What makes a leader?

We meet many people throughout our lives, but typically only a handful of those people prominently stand out because their influence on us and everything around them is great—these are the true leaders. William W. Taylor, Professor Emeritus, Michigan State University, is one such person who is eminent in the field of fishery science and whose mentorship, scholarship, partnership, ambassadorship, and importantly friendship, have enriched our lives, careers, and field forever. His contributions are immense and his legacy broad and deep. What makes a true leader and how has Dr. Taylor (Bill) exemplified leadership characteristics throughout his life and career? Herein, we explore a few of the key characteristics of leaders and demonstrate through our own experiences how Bill leads, teaches, and mentors by example (Krueger, 2020).A broad scholarship exists around the qualities and characteristics of leaders and how these characteristics shape leadership styles. On the basis of Krueger (2020), we identified ten characteristics or traits that we deemed particularly important for leadership in fishery science: (1) moral and ethical behavior; (2) honesty; (3) empathy; (4) equitable and just treatment of others; (5) superior communication; (6) visionary; (7) courageousness; (8) goal-oriented; (9) eager and enthusiastic; and (10) loyalty. A leader does not just possess these traits but harnesses them to achieve the full extent of what these qualities allow. Bill's actions have always been greater than his words. Drawing on nearly 40 years of experiences and achievements, we demonstrate how Bill exemplified the above ten traits to enrich the field of fisheries science.Bill as a leader is sacrificial of his time and talent to people, team, and his organization's purpose whether it is Michigan State University (MSU), the American Fisheries Society, or the Great Lakes Fishery Commission (Commission). Such behavior can be described as unselfish and altruistic, and guided by moral purposes. Within a fishery organizational context, Bill has been sacrificial to move programs forward to achieve purposes of restoration (e.g. Taylor et al. 2023), conservation (e.g. Taylor et al. 2013), and sustainable use of fishery resources (e.g. Taylor and Bartley 2016), for example.Bill has exemplified true leadership by focusing on the benefit to those he has led while not desiring to enrich or promote himself. As a fishery professor, he truly cares about other faculty, staff, and students. He recognizes the crises in people's personal and professional lives, offers counsel, but at the same time also encourages and promotes their professional development (Taylor et al. 2014). He comforts others in death and divorce, and rejoices in new career opportunities, success in research, and the arrival of new babies and puppies. He celebrates thesis completion and acceptance of publications by his graduate students (e.g. Carlson et al. 2020). Bill leads, mentors, and teaches by example while treating people fairly and ethically.Direct, unambiguous, and inclusive communication is one hallmark of strong leadership. All of us have experienced this aspect in our decades-long association with Dr. Taylor in both professional and non-professional settings. He always speaks his mind, regardless of the issue or the audience. One venue all co-authors have had the honor of participating in is the Great Lakes Fishery Commission's research boards, where he served as chair for many years (2008-2023) of the Fishery Research Program's Board of Technical Experts (BOTE; one of many Commission roles he played). Reviewing and voting on funding recommendations for research proposals involves considering agency priorities, peer-review opinions, and advice of board members. Decisions at times are not as straightforward as one might like. The grading process, established more than 20 years ago, is made of a red (don't fund), yellow (maybe) and green (fund) ratings of proposals by board members and tallying votes for each. Bill disliked this system because “maybe” votes deferred the decision for a core group of the team to finalize recommendations. His reasoning was, that for some board members, the “yellow” vote was passing the task on to others, knowing the proposal was not worthy. Bill always counseled board members to restrict their votes to unambiguous input to a binary process (red or green) and be prepared to defend their position with factual reasoning—no “Midwest” nice was allowed.Dr. Taylor is visionary, courageous, goal-oriented, eager, and enthusiastic. Recognizing the ever-increasing complexity of ecosystem management challenges facing the Great Lakes and the need for better science to support management decisions, Bill, in the early 1990s, pursued a formal partnership between MSU and resource management agencies to seamlessly generate, and transfer, knowledge needed for sustainable resource governance. During his 16-year tenure as MSU Fisheries and Wildlife Department Chair (1992-2008), Bill worked tirelessly with the Federal Government in an attempt to establish a cooperative research unit at Michigan State University. When this failed, he proceeded toward his goal by leveraging a decade-old agreement between MSU and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) Wildlife Division to formalize a new commitment in perpetuity known as the Partnership in Ecosystem Research and Management (PERM) program (Fig. 1). Bill collaborated with former MDNR Fisheries Division Chief, and close friend, John Robertson to create PERM, which was initiated on Earth Day April 23, 1993. In our opinion, PERM vitalized MSU's Department of Fisheries and Wildlife by setting it on a path toward developing what is now widely celebrated as one of the nation's leading programs in fisheries and wildlife research and education, and one of the most effective state-academic partnerships.In 1994, Bill sent a letter to the then Executive Secretary of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, Bob Beecher, that introduced PERM and invited the Commission to join this fruitful partnership. An excerpt from that letter reads: “We feel that the PERM unit offers an opportunity for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission to further its research and management goals through cooperative ecosystem research aimed at applied problems. As such, we invite the Great Lakes Fishery Commission to join our partnership either within the PERM unit formally, or in close cooperation with it. Commission support for a