Due to my writings here and another blog I write on Army Knowledge Online (AKO), I have gained some attention recently from people throughout the Army especially with regard to the "Black Hearts" incident. Over the past month or so, I have been in contact with a few different folks from the Army Center of Excellence for the Professional Military Ethic at the US Military Academy at West Point who have expressed an interest in looking at the ethical leadership challenges posed by incidents such as occurred to 1st platoon. After 4 years (yesterday was the 4 year anniversary of the attack on the Al Janabi family), there appears to be an interest in looking at the incident in greater depth to see what leadership lessons can be learned to try to ensure that something like that event never happens again. I am more than pleased to try to be of assistance to their efforts and am grateful for their interest in my work, both here and on AKO.
Yesterday I was sent an article entitled 'Toxic Leadership' by C.C., one of the administrators at Battle Command Knowledge Systems, the Army's official information sharing website embedded in Army Knowledge Online (AKO). The article was published in the July-August 2004 issue of Military Review Magazine and was written by Col George E. Reed. The moderator who sent it to me thought I might be interested in the authors thoughts on command climate and the impact leaders have on the overall feeling in their units. Col Reed offers the following as key elements of something called toxic leader syndrome:
"1. An apparent lack of concern for the well-being of subordinates.
2. A personality or interpersonal technique that negatively affects organizational climate.
3. A conviction by by subordinates that the leader is motivated primarily by self-interest."
After providing an example of of toxic leadership and how toxic leaders manifest themselves in units, the author goes on to ask the question:
"Why, we ask, does an organization so obviously people oriented and that places so much emphasis on leadership tolerate them?"
And right there may be the heart of the issue. The Army may claim to be people oriented, but when your catch-phrase is "Mission first, Soldiers always", there is an ethic within the organization that the mission must, and will, be accomplished no matter the cost. Additionally, in an organization that claims to put an emphasis on leadership, we really don't. By never studying the elements of human behavior, and only concentrating on the processes in place to work toward mission accomplishment, we have removed the priority of leading emotive, thoughtful human beings and replaced it with the supremacy of mission accomplishment. Add to that the constant movement of people in and out of organizations and the never-ending shuffling of personnel to meet mission requirements, and it becomes very difficult to isolate a toxic leader long enough to prevent the spread of the disease.
What the article doesn't consider however, is the fact that toxic leaders don't know, nor do they think they are toxic. If you look at the 3 key elements outlined above, and then read 'Black Hearts' with regard to my platoon's interpretation of my actions, you could easily come to think that I have (or at least had) a toxic leadership style. Interesting. The label of toxic leader is clearly placed on the battalion commander throughout the book. Most people who know me, or have worked for or with me, would not consider me a toxic leader. No do I consider myself one. I generally do not like folks with toxic personalities, and have worked to develop a leadership style almost in defiance of that model. In fact, most would probably identify me as a team player and a person who tries to lead by brains and persuasion rather than by force. Generally, I'm considered a nice guy and pretty easy to get along with. But still, using the components above, and taken in the context of my Soldier's perceptions of me in the book, I fit at least 2 of the 3 categories above.
This implies that leadership is only truly successful as seen through the eyes of the led. This was also true in 1st platoon. The original platoon sergeant in the story essentially quit when he became aware that he was going to be replaced, but the Soldiers remained extremely loyal to him and continued to think highly of him even after he had left them behind. They believed that he was a good leader and someone who was always looking out for them, even when that was not the case. I did not enjoy that confidence with them. I was always cognizant of that fact, but did not really consider the effect it was having on them. Without a mechanism to provide the leader some form of feedback on how they are perceived by their subordinates, there is no way to know - in 'real time' - whether or not one is being viewed positively or negatively by the organization. It is the rarest of people who have that sort of self-awareness, and sense of self that can recognize - in the moment - their effect on the unit.
Another cause of toxic leadership may be the character of the Army itself. Army leaders are expected to be type A, self-reliant, self-confident people. We try to raise them that way. There is little recognition, or respect for, the type B, more laid back personality. We want 'meat eaters', not 'flower pickers'. 'Meat eaters' develop somewhat idiosyncratic personalities that become critical elements of their leadership style. In essence they become a character. A larger-than-life personality that provides the emotional essence of the unit. General Patton was a 'meat eater'. So weren't General Andrew Jackson, and General Norm Schwartzkopf. They carried with them the aura of knowing exactly what needed to be done, and the force of will to carry it through. In 'Black Hearts', Tony Uribe carried that kind of personality aura. These type of men are the role models we continue to use to build our leaders today. Even Generals Eisenhower, Marshall, or Powell, although arguably more important to the success of the Army at their particular point in time, don't carry the same emotional power of the 'meat eater' generals throughout our history. Ask a hundred Soldiers which of our great leaders they would most want to emulate, and I don't think General Washington will be number one on the list.
