Leadership In The Military

There is surely no more talent nor more hope for the upcoming than castigate here in this room. I envy you and I wish I could trade determines with you, notwithstanding at the same time, enumerateing at al bingle of you I am supremely sure-footed that here among you stick the early gravid maitre dhotels of our military and that we can only be genuinely assured virtually tomorrow. And I am convinced that if he were alive to mean solar day, Gen. marshall would be a everyplacecompensate here, for there is nothing that that neat soldier loved more than to lambast ab step forward service and to talk about leadership.As he himself formerly said on a similar occasion, looking across a room full of future leaders, Youre young, he said, and youre vigorous, and your service allow for be the foundation for peace and prosperity without the valet. Certainly as I look at you the same is true this morning. Truly you here in this room ar our future. And it is more or les s representting for us to come together adept here in these genuinely halls where George Marshall unrivaled time walked to honor him and to reflect on his dandy contri plainlyions and to sh be some thoughts on leadership.If you were to take substantiate over this century, you would realize very promptly that our phalanx has produced some genuinely rummy military leaders. I am confident that if I were to ask all of you to take pen to paper and to write come out the key outs of the striking armament leaders of this century, you would be at it for a very long time, and when you were d wiz, the lists that you produced would be very long. Just to name the most famous, there was, of course, Black Jack Pershing, Omar Bradley, George Patton, Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, Lightning Joe Collins and most latterly two of my former bosses, Norman Sch strugglezkopf and Colin Po hygienic.Each of these officers was remarkably gifted. scarcely if you study them closely, you realize that severally(prenominal) was very different, that the fame they acquired had very different roots. Omar Bradley simple, unadorned, humble, but of them all he was the soldiers soldier loved by his subordinates and considered by Eisenhower to be the boldest and most dogged of his Army radical commanders. Or there was Eisenhower himself, a leader of incalculable depth, intricacy and complexity.Some word his outward appearance and theme were those of an officer who compromised easily, and who others thought was only thinly grounded in the realizeledge of war fighting, but one with a keen sense for what it took to maintain cohesion within our World War II coalition. But if you were to look closer, you would discover that these were the traits Eisenhower insufficiencyed others to believe, for he was surrounded by huge egos, both among the talented commanders in his theater and among the nations that comprised our alliance.Quite contrary to these assertions, he held clo udy convictions, and he n incessantly ceded or compromised whatsoever point that he entangle important. Our campaign to allow atomic number 63 from the Nazis was the very campaign he visualized at the catch of the war back in 1942, a plan for which at beginning-class honours degree there was only lukeaffectionate support among American leaders and nearly total op prospect from our British allies.Yet when it was done, it was Eisenhowers approach we exe golf shoted, and it was militarily brilliant. And any study of our gigantic generals essential include that incredible warrior, George Patton, a tenacious and wicked-bitten fighter who felt the pulse and watercourse of the field of battle in his veins, who had an innate knack for inspiring soldiers to fight beyond all limits of their endurance, but in addition a soldier with a renowned appetite for fame and approval.And we could talk about so some(prenominal) others, for our Army has produced such a rich abundance of tale nted leaders. But there is one giant who stands preceding(prenominal) them all. That officer was, of course, George Catlett Marshall. More than any soldier of this century, Im convinced Marshall epitomized the qualities that we want in our leaders. He had MacArthurs greatness and court railroad liness. He had Pattons tenacity and drive. He had Bradleys personal magnetism, theability to inspire sureness and deep affection from any who came into his presence.But more than that, Marshall had the organizational skills that in a few short geezerhood converted an Army of only several hundred thousand, with only a pileful of modern weapons and no modern battlefield experience, into an Army of over 8 million the topper equipped, the trounce fighting multitude in the world, an legions that defeated the two most powerful empires of its time.More than that, he had a r atomic number 18 intuition, a nearly perfect inner sense for other mens strengths that allowed him to fall upon the spark of leadership in others, and when he sawing machine that spark, to place such men into key assignments and because to fully support their efforts. He did that time and again, hundreds of times, with remarkable accuracy. And as we conducted after the war, he was as well perhaps the superlative statesman and oracle of his age.All of us should think that the occupations of Germany and Japan were commanded by military officers, but we should also remember that