One day Bill and I were traveling together to Washington, DC. We each had meetings scheduled. Mine, with a candidate who had led the Army Corps of Engineers, was cancelled while we were still on the train. Bill was headed to Georgetown, where Bob was interviewing him about his time in the Nixon White House.
When I told him my meeting got cancelled, Bill looked at me and said, “Well… come to lunch with me then.”
“Is that okay?” I asked. “Can I just show up?”
“Sure. Why not? I was the one in the Goddamn White House.”
Arriving at Bob’s house in Georgetown, Bill made introductions. “Bob, this is my good colleague, Monica Burton.”
Bob smiled wryly. “Monica?!?! Why that’s a very famous name in Washington this week.”
The Monica Lewinsky scandal had just been made public and Washington was aflutter with the gossip.
OK. I wanted to disappear.
But I didn’t. The flush eventually went out of my face. And it ended up being a memorable day.
Once inside, we were shown into a sunlit room. It didn’t feel like a dining room though it had a round table that was already set for lunch. I remember a lot of yellow—a yellow flowered tablecloth, perhaps.
Someone discreetly added another place setting for me. We were served quiche and salad as the two men talked.
Bill and Bob spoke about the current event, of course. For all its power, Washington suddenly seemed like a very small town.
After gossip, Bob complimented Bill: “So, you have been quite successful since leaving Washington.” Bill seemed genuinely pleased by this acknowledgement. He accepted the compliment with quiet grace. The two men clearly knew one another from years before.
As the conversation shifted to Bill’s time serving under Richard Nixon, his demeanor changed. He became noticeably more circumspect.
Nixon had died, and Bob was researching a new book about Watergate. Bill may have felt freer to speak than he once would have, but I had the distinct impression he was still choosing his words carefully.
Bill brought a black, three-ring binder that he had put together of his White House artifacts. Inside were telephone lists with code names and other documents. Stuff like that and no doubt all now part of the public record. At first, Bob seemed dismissive, indicating he had seen it all before, but as he looked more closely at the details, he asked Elsa, his wife and assistant, to make photocopies.
The thing that impressed me most wasn’t meeting the world-famous journalist and author or hearing the Washington gossip. It was watching Bill. He never seemed threatened by giving a younger colleague a seat at the table. He simply assumed there was room.
Years later, I found myself doing the same thing with a gifted young colleague, Stephen. Whenever I could, I brought him into my searches. I wanted clients to know him, hear his ideas, and see what I saw in him.
More than once, I told him, “I hope you’re my boss someday.”
I meant it.
Looking back, I realized I wasn’t inventing my own way of leading. I was simply passing along something Bill had shown me years earlier. Making room wasn’t something Bill talked about. It was something he practiced.
— Monica Burton
This essay is adapted from The Heart of Leadership, a memoir in progress.
© 2026 Monica Burton. All rights reserved.