And so we struggle today to find leaders whose Soldiers can identify with them and who can balance an understanding of the people in the organization with the requirements of mission accomplishment.
I watched some of that happen this week. As I get ready to assume a new set of responsibilities next week, I had the opportunity to speak with the cadre of the unit I will run. In light of what has happened to me over the past 4 years, I sat down the day before and wrote out some notes - my leadership philosophy, that I felt they should know. This seemed important to me because there will be a marked difference in leadership styles between me and the person I'm replacing. Not that I will be any better or any worse, but that the way we do our business will be different. I felt that the Soldiers should hear directly from me what I consider to be important, and why. They should also know how I perceive my responsibilities and theirs. The following are my notes:
1. People are more important than things.
2. "How" to think is more important than "what" to think.
3. We are accountable to/for ourselves, our peers, the organization, and most importantly, the students.
4. Our professionalism is a measure of respect for the student, the organization and the institution.
5. Dialogue beats discussion - Trust me, there will be a lot of it.
6. I will earn your trust. By virtue of experience, understanding and knowledge of your responsibilities , you already have mine. Don't abuse it.
7. Initiative, creativity and independence are good traits. Understand their limits and be prepared to accept accountability.
8. Understand Task / Purpose / Intent. View things by expected outcomes or observable behaviors.
9. If I do not provide a clear intent, you have a right and an obligation to ask for one.
10. I work for you. What does that mean?
As we worked through each of these thoughts, you could see that all of them were trying to figure out what I was saying and a method to compare / contrast this new understanding of the environment with the one they had gotten used to under their previous leader. You could tell that some of what I talked about made them happy, and some of it made them uncomfortable. Some parts they heard fit their idea of a 'good' leader and some parts made them wonder.
As I write this, and put forth the idea that almost everything in the realm of leader development is a bottom-up process, I keep feeling a little tug at the back of my brain that says that is not how it goes. The bottom doesn't get a vote. The top sets the tone and tenor and then enforces the standard until it is achieved. That if you let the bottom dictate the terms of the discussion then the unit will never get anywhere. Interestingly, that notion was also addressed in the 'Toxic Leadership' article.
"Many in the study group were concerned how a multi-rater 360 degree evaluation program would be implemented. Some were concerned about leaders pandering to subordinates or leaders not being forceful or demanding. Others felt that Soldiers are fully capable of distinguishing between the leader who sets and enforces high standards from the abusive and petty toxic leader: "Soldiers want competent leaders. You want somebody who can take charge and get the job done even if he is a little rough sometimes. You are going to favor that guy over somebody who wants to hold your hand and pat you on the back all the time. Troops know the difference."
So now we go to the opposite end of the spectrum. In order for the unit to succeed, the leader must create an environment that is positively viewed through the subordinates eyes. But, pandering to the subordinate will not lead to that outcome. In fact, pandering and not establishing high standards of behavior will lead to exactly the opposite. The unit will fail because the leader wasn't demanding enough.
Which leads me back once again to OODA loops as a method of viewing personal behavior, and the 6 viewpoints that I outlined last week.
I know that I am not as much an authoritarian and disciplinarian as the unit's previous leader. I also know that that does not mean that I have lower standards of expected behavior, but that they will be enforced differently than he did it. They do not know that. I know that my methods work - over time - to develop individual leader skills for my subordinates because that has happened in other units in the past. I know that the subordinates do not entirely trust me right now and are feeling me out to see if the manner in which I operate is some form of a trick. They are not used to being taken entirely seriously, and treated as equal players at the table. Although I wish I could remove that concern immediately, I know I cannot. I know that any decisions I make as the leader will have at least 3 different interpretations: What I decided and the reason I provided, their interpretation of the validity of the reason, and by extension my reasoning process, and their personal inclusion or exclusion from the decision making process.
In many ways, the paragraph above is exactly why autocratic, authoritarian and often toxic leaders continue to exist in the Army and in industry. They make life simple. The mental math outlined above is the really hard work of human being leadership, and not too many people want to do that. It's a lot easier sometimes to just be an asshole!
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#51 The Times They are a Changin'
Last night as I was looking over my small source library, the book "Follow Me 1" by MG Aubrey 'Red' Newman, originally written in 1981 and updated in 1997 got my attention. This morning I started to thumb through it to see what caught my eye. The book's subtitle is "The Human Element in Leadership", which seems to follow nicely the general theme of most of my writing.
As I was flipping through, I came across the following passage:
"In Walter Reed hospital near the end of his life, Lieutenant General Huebner said in substance, 'People are important, things are not - and nothing is more important than the respect of one man for another.' So now we have this amplified relation: discipline must be imposed, but loyalty must be earned - yet the highest form of discipline exists only when there is mutual loyalty up and down."
