Our motto at Leading Edge Associates is “Aim Higher.” I chose it because perhaps no factor is more clearly linked to leading people to great heights than the willingness to set high expectations.

I cannot readily think of someone who embodied that more than Gerald M. Boyd, the former New York Times managing editor who died of cancer Thanksgiving at the age of 56.

Gerald was metro editor at the Times in 1993 when – with the strong encouragement of Carolyn Lee, the first woman senior manager at the paper – he hired me as a projects journalist. My first assignment from Gerald was emblematic. I was making the rounds on orientation when he summoned me. “Orientation is over,” he said. “There’s been an explosion in the PATH station under the World Trade Center. Get over to Bellevue Hospital, they’ll probably bring folks there.”

That explosion, of course, turned out to be the first WTC bombing. Under Gerald’s leadership, the Times was awarded the Pulitzer for local reporting, the first won by the newspaper in a quarter century. Ultimately, Gerald would be associated with seven other Pulitzers, six of them for coverage of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.Gerald, of course, resigned in the wake of the Jayson Blair story-fabrication scandal. It was sad and unfortunate. Gerald had some rough edges as a manager, but no one could ever question his character or integrity.

I have plenty of views on the Blair affair, but my lasting impression of Gerald is this: Whether in spite of, or because of, a hardscrabble upbringing, he never stopped trying to be the best, look the best and perform the best. And he never stopped driving his staff, either, taking the best newspaper in the world to new heights of journalistic excellence.

As reported by the Times, Ann Scales of the Boston Globe said at a memorial service for Gerald: “One thing Gerald did not have time for was excuses. No excuses for missing deadlines. No excuses for sloppy writing. No excuses for grammatical errors or misspelled words. No excuses because you happen to be born black and poor.”

Amen.