the room decorator of these occupations was Marshall. But even beyond this, in 1948, with a few words uttered in a rescue at Harvard, Marshall point in motion the plan that would redo westerly Europe, that would recover its citizenry from enormous poverty, that would reweave the entire tapestry of nations from the conflict-addicted patterns of the past to what we see today a westbound Europe gathered on the edge of beseeming a cohesive union of nations.What an accomplishment It is astounding to think of what this one officer accomplished in his forethoughter of service to his nation. But most demeaning is to realize that to his final stage Marshall remained an entirely selfless man, a man who returned to service even from a well-deserved and long-sought retirement because a president requested him to do so, a man who never, ever exploited his account for any personal gain. If we were to ask a sculptor to produce a bust of a great leader and draw to that sculptor all of the traits and qualities that that bust should reflect, I have absolutely no uncertainty that that bust would look exactly uniform Gen. George C. Marshall.And so for those of us like you and I, who make slacking our mood of life, it is forever and a day elucidative to take the time to reflect on Gen. Marshalls misgivinger, for by so doing we are reminded of oft that we should try to emulate. But you are here for a different reason. You are here because I think you worry about these succeeding(prenominal) steps for you, which provide lead to a gold bar of a plump for police lieutenant.I distrust very much that you are searching for answers about how to mobilize for war, how to free an enslaved Europe or how to rebuild a destroyed nation, although some day your country may ask further that from you. If you are like I was when I waited to pin on my lieutenants bars, your thoughts are more about the challenges of a platoon leader than those of a general. The other week age a guest on Larry Kings show, Larry asked me when I first thought of becoming a general and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The answer was very simple.I told him that when I was a privy my ambition was to decease a good one so someday I could become a good corporal. And when 36 years ago, in 1959, the year that Gen. Marshall died, I was commissioned a second lieutenant and shipped off to Fairbanks, Alaska, and became a platoon leader in the mortar battery of the world-class strife assemblage of the 9th Infantry , my thoughts were certainly not on becoming a general or colonel or study or even a captainMy thoughts were on becoming a good platoon leader, about universe up to the challenge of leading my soldiers, about not making a fool of myself in imagine of Sgt.1st Class Grice, the platoon sergeant of that first platoon of mine. And I was make up to cin one casentrate on the lineage at hand, for the business c oncern of a lieutenant is a tough one in many ways, perhaps, the toughest one but it is without a distrust also the most important, and if you take to it, also the most rewarding. I was very fortunate, because I had sergeant Grice to imbibe me and to ascertain me. And teach and guide me he did, without ever making me happen inadequate and without ever permitting me to be ill-prepared, because he was the bestAnd if there is one thing I wish for each and each one of you, it is a sergeant-at-law Grice to teach you about soldiers, about leaders, and the responsibilities a nd joys of soldiering together. Not everyone is as cheerful as I was not everyone finds his police sergeant Grice, and many dont not because he isnt there, but because unknowingly and foolishly they take him away. Dont do that. Look for your Sergeant Grice NCOs have so very much to teach us. Well, what did I learn from Sergeant Grice?Certainly more than I have time to tell you here, and also because many stabilising hints have probably by now faded from my memory. But what I learned then and what has been reinforced in the 36 years since is that good leadership, whether in the world of a lieutenant or in the world of a general, is based essentially on three towers. These three pillars he taught me are character, love and care for soldiers, and master competence. Oh, Sergeant Grice didnt exactly use these terms, but what he believed and what he taught me fit very neatly into these three pillars.He used to say that if the platoon ever sensed that I wasnt up bm with them, if the y ever believed I did something so I would look good at their expense, I would very quickly lose them. How right he was. Often he would say, Look down. Worry about what your soldiers think. Dont worry about looking up, about what the captain thinks of you. He never said it, thats not the kind of relationship that he and I had, but I knew that if I ever said something to the platoon or to him that wasnt the absolute truth, he would never trust me again and I would be finished as a platoon leader.I would be finished as a leader. Someone once said that men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied men of power are feared but only men of character are trusted. Without trust you cannot lead. I have never seen a good unit where the leaders werent trusted. Its salutary that simple. And it isnt enough that you say the right things. What counts in a platoon is not so much what you say, but what they see you do. Gen. Powell, speaking