This has been a very surprising and busy week. First, beginning next Monday I will have a new set of responsibilities. I will continue to serve as the Division's senior marksmanship instructor, but will also become responsible for the Division's training program for those individuals who are preparing to deploy. Most of the requirements are mandated from the Army, so it's more like managing the throughput of people, but I'm sure that there will be areas where the methods and thoughts I have developed might be able to have an impact. It's a matter of 'Orientation', and being able to get others to 'Orient' in a similar manner. More importantly, for the first time since returning from Iraq, I will again have troops subordinate to me for whom I am responsible. The time has come to re-enter the arena in a small way and lead Soldiers in the execution of a mission. For many this would be just another normal progressive event. However, after 3 years away and with the thoughts and ideas formed in the aftermath of my experience in Iraq, I don't take this change lightly. As I said once before, sitting here writing a blog or offering my opinion on something I read is one thing, but at some point it has to be put into action. Otherwise it is all just academic, armchair quarterbacking. I am reminded of an oft-quoted phrase, "Those who can't do, teach." It's time to see if 'doing' or 'teaching' is the way ahead for me. There is merit and need for both. I may have come to the fork in the road. I have been leading myself for the last 3 years and, of course, I like the results I get. I wonder if that particular leadership style and approach can be transferred to others....We'll see.
Second, this blog and a parallel one that I run on the Army's webpage blew up in a totally unexpected manner. Over the last month or so, I have increasingly participated in forum discussions and information exchanges within AKO (Army Knowledge Online). That introduced me to a person who then read this blog. She shared the link with some other people in her office and by the end of the week, it had been forwarded to some other high ranking folks who also expressed an interest. Throughout the week, I had some phone calls and exchanges with people who are interested in my thoughts and experiences, specifically with regard to Iraq and the aftermath, and the journey of leadership discovery I've started here. I want the thank G.E. and J.D for seeing something here that they deem worth reading. I am honored to be a small player in their process. It is also nice to know that the audience is growing.
Third, there was a 'bloggers' roundtable discussion this week between LTG Mark Hertling and the media regarding Initial Military Training (IME). The conversation itself centered on changes being made to IME in light of the needs of our current Army, a realization that physical fitness in recruits has declined and that it will take longer to develop them without injuring them, that we need to update our values and ethics training, and finally, that there are unique characteristics of the Millennial generation that the Army must address. In general, a lot of what I have been writing and commenting on since I started this. The important part though was how I found it. It was posted to the TRADOC group on Facebook! Wait, a 3 star general holding an information conference with bloggers and it was posted to a social media site? Wow! The times they really are 'a changin'.
The purpose of the OODA process is to shorten the decision - time cycle by learning to recognize yourself, your adversary, and the environment as quickly and clearly as possible to take advantage of opportunities when they arise. I suddenly find myself squarely inside my own OODA loop. Unfolding circumstances are happening in 'real time' and my mental and environmental 'comfort zones' are changing. It will be good to challenge my ideas and assumptions. Otherwise, I might begin to believe my own bullshit.
Trust and respect. These 2 ideas are intimately tied to each other. It is impossible to gain trust without first earning respect. Conversely, their can be no respect without an attendant element of trust. Discipline, both individual and group is the framework for building both. How discipline is exercised, imposed or displayed will have an marked effect on the measure of trust and respect reciprocated between the leader and the led.
Let me try 3 series of free-flowing thoughts and see if I can tie some of this together:
People are more important than things....people are the singular most important part of the Army....any organization requires a common value system and ethic to function....respect for both the person and the institution engenders trust....trust and respect are demonstrated through individual discipline and acceptance of group norms....
OODA can be applied to human leadership....senior leaders are recognizing the changing conditions (both human and environmental) and are trying to shorten the 'decision - time' cycle....
I will have the opportunity to put some of these thoughts into practice again....I am no longer so arrogantly self-confident that I can guarantee a particular outcome.... Iraq changed that. The outcome is not a forgone conclusion. In fact, there are as many possible outcomes as their are people involved. The important part is to be able to OODA that in 'real time'. The six views of every situation will be critical to remember. Now, the best that I can do is to remain firmly centered in my personal value system, recognize that others view our shared world differently than I do, clearly and plainly state the Task, Purpose and Intent, and demonstrate the respect for the talents and ideas of others that will engender trust. All because people are more important than things.
.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
As I was flipping through, I came across the following passage:
"In Walter Reed hospital near the end of his life, Lieutenant General Huebner said in substance, 'People are important, things are not - and nothing is more important than the respect of one man for another.' So now we have this amplified relation: discipline must be imposed, but loyalty must be earned - yet the highest form of discipline exists only when there is mutual loyalty up and down."