faculty position concentrating on management of Great Lakes fishery resources, and particularly integrated sea lamprey control, would focus on uniting not only MSU resources, but also those of the network of Great Lakes Universities and land grant colleges, upon finding answers to pressing challenges facing the Commission and fishery management agencies.”Following through on his May 24 offer, Bill presented the proposal to join PERM at the executive session of the Commission's 1994 annual meeting. With support from Commissioners Chuck Krueger, Buzz Besadny, and Gail Beggs, the commission agreed to join PERM at its 1995 Interim Meeting under tenure of a new Executive Secretary, Dr. Chris Goddard. At the time, the Great Lakes Fishery Commission had a long-standing relationship with the National Biological Service Lake Huron Biological Station (previously a part of the Fish and Wildlife Service) centered on invasive sea lamprey Petromyzon marinus research and control (Gaden et al. 2021). In May of 1995, Dr. Goddard wrote a letter to Dr. Ronald Pulliam, Director of the National Biological Service for the Department of the Interior (DOI), in which he laid out the case for bringing what is now the U.S. Geological Survey's Hammond Bay Biological Station and primary sea lamprey research arm of the Commission into PERM. In May 1997, having finally negotiated the necessary support of DOI, the Commission, MSU, MDNR, and the U.S. Geological Survey signed a PERM agreement to: “provide for active cooperation in the advancement, organization, and conduct of sea lamprey research, graduate education, outreach, in service training, technical assistance, public relations, and demonstration programmes.” All elements of the PERM goal are areas to which Bill allocated much of his energy and leadership – areas that he cared deeply about.The original Commission expression of intent to enter into PERM, dated September 26, 1995, specified in a letter from Dr. Goddard to Dr. Fred Poston, Vice Provost and Dean, MSU College of Agriculture and Natural Resources expressed that the Commission agreed to fund one scientist at Michigan State University to address management of the invasive sea lamprey in the Great Lakes. Consistent with Bill's vision and superior negotiation skills, the 1997 PERM agreement specified two PERM scientists because Bill had previously identified, and potentially already hired, two excellent candidates in Dr. Michael Jones and Dr. Weiming Li to lead the new PERM program at MSU. Both of the original GLFC PERM hires spent their entire careers with the program, with Dr. Jones retiring in 2021 and Dr. Li now leading a new program for the Commission on sea lamprey genetics.Dr. Taylor's vision to establish strong partnerships between applied ecosystem science and management agencies was visionary. He saw problems on the distant horizon and articulated clear goals relating to ecosystem science, knowledge transfer, and producing a pipeline of highly qualified personnel into resource agencies. His tenacity and perseverance toward those goals is clear evidence of his leadership. Indeed, goals established by Bill now reflected in the Commission's strategic vision form the philosophical foundation for many of the Commission's science programs.Loyalty is a leadership quality that Bill possesses in extraordinary depth and breadth, as we all know from first-hand experience. Those of us who were recipients of his loyalty were entrained in his extended family and inherited his sense of loyalty to his family and to our own extension of that family. We have all been given a life-long pass for our mistakes, and also a life-long commitment of support in whatever form is needed. Loyalty is inherited by us from Bill and then passed along to our friends and professional progeny. When Bill calls for us to contribute to one of his projects, we say yes (even if not particularly convenient at the time, and sometimes whether we knew it or not). That is the nature of family loyalty. Respond when asked. Offer to help when not asked. Bill also contributes to our lives in ways that tell us we are much more than a professional colleague, but rather, we are multi-faceted beings leading multi-directional lives. Each facet of our being and life is worthy of Bill's time and attention, even if we are not aware of how much we may need Bill's support at the time. As his progeny, we then extend the same level of commitment and loyalty to our own progeny. A family tree grows by branching. Each of us experiences our own unique Bill Taylor, whether he is a father, brother, mentor, or casual advisor. His loyalty to us was part of the bargain, whether or not we realized loyalty was the currency of our relationship with him. Loyalty may be the most valuable currency in this crazy mixed-up world. Bill Taylor is the best of us because he embodies loyalty so thoroughly in his being.His loyalty to friends, family, students, and colleagues was part of what made Bill a great teacher and mentor (Fig. 2). In 2023, the Commission recognized him formally by naming a new fellowship program in his honor— the William Taylor Early Career Researcher Fellowship. The fellowship program celebrated Bill's 20th anniversary as a member of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission and honored his long-standing service as a member and chair of BOTE and as a longstanding member of the Sea Lamprey Research Board. Throughout his career, Bill made it a priority to mentor the next generation of Great Lakes fisheries scientists, promote equity for women in the field, and build strong, collaborative, and collegial relationships within the Great Lakes fisheries network. He was a major proponent of the formation of the fellowship, and his life's work embodies its purpose to elevate the voices and advance the careers of promising early career professionals.In closing, we have drawn on just a few examples from his career and each of our unique experiences with the esteemed Dr. Taylor to highlight what makes him a leader in Fishery Science. In our vignette, we hope that it is apparent that what makes a leader is not only what they do, but critically important, how they do it as reflected by their character. Most of the key traits of leadership we note herein have little to do with achievements, but rather, they enable a true leader like Bill to lead from the front, by example, and by bringing all of us along with them. We thank Bill for all that he has done to make the Great Lakes better, but most importantly, to make our lives better.