Almost reflexively, an overflow crowd in the Mount Carmel Auditorium leaned forward, too. It’s a scene that has been repeated in boardrooms and auditoriums all over the world.

When Weldon leans forward, people listen.

Weldon shared his thoughts on big business, accountability and corporate governance during an hour-long conversation with President Judy Olian as part of “The Way Forward” speaker series.

A former chairman and current member of the Board of Trustees at Quinnipiac, Weldon has also sat on the boards of JPMorgan Chase, ExxonMobil and CVS Health.

As CEO of Johnson & Johnson for 10 years, Weldon relied on decades of experience. From the time he left Quinnipiac, Weldon quickly rose through the ranks as a problem-solver with astute leadership skills. But that didn’t mean every decision went his way.

“What I loved was that it gave you the opportunity to stub your toe and make mistakes. And I think one of the challenges for everybody, for all of you, is to make some decisions, make some mistakes,” Weldon told an audience largely composed of Quinnipiac students.

“People are risk averse today, and they need to take more risks. They need to take more risks in business. You need to take more risks in whatever career you decide to go into because that's the way you separate yourself from the pack,” Weldon said.

Even now, long after he graduated from Quinnipiac, Weldon sees the potential and power in the workforce of tomorrow.

A few years back, Weldon delivered the commencement address at the UCLA Anderson School of Management when Olian was dean. His message is as resonant today as it was then.

“I said to the young people, ‘You can leave and graduate and go for a title or go for a paycheck. But if you think about it, you're going to be in whatever field you're going to do for 40 years or however long you're going to be there,” said Weldon, who was introduced by Ashley Sanchez, a fourth-year medical student in the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac.

“You really need to choose something you love because you will be much, much more successful at the end of 40 years by choosing what you want to do as opposed to what's going to offer you a title or a paycheck,” he said.

Weldon managed to combine all three — a career that he loved with a title and a good salary.

During his tenure at Johnson & Johnson, the New Jersey-based corporation “touched a billion people every day” with its products and services, Weldon said. But that kind of global growth requires employee engagement, constant innovation and market anticipation.

And, just maybe, some of that aforementioned risk.

In 1992, with a successful career already established, Weldon was presented with two options: He could run Johnson & Johnson’s pharmaceutical business, or he could run a startup medical stapling company looking for market share in endoscopic surgery.

Weldon didn’t have to think twice. He and his wife, Barbara, packed their bags and moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, home to Ethicon Endo-Surgery. It was always about the next challenge, the next opportunity to build something bigger and better.

Weldon had the CEO mindset long before he had the title, you see.

As he told the story at Quinnipiac, Weldon recalled his first message to the Ethicon employees. “If we succeed, there will be gold stars for everybody,” he vowed. “If we don't succeed, nobody gets a gold star.”

Meanwhile, no one at Ethicon has stubbed their toes over the last 30-plus years. “The company came together, and now it's probably one of the biggest companies at J&J today,” Weldon said.

There is no shortcut in business, Weldon will tell you. There is no magic wand. But most of all, there is no BAND-AID for a bruised ego. There is only hard work, results and accountability.

“The thing you learn as you move up the ladder is that you have to rely on others. You have to hold people accountable and you have to delegate to people,” Weldon said. “I always said, if you want to throw rotten tomatoes at J&J, throw them at me, not at anybody else because I'm the one that's ultimately responsible.

“But the reality of it is, you have to set a tone,” he said. “I talk about leadership, and I say that leadership is followership. People want to follow you, and you want to align the organization behind the common objective and the common goal. Ours was healthcare and caring for people.”

As a CEO, hiring the best people and assembling the best teams are always part of this job.

“In today's world, nobody's smart enough to understand all of the sciences,” Weldon said. “Nobody's smart enough to understand all of the consumer businesses, the medical device businesses, the diagnostic businesses, all of the financial and legal issues which are almost insurmountable today.

“You need to have experts who are helping you in all of these things,” he added. “To me, the single largest asset that any organization has is its people.”