This has been a very surprising and busy week. First, beginning next Monday I will have a new set of responsibilities. I will continue to serve as the Division's senior marksmanship instructor, but will also become responsible for the Division's training program for those individuals who are preparing to deploy. Most of the requirements are mandated from the Army, so it's more like managing the throughput of people, but I'm sure that there will be areas where the methods and thoughts I have developed might be able to have an impact. It's a matter of 'Orientation', and being able to get others to 'Orient' in a similar manner. More importantly, for the first time since returning from Iraq, I will again have troops subordinate to me for whom I am responsible. The time has come to re-enter the arena in a small way and lead Soldiers in the execution of a mission. For many this would be just another normal progressive event. However, after 3 years away and with the thoughts and ideas formed in the aftermath of my experience in Iraq, I don't take this change lightly. As I said once before, sitting here writing a blog or offering my opinion on something I read is one thing, but at some point it has to be put into action. Otherwise it is all just academic, armchair quarterbacking. I am reminded of an oft-quoted phrase, "Those who can't do, teach." It's time to see if 'doing' or 'teaching' is the way ahead for me. There is merit and need for both. I may have come to the fork in the road. I have been leading myself for the last 3 years and, of course, I like the results I get. I wonder if that particular leadership style and approach can be transferred to others....We'll see.
Second, this blog and a parallel one that I run on the Army's webpage blew up in a totally unexpected manner. Over the last month or so, I have increasingly participated in forum discussions and information exchanges within AKO (Army Knowledge Online). That introduced me to a person who then read this blog. She shared the link with some other people in her office and by the end of the week, it had been forwarded to some other high ranking folks who also expressed an interest. Throughout the week, I had some phone calls and exchanges with people who are interested in my thoughts and experiences, specifically with regard to Iraq and the aftermath, and the journey of leadership discovery I've started here. I want the thank G.E. and J.D for seeing something here that they deem worth reading. I am honored to be a small player in their process. It is also nice to know that the audience is growing.
Third, there was a 'bloggers' roundtable discussion this week between LTG Mark Hertling and the media regarding Initial Military Training (IME). The conversation itself centered on changes being made to IME in light of the needs of our current Army, a realization that physical fitness in recruits has declined and that it will take longer to develop them without injuring them, that we need to update our values and ethics training, and finally, that there are unique characteristics of the Millennial generation that the Army must address. In general, a lot of what I have been writing and commenting on since I started this. The important part though was how I found it. It was posted to the TRADOC group on Facebook! Wait, a 3 star general holding an information conference with bloggers and it was posted to a social media site? Wow! The times they really are 'a changin'.
The purpose of the OODA process is to shorten the decision - time cycle by learning to recognize yourself, your adversary, and the environment as quickly and clearly as possible to take advantage of opportunities when they arise. I suddenly find myself squarely inside my own OODA loop. Unfolding circumstances are happening in 'real time' and my mental and environmental 'comfort zones' are changing. It will be good to challenge my ideas and assumptions. Otherwise, I might begin to believe my own bullshit.
Trust and respect. These 2 ideas are intimately tied to each other. It is impossible to gain trust without first earning respect. Conversely, their can be no respect without an attendant element of trust. Discipline, both individual and group is the framework for building both. How discipline is exercised, imposed or displayed will have an marked effect on the measure of trust and respect reciprocated between the leader and the led.
Let me try 3 series of free-flowing thoughts and see if I can tie some of this together:
People are more important than things....people are the singular most important part of the Army....any organization requires a common value system and ethic to function....respect for both the person and the institution engenders trust....trust and respect are demonstrated through individual discipline and acceptance of group norms....
OODA can be applied to human leadership....senior leaders are recognizing the changing conditions (both human and environmental) and are trying to shorten the 'decision - time' cycle....
I will have the opportunity to put some of these thoughts into practice again....I am no longer so arrogantly self-confident that I can guarantee a particular outcome.... Iraq changed that. The outcome is not a forgone conclusion. In fact, there are as many possible outcomes as their are people involved. The important part is to be able to OODA that in 'real time'. The six views of every situation will be critical to remember. Now, the best that I can do is to remain firmly centered in my personal value system, recognize that others view our shared world differently than I do, clearly and plainly state the Task, Purpose and Intent, and demonstrate the respect for the talents and ideas of others that will engender trust. All because people are more important than things.
.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#50 Finding My Voice
"No matter how fine it's weapons, no matter how accurate it's intelligence, in the final analysis, the Army is dependant on the quality of it's men" - General Matthew Ridgway
I started this enterprise about 9 months ago to provide me a place to think . The events of the last 4 years have caused me to reconsider many of the ideas that prior to that point, I had taken for granted. My professional life had moved along nicely and given me no reason to think otherwise. I had been promoted and awarded and was generally considered 'one of the good guys'. Iraq - and it's aftermath of investigations, courts martial, the Green trial, and finally "Black Hearts" brought much of what I knew (or thought I knew) about leadership into question and the blog provides me a place to work through some of the lingering issues.