here a few years ago, put it this way If you want t hem to work hard and take over hardship, he observed, you must(prenominal)iness work even harder and endure even greater hardship.They must see you sacrifice for them, he said. They must see you do the hard things, they must see you giving credit to the platoon for something good you did, and they must see you take the blame for something they hadnt gotten except right. But Sergeant Grice also understood that hand in hand with character, with this inner strength that soldiers will want to see, they will also want to know and see that you rattling care for them, that you will sacrifice for them, that you precisely enjoy being with them. Words wont get you through there, either.If you dont feel it in your heart, if you dont love your soldiers in your heart, they will know it. How often Sergeant Grice would prod me to spend the bare time to get to know the members of the platoon better, to know who look ated extra training and coaching so he could fire expert on the endure ra nge the next time around to talk to Pvt. Taylor, who just received a Dear magic letter to visit Cpl. Vencler and his wife, who had a sick child. Every day you will have soldiers who will need your care, your concern and your help.They expect and, I tellyou, they have the right to expect, 150 percent of your time and best effort. And how well I remember those evenings in the field when Sergeant Grice and I would stand in the cold, with a cup of coffee in our hands trying to warm our frozen fingers, watching the platoon go through the chow line. Grice taught me that simple but long-standing tradition that officers go to the very end of the chow line, that the officer is the ultimately one to eat, that the officer will take his or her first bite only after the exsert soldier has had a chance to eat.This tradition, as you so well know, is founded in the understanding that leaders place the offbeat of their people above their own, that the officer is responsible for the welfare of th e troops that if mismanagement results in a shortage of food to feed the entire unit, that the officer will go without that if the food gets cold while the unit is being served, that the officer will get the chilliest portion. It is a tradition that surprises many officers from other nations, but it goes to the core of the kind of leadership we provide our soldiers. But pity for our soldiers does not dispel at the chow line.Nor, for that matter, does it stop with the soldiers themselves, for you know that our units are families, and a soldier must have the trust that you will take care of his family, particularly when hes away from home. But caring for soldiers very perplexs with making them the best possible soldiers they can be. Their satisfaction with themselves, their confidence in themselves and in the end, their lives will depend upon how well you do that part. And that perhaps is your greatest challenge as a lieutenant. It is hard work, and make no mistake about it, ther e are no shortcuts.But what a joy it is to watch or to talk to young men and women in uniform, who know that they are the best because a Sergeant Grice and his or her lieutenant cared to teach them and to work with them and to make them reach for the highest standards. Which brings me to the third pillar I spoke of, and that is your professional competence. As we look back on Marshall and on Patton and on MacArthur and all of the others, we realize that the skills and qualities and knowledge that do them great generals took decades of training, of experience and of evolution.For all of the differences between these leaders there is one thing that they had in common. Their careers were tag by a progression of difficult assignments and intense study. unendingly they were a snapshot of a chef-doeuvre still in progress, still in motion. From the beginning of their careers to the end, each of them was continually applying new brushstrokes to their knowledge and to their skills. And G rice understood that very well, although he had different words for it.He knew that if our platoon was difference to be good at occupying a site and firing our mortars, at hastily leaving our position should enemy artillery have found our location, at the countless things that would make us a exquisitely honed war-fighting machine, then he had to show me, he had to teach me and to practice with me, so that when I walked that gun line the soldiers would know that I knew more than they that if I asked them how to cut a mortar fuse, there was no doubt that I would know the answer, just as I would know if there was too much get in the sight mount on that mortar.And I had to feel confident that knew before they would feel confident with me. In every good leader I have met in my years of service there always was the evidence of these three qualities character, love for soldiers and professional competence. And because they possessed these qualities, they managed to inspire their soldi ers to have confidence in them. And you know, the truly great ones like George C. Marshall did not only inspire soldiers to have confidence in their leaders, but they also inspired their soldiers to have confidence in themselves.With that, let me close. As I told you in the beginning, I am deeply envious of each of you. Since the days when I first put on my uniform, I fell in love with