James Comey, former FBI director, discussed how former bosses and mentors provided him with leadership characteristics during his speech titled ‘The Ethical Leader’ at the Sinai Forum in Michigan City, IN on Sept. 9.

“Successful leaders, effective leaders are people that are kind and tough, and confident and humble,” Comey said during the event at Blue Chip Casino, Hotel & Spa. “In fact, confident enough to be humble.”

Comey, who was appointed FBI director in 2013 under former President, Barack Obama, served until he was fired by President Donald Trump in May 2017. He later released his book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truths, Lies, and Leadership,” in April 2018.

Comey spoke about his initial plans to implement change when he took over the FBI director position from Robert Mueller in 2013. He continued that he found it much more important and effective to lead by example. He explained that people are forged by watching leaders in their life, continuing that leaders can change employee culture through their actions.

Comey advanced his earlier discussion of what makes a great leader, adding what it means to be an ethical leader.

“An ethical leader tries to do something else, which is to lift his or her eye above the urgent, above the angry, above the painful, to ask themselves ‘what are the lasting values that animate this institution?’”

Comey questioned what unites Americans, continuing that while we lack a common ancestor, language and faith, he feels that we share a set of values.

“I can add a voice to a lot of muffled voices in trying to lift our country’s eyes to stare at those values and in a way to refocus ourselves, recenter ourselves, on those things we have in common.”

Comey offered dialogue on the current political climate, mentioning that he’s concerned about the constant clashing between political parties.

“I worry that we have spent so much time fighting each other that we’ve dropped our eyes,” Comey said.

Comey emphasized at the end of the speech the need to engage with young people so that they don’t step away from leadership roles. He, however, denied any interest in running for political office.

During Q&A with audience members, Comey explained decisions he made while he was acting FBI director, such as his decision to publicly announce that the FBI was reopening an investigation into Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, 12 days before the 2018 presidential election.

“I only saw two doors: I could tell Congress or I could not tell Congress [of newly found emails], which to my mind is also an action — that would be concealing something from the American people,” Comey said. “Between the two, I still think we made the right decision.”

Platon, international portrait photographer, will speak next on Oct. 7.