It has become a journey in it's own right. Once I started looking below the surface I realized that the study of human being leadership is incredibly complex and nuanced. You cannot apply cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all solutions to it. And that is where the journey really began. Now, 50 posts later, I have come to a different understanding not only of leadership as an idea or theory, but I have also begun to realize how critical the complexities and nuances are - especially when it has to be exercised in extreme situations.
Originally, this journey was somewhat haphazard. Each week something would strike me and I'd try to follow that thread to some cosmic level, or conversely, take a cosmic idea and make it fit into my understanding. That's kind of the first 20 posts or so. OODA, marksmanship, women in combat, the ideas of senior Army leaders etc. No real theme, just general scattered thoughts and opinions that seemed somehow related to my search for awareness and understanding.
In the last month or so however, and I think importantly, with the addition of the Values Series , things are beginning to gain a rough outline and form. The idea now is to summarize some of the various ideas and bring them together. I am finding out that in leadership it is often the strings that attach larger ideas that are the most important part.
In any organization, values and ethics play an incredibly complex and ever-changing role. These are both the individual values of the people who are part of the organization, and the stated norms of behavior for the institution itself. The institution usually has some codified set of underpinning ethos that guides it. In business it might be profit margin, in a non-profit it may be the ability to assist the less-fortunate, for a preservationist group it may be protection of natural resources etc. For the military, there is something called the PME, the Professional Military Ethic. PME is the set of guiding principles that form the acceptable norms of behavior for the Army. Mission accomplishment, dedication to the service itself, self-sacrifice etc.
However, the institutional ethic must be challenged and relooked every now and again to see whether it remains relevant to those who comprise it. The Army is beginning to study that again after 8 years of war, because it's last review was most likely done in peacetime and under different operating conditions. The values of the individuals who comprise the institution become very very important to defining the institution itself. For example, if a businesses ethos is driven by profit margin, then those who work there will prize one set of personal values over another. If making a profit it the key, then how I do it may not be all that important. An extreme example of that idea could be eco-terrorism where the 'preservationist' ethic believes that spiking trees and injuring loggers is fair play to preserve the natural environment. Therefore, while the institutional ethic of preservation may be something that I espouse, the value system of the people that leads to methods such as tree spiking might be something that I cannot. You cannot have an successful institutional ethos, without having a complimentary common personal value system.
So, leadership must start with the inculcation of individual values. It is pointless to argue what a generation should or should not have internalized for values when they arrive at your door. They will come as they are. After all, it was the previous generation of leaders and the environment that created the current generation of followers. For example, many people in the Army are complaining (as they always have) about this generation of Soldiers. They're fat, they're lazy, they break too easily, they don't have any backbone etc. What's overlooked in that statement is that we made them. The reason many of them are fat and lazy and don't know how to live in the outside world, is that we didn't, or couldn't, provide that to them. Many many Soldiers come from single parent homes that are the result of the explosion in the divorce rate in the 80's, and from less than ideal backgrounds. So, if I'm a single or divorced parent working 40 or more hours a week just to provide the basic provisions for my family, then my children come home from school and lock themselves in the house and do their chores and then plop themselves in front of the computer or television until I get home. Then we eat dinner and the responsibilities of household maintenance eat up another hour or 2 until we collapse exhausted and start the cycle all over again the next day. The collapse of the previous family model - a primary breadwinner and a primary parent who ferried children to school and clubs and sporting events etc has had an effect on the development of young people. No one's fault. And not necessarily all bad. For example, while the divorce rate in America may be high, most divorced parents do try very hard to provide stability and care for their children. There is a lesson there - namely that even though I might not like my ex anymore, I still have professional obligations to interact with them as equitably as possible. So, in exchange for fat and lazy, we may have gotten flexibility and the idea of fair interaction.
Values are key. Recognizing how they are being formed in real time, not as we were raised, or as we might wish them to be is the next understanding. There are 6 separate but equal parts to leading people and accomplishing any mission or task.
1. How the leader sees the problem.
2. How the follower sees the problem.
3. How the leader sees the follower.
4. How the follower sees the leader.
5. How the leader sees the environment.
6. How the follower sees the environment.
HOW ALL OF THOSE INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER
OODA provides a mechanism to do that. While COL Boyd saw the OODA cycle in operational and strategic terms, I believe that it can also be applied to human leadership in this manner:
1. I must know me and understand my 'Orientation'. (Why I think, act, and operate like I do.)
2. I must gain an understanding of my leaders and followers and try to gain an understanding of their 'Orientations'. (Why those above and below me think, act, and operate like they do.)
3. Both leader and follower must have a common 'Orientation' towards the operating environment. (What's the problem and what solutions are available to solve it?)