soldiering and with soldiers, and it has been for me, by any measure, a great passion. If I could start all over today, I would not hesitate for a single second. I would go out and I would find old Sergeant Grice and we would be ready tomorrow morning Good circumstances to you all. I envy you.Leadership in the MilitaryThere is surely no more talent nor more hope for the future than right here in this room. I envy you and I wish I could trade places with you, but at the same time, looking at all of you I am supremely confident that here among you sit the future great captains of our military and that we can all be very confident about tomorrow.And I am convinced that if he were alive today, Gen. Marshall would be right here, for there is nothing that that great soldier loved more than to talk about service and to talk about leadership.As he himself once said on a similar occasion, looking across a room full of future leaders, Youre young, he said, and youre vigorous, and your service will be the foundation for peace and prosperity throughout the world. Certainly as I look at you the same is true this morning.Truly you here in this room are our future. And it is most fitting for us to come together right here in these very halls where George Marshall once walked to honor him and to reflect on his great contributions and to share some thoughts on leadership.If you were to think back over this century, you would realize very quickly that our Army has produced some truly remarkable military leaders.I am confident that if I were to ask all of you to take pen to paper and to write dow n the names of the great Army leaders of this century, you would be at it for a very long time, and when you were done, the lists that you produced would be very long.Just to name the most famous, there was, of course, Black Jack Pershing, Omar Bradley, George Patton, Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, Lightning Joe Collins and most recently two of my former bosses, Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell.Each of these officers was remarkably gifted. But if you study them closely, you realize that each was very different, that the fame they acquired hadvery different roots. Omar Bradley simple, unadorned, humble, but of them all he was the soldiers soldier loved by his subordinates and considered by Eisenhower to be the boldest and most dogged of his Army group commanders.Or there was Eisenhower himself, a leader of incalculable depth, intricacy and complexity. Some say his outward appearance and reputation were those of an officer who compromised easily, and who others thought was only thinly grounded in the knowledge of war fighting, but one with a keen sense for what it took to maintain cohesion within our World War II coalition.But if you were to look closer, you would discover that these were the traits Eisenhower wanted others to believe, for he was surrounded by huge egos, both among the talented commanders in his theater and among the nations that comprised our alliance. Quite contrary to these assertions, he held deep convictions, and he never ceded or compromised any point that he felt important.Our campaign to seize Europe from the Nazis was the very campaign he visualized at the start of the war back in 1942, a plan for which at first there was only lukewarm support among American leaders and nearly total opposition from our British allies. Yet when it was done, it was Eisenhowers approach we executed, and it was militarily brilliant.And any study of our great generals must include that incredible warrior, George Patton, a tenacious and hard-bitte n fighter who felt the pulse and flow of the battlefield in his veins, who had an innate knack for inspiring soldiers to fight beyond all limits of their endurance, but also a soldier with a renowned appetite for fame and approval.And we could talk about so many others, for our Army has produced such a rich abundance of talented leaders. But there is one giant who stands above them all. That officer was, of course, George Catlett Marshall. More than any soldier of this century, Im convinced Marshall epitomized the qualities that we want in our leaders. He had MacArthurs brilliance and courtliness. He had Pattons tenacity and drive. He had Bradleys personal magnetism, theability to inspire confidence and deep affection from any who came into his presence.But more than that, Marshall had the organizational skills that in a few short years converted an Army of only several hundred thousand, with only a handful of modern weapons and no modern battlefield experience, into an Army of over 8 million the best equipped, the best fighting army in the world, an army that defeated the two most powerful empires of its time.More than that, he had a rare intuition, a nearly flawless inner sense for other mens strengths that allowed him to see the spark of leadership in others, and when he saw that spark, to place such men into key assignments and then to fully support their efforts. He did that time and again, hundreds of times, with remarkable accuracy.And as we learned after the war, he was as well perhaps the greatest statesman and visionary of his age. All of us should remember that the occupations of Germany and Japan were commanded by military officers, but we should also remember that the architect of these occupations was Marshall.But even beyond this, in 1948, with