just admires itself. Chicago is the most American of American cities. It is the only global city in the heartland of America, not on the coast. By way of reference, there are 147 languages spoken in the Chicago public school system. Outside of Warsaw, it is the largest Polish community in the world. Outside of Stockholm, it is the largest Swedish population in the world. That’s also true if you go through Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, outside of their capitals. It is the fifth-largest city in Mexico based on the Mexican-American population.
So it is the entire mosaic of the world. It is there in Chicago. And it is a global city with a global reach. You have to build a community out of all of that. So it’s fascinating.
Harris: So I was intrigued to learn that you were a dancer. Can you tell me about that and what it taught you about discipline, resilience, and performance under pressure?
Emanuel: So I’m a soccer player, freshman year. And I said to my mom, “I want to, in the offseason, improve my soccer game, because I’m tired of sitting on the bench.”
And those were the days, when Rosie Grier and Minnesota Vikings players were taking ballet in the offseason. He’s 6'4”. I’m 5'8” about 148 dripping wet. I’m like his left thigh.
And so my mom says, you should take ballet to improve your soccer game and your balance and your footwork. I walk into that room, and there are 35 women and me. And a light bulb goes off also. And I go, I can go back and sit on the bench with 12 guys, or 35 women and me. And so I went for ballet.
You could count on this hand how many men were taking ballet in the city of Chicago.
I find out in the process that I’m actually very good at it. And I get a scholarship to the Joffrey Ballet School.
Harris: Impressive.
Emanuel: Well, don’t — my mother’s still alive — don’t call her. She still thinks I failed in life because I did not take that.
Dance taught me a tremendous amount about discipline. It actually saved my life, but that’s another story. It literally saved my life. Because when I had an accident, I almost died, and the doctor said if you weren’t in the condition you were in, you’d be dead.
Besides discipline, it teaches you how to think in space. All dance, when you look at it, is about learning how to think and see connections that don’t exist. It also taught me a tremendous amount about putting yourself at risk.
Today, I serve on the board of the Joffrey Ballet Company. I go all the time to dances. I’m biased. I happen to think it’s one of the great art forms of all. Because it’s the only place, as you know in the Bible, there’s a moment in time in which God says, “I have piped music unto thee and thou hast not danced.”
So you look at all history — there’s crawl, walk, run — but every culture dances. It’s the way you pay honor to the community and to God.
Harris: I never thought about it that way.
So I understand that your father was a strong presence in your life. You talked about him earlier, as someone who had set high expectations. He was described as fiercely intelligent.
What lessons did he teach you about work ethic, about leadership, and about standing up for your convictions?
Emanuel: My dad used to say, “The thing with Rahm is he figured out how to get the maximum by doing the minimum.” That was his comment about me.
And in rare moments of self-awareness, I’ve realized he was observing the crack.
My dad was a role model and a benchmark for me. My dad had three boys. He came to America with $13 when he was an immigrant. And he built his medical practice as a pediatrician to the largest in Chicago. But he worked nonstop to do that.
He also found value in that. Every one of the boys got a Saturday when they went on rounds with my dad to all the hospitals. And that was the kind of work ethic he instilled.
In our family room, we had a purse that held my grandmother’s passport and those of her sisters, my two great-aunts. The passports were framed.
On either side were black-and-white photos of family members — my dad’s family and my mom’s family — who never made it to America. When you were in that room, it felt like 28 eyeballs were staring at you.
It was my parents’ way of telling us that we won the lottery of life being American. You are not allowed to waste that. You have a generation of your family that never made it here.
So my parents taught us work ethic, but also a deep sense of responsibility. That’s part of why I went into public service.
In our family room, we framed my grandmother’s passport. On either side of that frame were family photos, black and white, of my dad’s family and my mother’s family that never made it to America.
When you’re laying down in the family room or watching something, you have 28 eyeballs staring at you. And it was my parents’ way of telling us that you won the lottery of life being an American.
You are not allowed or permitted to waste your time in this country, because you have a generation of your family that never made it here. Your relatives who couldn’t make it to this country — their lives, their hopes are on your shoulders.
Don’t you turn your back on them.
Harris: So early in your career, you worked with Illinois Public Action. What drew you to that work?
Emanuel: I got out of college, knew somebody, and got a job. What did we work on? Utility rates and fighting utility companies on behalf of consumers.
Feels like we haven’t gone very far since 1982. We’re still dealing with it. Back then it was about going before the Public Utility Commission in Springfield and fighting over what companies could charge versus what ratepayers should pay.
But more than that, it was about public service and how I wanted to start my career. We organized citizens to go before the Commission and challenge the utility companies.
One thing my parents did that I still don’t fully understand: they taught us to respect authority but never accept it blindly. Challenge it, but respect it.
It sounds contradictory, but they instilled both. And that has guided a lot of my life.