The Army spends very little time requiring leaders to study self-awareness. Instead of focusing on those skills, abilities and attributes that make each leader unique, they spend too much time focusing on the processes that try to make each leader the same. Only after tragedy or triumph do we spend any time looking at the human beings who participated in either event. "Black Hearts" is instructive in that manner. Had those events never happened, then no one would have called into question the 'leadership' abilities of any of the participants. In fact, had they never happened, many of the maligned leaders would have been viewed entirely differently by the institution. The same can be true for many heroic' leaders. Had some decision they made turned out differently, then their actions may not have been viewed so heroically. If Audie Murphy gets killed, instead of holding off a furious attack, then we wouldn't have a legend, we'd have just another dead Soldier. If you read "Black Hearts" on a larger level, what you will see is that many of the characters did not have a well formed 'self-awareness' mechanism and that their individualized 'Orientation' of their environment was not shared by others. There were individual moral value failures, coupled with a confusing institutional ethic that was missed by most people due to a lack of ability to accurately and quickly OODA their environment from more than one viewpoint. If you look at the alleged 'leadership' deficiencies, what you will find is that most of them were most likely in the interaction and inter-relationship of the 6 parts outlined above.
Another key part of leader and organizational development is a healthy 'loyal opposition' component. Without a mechanism for critical debate and opposing viewpoints almost every organization will, over time, degenerate. The posts about GM and the collapse of the automobile industry were an attempt to point that out. Senior leaders in the Army seem to also recognize this, but the vast middle isn't there yet. 'Loyal opposition' is also important to relevancy. Jut as industry always has a future concept and design component, so too should any organization where the principle component is people. Without the dialogue to challenge existing ideas and behaviors, the corporate ethos becomes too dogmatic instead of being continually dynamic.
Which all comes back to this. The Army Future Force Concept plan recognizes and calls for a more decentralized focus and operations in the years ahead. The document is the framework for everything we do from the schoolhouse, to acquisition, to training, to operating, so it is critically important. It defines how the Army will spend it's resources - both human and material for a decade or more.
Decentralization requires trust. Trust requires a common understanding of the problem and accepts that there may be a variety of solutions. Trust recognizes that a solution may not work or have the intended outcome. The solution chosen will be based largely on the value system of the individual and their understanding of the ethical framework of the institution. The Institution is made of people who come from a particular time, place and environment - therefore their personal value systems are subject to change and be different than their superiors and subordinates. Recognizing that different generations can have different values and different views on how to solve a problem is key. Providing the opportunity for that interaction to occur is critical to operational success and relevancy. Tying all of that together in a commonly understood PME is the hard job of leadership.
The first 50 have been fun. I'm looking forward to the next. As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
I started this enterprise about 9 months ago to provide me a place to think . The events of the last 4 years have caused me to reconsider many of the ideas that prior to that point, I had taken for granted. My professional life had moved along nicely and given me no reason to think otherwise. I had been promoted and awarded and was generally considered 'one of the good guys'. Iraq - and it's aftermath of investigations, courts martial, the Green trial, and finally "Black Hearts" brought much of what I knew (or thought I knew) about leadership into question and the blog provides me a place to work through some of the lingering issues.
It has become a journey in it's own right. Once I started looking below the surface I realized that the study of human being leadership is incredibly complex and nuanced. You cannot apply cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all solutions to it. And that is where the journey really began. Now, 50 posts later, I have come to a different understanding not only of leadership as an idea or theory, but I have also begun to realize how critical the complexities and nuances are - especially when it has to be exercised in extreme situations.
Originally, this journey was somewhat haphazard. Each week something would strike me and I'd try to follow that thread to some cosmic level, or conversely, take a cosmic idea and make it fit into my understanding. That's kind of the first 20 posts or so. OODA, marksmanship, women in combat, the ideas of senior Army leaders etc. No real theme, just general scattered thoughts and opinions that seemed somehow related to my search for awareness and understanding.
In the last month or so however, and I think importantly, with the addition of the Values Series , things are beginning to gain a rough outline and form. The idea now is to summarize some of the various ideas and bring them together. I am finding out that in leadership it is often the strings that attach larger ideas that are the most important part.
In any organization, values and ethics play an incredibly complex and ever-changing role. These are both the individual values of the people who are part of the organization, and the stated norms of behavior for the institution itself. The institution usually has some codified set of underpinning ethos that guides it. In business it might be profit margin, in a non-profit it may be the ability to assist the less-fortunate, for a preservationist group it may be protection of natural resources etc. For the military, there is something called the PME, the Professional Military Ethic. PME is the set of guiding principles that form the acceptable norms of behavior for the Army. Mission accomplishment, dedication to the service itself, self-sacrifice etc.