a few words uttered in a speech at Harvard, Marshall put in motion the plan that would rebuild Western Europe, that would recover its people from enormous poverty, that would reweave the entire tapestry of nations from the conflict-addicted patterns of the past to what we see today a Western Europe poised on the edge of becoming a cohesive union of nations. What an accomplishmentIt is staggering to think of what this one officer accomplished in his career of service to his nation. But most humbling is to realize that to his death Marshall remained an entirely selfless man, a man who returned to service even from a well-deserved and long-sought retirement because a president requested him to do so, a man who never, ever exploited his reputation for any personal gain.If we were to ask a sculptor to produce a bust of a great leader and described to that sculptor all of the traits and qualities that that bust should reflect, I have absolutely no doubt that that bust would look exactly like Gen. George C. Marshall.And so for those of us like you and I, who make soldiering our way of life, it is always instructive to take the time to reflect on Gen. Marshalls career, for by so doing we a re reminded of much that we should try to emulate.But you are here for a different reason. You are here because I think you worry about these next steps for you, which will lead to a gold bar of a second lieutenant. I doubt very much that you are searching for answers about how to mobilize for war, how to free an enslaved Europe or how to rebuild a destroyed nation, although some day your country may ask just that from you.If you are like I was when I waited to pin on my lieutenants bars, your thoughts are more about the challenges of a platoon leader than those of a general.The other week while a guest on Larry Kings show, Larry asked me when I first thought of becoming a general and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The answer was very simple. I told him that when I was a private my ambition was to become a good one so someday I could become a good corporal. And when 36 years ago, in 1959, the year that Gen. Marshall died, I was commissioned a second lieutenant and shipped off to Fairbanks, Alaska, and became a platoon leader in the mortar battery of the 1st Battle Group of the 9th Infantry, my thoughts were certainly not on becoming a general or colonel or major or even a captainMy thoughts were on becoming a good platoon leader, about being up to the challenge of leading my soldiers, about not making a fool of myself in front of Sgt. 1st Class Grice, the platoon sergeant of that first platoon of mine.And I was right to concentrate on the job at hand, for the job of a lieutenant is a tough one in many ways, perhaps, the toughest one but it is without a doubt also the most important, and if you take to it, also the most rewarding.I was very fortunate, because I had Sergeant Grice to guide me and to teach me. And teach and guide me he did, without ever making me feel inadequate and without ever permitting me to be ill-prepared, because he was the bestAnd if there is one thing I wish for each and every one of you, it is a Sergeant Grice to teach you about so ldiers, about leaders, and the responsibilities and joys of soldiering together. Not everyone is as blessed as I was not everyone finds his Sergeant Grice, and many dont not because he isnt there, but because unknowingly and foolishly they push him away. Dont do that. Look for your Sergeant Grice NCOs have so very much to teach us.Well, what did I learn from Sergeant Grice? Certainly more than I have time to tell you here, and also because many helpful hints have probably by now faded from my memory.But what I learned then and what has been reinforced in the 36 years since is that good leadership, whether in the world of a lieutenant or in the world of a general, is based essentially on three pillars.These three pillars he taught me are character, love and care for soldiers, and professional competence.Oh, Sergeant Grice didnt exactly use these terms, but what he believed and what he taught me fit very neatly into these three pillars.He used to say that if the platoon ever sensed th at I wasnt up front with them, if they ever believed I did something so I would look good at their expense, I would very quickly lose them. How right he was.Often he would say, Look down. Worry about what your soldiers think. Dont worry about looking up, about what the captain thinks of you.He never said it, thats not the kind of relationship that he and I had, but I knew that if I ever said something to the platoon or to him that wasnt the absolute truth, he would never trust me again and I would be finished as a platoon leader. I would be finished as a leader.Someone once said that men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied men of power are feared but only men of character are trusted. Without trust you cannot lead. I have never seen a good unit where the leaders werent trusted. Its just that simple.And it isnt enough that you say the right things. What counts in a platoon is not so much what you say, but what they see you do.Gen. Powell, speaking here a few years ago, pu t it this way If you want them to work hard and endure hardship, he observed, you must work even harder and endure even greater hardship. They must see you sacrifice for them, he said. They must see