Harris: So from Illinois Public Action, your path led you to national politics and eventually to working on Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign. What did that moment teach you about political strategy and the realities of governing?
Emanuel: I got to know Bill Clinton when I was working for a congressman from Arkansas named Burl Anthony. Clinton would come to Chicago. I would go to Arkansas. That relationship developed.
Then he decides to run for president. At that point, Democrats had lost three elections in a row: Carter, Mondale, Dukakis. Clinton was polling at 2 or 3 percent.
My father thought I was making the biggest mistake of my life. He tried to talk me out of it. But I wanted to work on a presidential campaign, for someone I believed in, at a moment where I thought it mattered.
I went to Little Rock. The rest is history. What I learned from Clinton was extraordinary. He had an ability to do three-dimensional politics. He understood policy, politics, and communication and could integrate all three at once. I’ve never seen anyone do it better.
President Obama could do it too, but Clinton was my formative experience. He had what people called a natural political instinct. And I say politics in a positive sense. You can’t get things done without understanding it.
I remember a meeting with Chinese leadership. We’re sitting in the Cabinet Room. Everything is translated. The Chinese side reads from prepared talking points. We respond. It’s very structured.
Clinton goes off script.
He starts explaining to the Chinese premier how to manage the politics between coastal cities and rural areas in China, and how to frame decisions to make them more acceptable domestically.
The Chinese premier starts smiling. Through the translator, he says, “When you’re done being president, I could use you as an adviser. You understand my politics better than half the people at this table.”
That was Clinton.
Harris: So let’s talk about that period. You were a senior adviser in the White House. Looking back, what accomplishments are you most proud of, and what leadership lessons did you carry forward?
Emanuel: I’ll give you one that means a lot to me: the Children’s Health Insurance Program. This came after the broader health care effort failed in 1994.
In 1997, we’re negotiating the balanced budget agreement, the first balanced budget and surplus in 30 years. The last piece was children’s health care. It mattered to me personally because my father was a pediatrician.
There were 10 million kids whose parents worked but made too much for Medicaid and didn’t have private insurance. They were stuck in between.
The president wanted coverage that included dental and eye care under Medicaid. Republicans wanted a different structure, outside Medicaid, without those benefits.
What we did — and this was a team effort — was combine them. We kept the benefits but used the Republican funding structure.
That taught me something important: Don’t confuse the ends with the means. The goal was helping kids, not winning an argument about structure. No parent cared whether it was Medicaid or not. They cared whether their child had care.
That lesson stayed with me.
Years later as mayor, I raised tobacco taxes and provided free dental and eye care to tens of thousands of kids in Chicago. That idea came directly from that experience.
I worked on other things — welfare reform, 100,000 police officers — but if you ask what mattered most, it’s the children’s health care.
Harris: You developed a reputation as a tough strategist. Some people describe you as someone who takes no prisoners. How did that reputation develop, and how has your leadership style evolved over time?
Emanuel: Well, I do like to win.
As you know, sometimes on election night people give speeches about moral victories. I don’t like those speeches. I’m not into losing. I’m into winning.
Now, whether it was tobacco companies, pharmaceutical companies — Chicago was the first entity anywhere in the country that sued pharmaceutical companies over opioids. With taking on the National Rifle Association, I passed the Brady Bill and the assault weapons ban. Took on financial interests. And then we took over the House, and Nancy Pelosi became speaker because we got the majority.
No special interest or Republican ever got in the ring with me and didn’t walk out with a broken nose.
Now that’s a joke, but it also reflects something real. I was going to get that kids’ health care bill done. We passed the assault weapons ban in the House by one vote. I’ve never lost an election, either one I ran in or one I ran.
But winning is in service of a purpose. I was chairing a campaign to take over the House from Republicans while also serving as a member of Congress and working with President Bush on the Great Lakes Restoration Act. That was my bill. We worked together across party lines to preserve and strengthen the ecological system of the Great Lakes.
Years later, President Biden put a billion dollars into it.
So winning matters, but it matters because of what you do with it.
Before every negotiation with a union I would invite the union leader to come in three weeks before formal negotiations. I’d say, “Bring me your five priorities. I’ll bring mine. Explain yours to me. I’ll explain mine to you. Then come back in a week and tell me what you can live with, what you can’t, and where there’s room for compromise. I’ll do the same.”
Because I wanted to create a win-win environment. You’re not getting all five. I’m not getting all five. But if you walk out with two wins and I walk out with two-and-a-half, we both have something.
There were 78 agreements. Not one went to arbitration. That comes from listening and understanding what really matters to the other side.
Harris: In 2002, you returned to public life, this time as a candidate, winning a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Later, you chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
What were the biggest strategic challenges you faced in that role, and how do you motivate teams when the stakes are so high?
Emanuel: The biggest challenge was psychological. Nancy Pelosi called me after the 2004 election. Democrats had lost three national elections in a row: 2000, 2002, 2004.