However, the institutional ethic must be challenged and relooked every now and again to see whether it remains relevant to those who comprise it. The Army is beginning to study that again after 8 years of war, because it's last review was most likely done in peacetime and under different operating conditions. The values of the individuals who comprise the institution become very very important to defining the institution itself. For example, if a businesses ethos is driven by profit margin, then those who work there will prize one set of personal values over another. If making a profit it the key, then how I do it may not be all that important. An extreme example of that idea could be eco-terrorism where the 'preservationist' ethic believes that spiking trees and injuring loggers is fair play to preserve the natural environment. Therefore, while the institutional ethic of preservation may be something that I espouse, the value system of the people that leads to methods such as tree spiking might be something that I cannot. You cannot have an successful institutional ethos, without having a complimentary common personal value system.
So, leadership must start with the inculcation of individual values. It is pointless to argue what a generation should or should not have internalized for values when they arrive at your door. They will come as they are. After all, it was the previous generation of leaders and the environment that created the current generation of followers. For example, many people in the Army are complaining (as they always have) about this generation of Soldiers. They're fat, they're lazy, they break too easily, they don't have any backbone etc. What's overlooked in that statement is that we made them. The reason many of them are fat and lazy and don't know how to live in the outside world, is that we didn't, or couldn't, provide that to them. Many many Soldiers come from single parent homes that are the result of the explosion in the divorce rate in the 80's, and from less than ideal backgrounds. So, if I'm a single or divorced parent working 40 or more hours a week just to provide the basic provisions for my family, then my children come home from school and lock themselves in the house and do their chores and then plop themselves in front of the computer or television until I get home. Then we eat dinner and the responsibilities of household maintenance eat up another hour or 2 until we collapse exhausted and start the cycle all over again the next day. The collapse of the previous family model - a primary breadwinner and a primary parent who ferried children to school and clubs and sporting events etc has had an effect on the development of young people. No one's fault. And not necessarily all bad. For example, while the divorce rate in America may be high, most divorced parents do try very hard to provide stability and care for their children. There is a lesson there - namely that even though I might not like my ex anymore, I still have professional obligations to interact with them as equitably as possible. So, in exchange for fat and lazy, we may have gotten flexibility and the idea of fair interaction.
Values are key. Recognizing how they are being formed in real time, not as we were raised, or as we might wish them to be is the next understanding. There are 6 separate but equal parts to leading people and accomplishing any mission or task.
1. How the leader sees the problem.
2. How the follower sees the problem.
3. How the leader sees the follower.
4. How the follower sees the leader.
5. How the leader sees the environment.
6. How the follower sees the environment.
HOW ALL OF THOSE INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER
OODA provides a mechanism to do that. While COL Boyd saw the OODA cycle in operational and strategic terms, I believe that it can also be applied to human leadership in this manner:
1. I must know me and understand my 'Orientation'. (Why I think, act, and operate like I do.)
2. I must gain an understanding of my leaders and followers and try to gain an understanding of their 'Orientations'. (Why those above and below me think, act, and operate like they do.)
3. Both leader and follower must have a common 'Orientation' towards the operating environment. (What's the problem and what solutions are available to solve it?)
The Army spends very little time requiring leaders to study self-awareness. Instead of focusing on those skills, abilities and attributes that make each leader unique, they spend too much time focusing on the processes that try to make each leader the same. Only after tragedy or triumph do we spend any time looking at the human beings who participated in either event. "Black Hearts" is instructive in that manner. Had those events never happened, then no one would have called into question the 'leadership' abilities of any of the participants. In fact, had they never happened, many of the maligned leaders would have been viewed entirely differently by the institution. The same can be true for many heroic' leaders. Had some decision they made turned out differently, then their actions may not have been viewed so heroically. If Audie Murphy gets killed, instead of holding off a furious attack, then we wouldn't have a legend, we'd have just another dead Soldier. If you read "Black Hearts" on a larger level, what you will see is that many of the characters did not have a well formed 'self-awareness' mechanism and that their individualized 'Orientation' of their environment was not shared by others. There were individual moral value failures, coupled with a confusing institutional ethic that was missed by most people due to a lack of ability to accurately and quickly OODA their environment from more than one viewpoint. If you look at the alleged 'leadership' deficiencies, what you will find is that most of them were most likely in the interaction and inter-relationship of the 6 parts outlined above.
Another key part of leader and organizational development is a healthy 'loyal opposition' component. Without a mechanism for critical debate and opposing viewpoints almost every organization will, over time, degenerate. The posts about GM and the collapse of the automobile industry were an attempt to point that out. Senior leaders in the Army seem to also recognize this, but the vast middle isn't there yet. 'Loyal opposition' is also important to relevancy. Jut as industry always has a future concept and design component, so too should any organization where the principle component is people. Without the dialogue to challenge existing ideas and behaviors, the corporate ethos becomes too dogmatic instead of being continually dynamic.
Which all comes back to this. The Army Future Force Concept plan recognizes and calls for a more decentralized focus and operations in the years ahead. The document is the framework for everything we do from the schoolhouse, to acquisition, to training, to operating, so it is critically important. It defines how the Army will spend it's resources - both human and material for a decade or more.
