In a rare public appearance, Condoleezza Rice spoke about effective leadership and her role in steering America’s foreign policy under the Bush administration in front of an overflowing audience at the Graduate School of Business’ Bishop Auditorium Thursday.

The 66th Secretary of State and former Stanford provost was the third speaker in the GSB’s 2010 student-run speaker series called “View from the Top.”

Rice’s 25-minute talk, followed by a 40-minute question and answer period, charted her leadership mindset during her tenure as George W. Bush’s first-term national security advisor and, from 2005 to 2009, as U.S. Secretary of State.

In a departure from the political fireworks that sometimes characterize Rice’s public appearances, the recap of her experiences in Washington was warmly met by the audience yesterday.

“First and foremost, in challenging times the thing to do is to stay focused on what’s important, not what’s urgent,” Rice said, underscoring a major theme of her talk: that today’s headlines and history’s judgment are rarely the same. That principle — being perpetually cognizant of a long-term foreign policy picture — was Rice’s personal mantra during her time in Washington.

“If you were in a position of authority, every day after September 11 was September 12,” Rice said, explaining the post-9/11 crisis mode of Washington politics. But keeping a level head during that high-intensity time was essential to effective governing, she said. “Everything is always a crisis.”

But she said her time in the Bush administration wasn’t without incident — the period saw an escalation of sectarian violence in Iraq, the election of Hamas in Pakistan and the threat of a nuclear Iran — she said that on most days, “it was just paperclips, not nuclear war.”

After her speech, Rice fielded questions from GSB students about what the United States’ commitment should be in Iraq to her decision to forego a classical piano career — and ended her talk before a standing ovation from the crowd.

-Amy Julia Harris