The party had internalized losing. Getting Democrats to believe they could win again was the hardest part.
Second, the party had a set of Washington-based litmus tests for candidates. I broke that model. I recruited candidates who fit their districts, not Washington expectations: military veterans, CIA backgrounds, a football player in North Carolina, a sheriff in Indiana.
These were people who matched their communities. Some people in Washington said, “These aren’t real Democrats.”
I said, “They’ll vote for Nancy Pelosi as speaker, raise the minimum wage, and support prescription drug negotiation.”
That’s what matters. The gavel only comes in one size. We needed to win districts, not debates inside Washington. So we went where the voters were. And it worked.
You can see that strategy come back in later elections — including 2018. Different types of candidates, including working-class backgrounds. The messenger is part of the message.
Harris: So when you served as White House chief of staff for President Obama during a period of major national challenges, what did it look like inside the White House when decisions needed to be made quickly and under enormous pressure?
Emanuel: Let’s start with leadership. I’ve worked for two presidents, and I think both exemplified this.
Leadership is knowing why you are doing something and having the toughness to get it done.
If you look at history — Lincoln, Roosevelt, Reagan, Truman — they knew their purpose and had the toughness to act. Or they hired someone tough enough to make it happen.
When I was chief of staff, I said something that stuck: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” We had a financial crisis, an auto industry collapse, two wars, and a deep recession. Every direction you turned, there was a crisis.
But that also created opportunity to do things that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible. President Obama did a few things that stood out. One, he was not threatened by talent. He brought in people who were experts, even if they were stronger in certain areas. Two, he had a clear sense of mission. Three, he focused relentlessly on execution.
Every morning we reviewed priorities. Every evening we checked progress.
I still do that today. Weekly goals. Annual goals. Term goals. Set the mission, align the team, and hold people accountable. You don’t have time to waste.
Harris: Why do you believe that education reform is so critical to the future of American cities and America?
Emanuel: Because you and I wouldn’t be sitting here if it wasn’t for education. Let me step back intellectually. I love history. I read it nonstop.
There are four or five great periods of American history: the Civil War, the turn of the century, World War II, Sputnik, A Nation at Risk.
What is the through-line in all of them?
Land-grant colleges. Universal high school education. The GI Bill. Science and technology investment after Sputnik. And A Nation at Risk, which became the guiding principle for both Democratic and Republican presidents.
What did each of those moments have in common? We invested in the American people. Every major period of economic growth in this country came from investing in people through education.
And what I’ve seen — in Spartanburg, Greenville, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Iowa, Mississippi — is that the solutions we need already exist. You are doing it here. You’ve connected community colleges, high schools, and employers. You’re creating pathways where someone can become a nurse, then build additional skills, increase their income, and support their family. That’s an integrated education system.
La Crosse, Wisconsin, is doing it. Other places are doing it. But Washington has become complacent with failure. Think about it. Fifty percent of our kids cannot read at grade level. We are at a 30-year low.
And we are competing globally, especially with China, without addressing it seriously. No one at the national level is calling an emergency meeting to fix this.
And yet, Mississippi went from 49th to ninth in reading outcomes. Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee followed similar models and saw dramatic improvement. The solution is already here. We don’t need something new. We need the political will to scale what works.
The same is true with integrating high school and college. Dual enrollment. Career pathways. High school hasn’t fundamentally changed in 100 years. We can fix this.
Imagine what we could do if national leadership actually supported and scaled what’s working locally.
Harris: So this podcast is called “Leading Below the Line.” It’s about how leaders operate when they don’t have complete information. When you hear that phrase — leading below the line — what comes to mind?
Emanuel: That’s actually a great question. There’s a misconception that in places like the White House, you have complete information. You don’t. You have a fog. You need smart people around you. You need to ask tough questions. You need judgment.
I think about history.
The Bay of Pigs: a failure. The Cuban Missile Crisis: a success.
Same president. What changed? He learned.
After the failure, he adjusted how he made decisions, who he listened to, how he questioned assumptions.
And that made the difference during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
As president — and this applies to mayors, too — the only decisions that reach your desk are bad and worse. Good decisions get handled before they get to you. You’re choosing between difficult options, often without complete information. You need judgment, curiosity, and the ability to think ahead. You have to understand trade-offs.
I’ll give you an example.
I argued that we should do financial reform before health care in the Obama administration. The president chose health care first.
We got the Affordable Care Act, which was historic. But we also saw political consequences. That’s the nature of leadership. You make decisions with incomplete information, knowing there will be trade-offs. And you own them.
Harris: Do you have a hero? Someone who has been your biggest influence in your leadership journey, and what they have taught you?
Emanuel: So there are three rules by the Emanuel children:
Don’t let dad talk about grandpa, dad, or us, because I get choked up.
My dad’s my hero. I wish he was here. I ain’t nothing without him. If I talk more, I’ll start. So that’s my hero.
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