you do the hard things, they must see you giving credit to the platoon for something good you did, and they must see you take the blame for something they hadnt gotten just right.But Sergeant Grice also understood that hand in hand with character, with this inner strength that soldiers will want to see, they will also want to know and see that you really care for them, that you will sacrifice for them, that you simply enjoy being with them. Words wont get you through there, either. If you dont feel it in your heart, if you dont love your soldiers in your heart, they will know it.How often Sergeant Grice would prod me to spend the extra time to get to know the members of the platoon better, to know who needed extra training and coaching so he could fire expert on the rifle range the next time around to talk to Pvt. Taylor, who just received a Dear John letter to visit Cpl. Vencler and his wife, who had a sick child. Every day you will have soldiers who will need your care, your concern and your help. They expect and, I tell you, they have the right to expect, 150 percent of your time and best effort.And how well I remember those evenings in the field when Sergeant Grice and I would stand in the cold, with a cup of coffee in our hands trying to warm our frozen fingers, watching the platoon go through the chow line. Grice taught me that simple but long-standing tradition that officers go to the very end of the chow line, that the officer is the last one to eat, that the officer will take his or her first bite only after the last soldier has had a chance to eat.This tradition, as you so well know, is founded in the understanding that leaders place the welfare of their people above their own, that the officer is responsible for the welfare of the troops that if mismanag ement results in a shortage of food to feed the entire unit, that the officer will go without that if the food gets cold while the unit is being served, that the officer will get the chilliest portion. It is a tradition that surprises many officers from other nations, but it goes to the core of the kind of leadership we provide our soldiers.But caring for our soldiers does not stop at the chow line. Nor, for that matter, does it stop with the soldiers themselves, for you know that our units are families, and a soldier must have the trust that you will take care of his family, particularly when hes away from home.But caring for soldiers actually starts with making them the best possible soldiers they can be. Their satisfaction with themselves, their confidence in themselves and in the end, their lives will depend upon how well you do that part. And that perhaps is your greatest challenge as a lieutenant. It is hard work, and make no mistake about it, there are no shortcuts.But what a joy it is to watch or to talk to young men and women in uniform, who know that they are the best because a Sergeant Grice and his or her lieutenant cared to teach them and to work with them and to make them reach for the highest standards.Which brings me to the third pillar I spoke of, and that is your professional competence. As we look back on Marshall and on Patton and on MacArthur and all of the others, we realize that the skills and qualities and knowledge that made them great generals took decades of training, of experience and of evolution. For all of the differences between these leaders there is one thing that they had in common. Their careers were marked by a progression of difficult assignments and intense study. Always they were a snapshot of a masterpiece still in progress, still in motion.From the beginning of their careers to the end, each of them was continually applying new brushstrokes to their knowledge and to their skills.And Grice understood that very well, alt hough he had different words for it. He knew that if our platoon was going to be good at occupying a position and firing our mortars, at hastily leaving our position should enemy artillery have found our location, at the countless things that would make us a finely honed war-fighting machine, then he had to show me, he had to teach me and to practice with me, so that when I walked that gun line the soldiers would know that I knew more than they that if I asked them how to cut a mortar fuse, there was no doubt that I would know the answer, just as I would know if there was too much play in the sight mount on that mortar. And I had to feel confident that knew before they would feel confident with me.In every good leader I have met in my years of service there always was the evidence of these three qualities character, love for soldiers and professional competence. And because they possessed these qualities, they managed to inspire their soldiers to have confidence in them.And you know , the truly great ones like George C. Marshall did not only inspire soldiers to have confidence in their leaders, but they also inspired their soldiers to have confidence in themselves.With that, let me close. As I told you in the beginning, I am deeply envious of each of you. Since the days when I first put on my uniform, I fell in love with soldiering and with soldiers, and it has been for me, by any measure, a great passion.If I could start all over today, I would not hesitate for a single second. I would go out and I would find old Sergeant Grice and we would be ready tomorrow morningGood luck to you all. I envy you.