What qualities do you expect to see in a highly effective leader?
A good leader is just a great listener, someone who really can respond to different inputs and then develop a plan that everybody has bought into. As a consequence, everyone is able to move in the same manner, less friction, less competing agendas. That’s leadership.-Dr. Willie Ross (21sec)
Dr. Will Ross, Associate Dean for Diversity
Associate Professor of Medicine, Renal Division
Washington University School of Medicine
LSL Class of 1995-96
Will R. Ross, MD, MPH, is an associate professor of medicine in the kidney division and associate dean for diversity at Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Ross oversees diversity affairs, directs recruiting and clinical outreach programs that promote community-based health care, and teaches courses in public health. Dr. Ross has produced educational materials that focus on reducing health care disparities; helped to establish free local medical clinics; and has been instrumental in redesigning local access to health care for the underserved. He is a charter and founding member of the St. Louis Regional Health Commission, is past board chairman for the Missouri Foundation for Health where he spearheaded its health literacy initiative, and is a member of the Institute of Medicine Health Literacy Roundtable. He serves on the Centers for Disease Control Advisory Committee on Minority Health. Ross is a founding member of the American Society of Minority Health and Transplant Professionals. He has received numerous awards, most recently the 2009 Washington University Medical Center Distinguished Alumni Faculty Award. Ross earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University in 1980 and his medical degree from Washington University in 1984. He completed an internal medicine residency at Vanderbilt University and a renal fellowship at Washington University in 1990. He completed a master of science in epidemiology at Saint Louis University.
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