Decentralization requires trust. Trust requires a common understanding of the problem and accepts that there may be a variety of solutions. Trust recognizes that a solution may not work or have the intended outcome. The solution chosen will be based largely on the value system of the individual and their understanding of the ethical framework of the institution. The Institution is made of people who come from a particular time, place and environment - therefore their personal value systems are subject to change and be different than their superiors and subordinates. Recognizing that different generations can have different values and different views on how to solve a problem is key. Providing the opportunity for that interaction to occur is critical to operational success and relevancy. Tying all of that together in a commonly understood PME is the hard job of leadership.
The first 50 have been fun. I'm looking forward to the next. As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#49 Integrity
"Do what's right - legally and morally." FM 6-22
"No nation can safely trust its martial honor to leaders who do not maintain the universal code which distinguishes between those things that are right and those things that are wrong." - General Douglas MacArthur
Given the events of the past few weeks, this post may be one of the more difficult I have written. Since much of my recent writing is colored by the events outlined in "Black Hearts", and there has been a lot of back and forth on the BH Facebook group site regarding responsibility and accountability, it is still difficult for me to put things in a generic, or universal perspective. Forgive me if I am not completely able to maintain complete neutrality.
Values are malleable. Whether we like it or not, each of us has added or subtracted from our personal value system throughout our lives. Most personal value interpretations change over time and circumstance. Generally, this happens slowly as societal value norms shift. Those things that were 'sacred' beliefs for previous generations may not be so 'sacred' anymore. Either they have been overcome by events, or they did not stand the test of human decency in the first place. Ideas like racism and sexism come to mind. A current example may be the idea of openly allowing homosexuals to serve in the military. This is a critical recognition that I have mentioned before in the blog. There are periods when society begins to shift it's perception of the national value system. While the generation that comprises the senior leadership may find the idea of open homosexuality in the ranks difficult to understand, it may be that the younger generation of Soldiers and leaders find this to be a non-issue. The value system - not to be confused with individual moral beliefs - is constantly evolving.
FM 6-22 "Leadership" begins the section on Integrity like this:
"Leaders of integrity consistently act according to clear principle, not just what works now."
It is always easy to take the 'right now' road and make our lives easier. Having integrity requires that we consider whether or not that 'right now' road is legally or morally correct and then discarding it as an option if it is not. In light of the "Black Hearts" saga, it should be recognized that many of the other Army values can and did exist in 1st platoon. The platoon was intensely loyal to certain people. They believed that because they were in that place and that time facing those circumstances that they had an absolute right to conduct business in the manner that they saw fit. Importantly, when things went wrong or did not have the intended outcome, then reinterpretations and shadings began to take place. They created an internal value code that superseded the national and Army value system. This happened out of a misplaced sense of loyalty. It is difficult to completely blame junior soldiers for believing that their friends and platoon-mates were they only ones who they learned to trust and believe in. The same can be said for duty. They believed that killing Iraqis was the method of reducing the threat and eradicating the insurgent threat in our area of operations. Their duty was to kill or capture insurgents. That is what they had trained for and was the modus operandi for most operations. That created a behavioral dynamic that placed a premium on threat reduction and violence. Obviously, at a critical moment, the small-unit values subsumed the Army value system with catastrophic results.
The value of integrity in many ways supersedes all of the other values because it is integrity that overcomes small unit loyalty and equals the 'higher' duty to the national and Army values over a small unit's demand for loyalty. It is integrity that allows individuals to stand alone and do what is correct within the recognized American value system. This was done by many people throughout that time as well.
At the end of the day, individuals who wish to lead people, in either business or the military, need to spend time looking at their integrity. When all else fails, at the human being level, it may be all we have.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
"No nation can safely trust its martial honor to leaders who do not maintain the universal code which distinguishes between those things that are right and those things that are wrong." - General Douglas MacArthur
Given the events of the past few weeks, this post may be one of the more difficult I have written. Since much of my recent writing is colored by the events outlined in "Black Hearts", and there has been a lot of back and forth on the BH Facebook group site regarding responsibility and accountability, it is still difficult for me to put things in a generic, or universal perspective. Forgive me if I am not completely able to maintain complete neutrality.
Values are malleable. Whether we like it or not, each of us has added or subtracted from our personal value system throughout our lives. Most personal value interpretations change over time and circumstance. Generally, this happens slowly as societal value norms shift. Those things that were 'sacred' beliefs for previous generations may not be so 'sacred' anymore. Either they have been overcome by events, or they did not stand the test of human decency in the first place. Ideas like racism and sexism come to mind. A current example may be the idea of openly allowing homosexuals to serve in the military. This is a critical recognition that I have mentioned before in the blog. There are periods when society begins to shift it's perception of the national value system. While the generation that comprises the senior leadership may find the idea of open homosexuality in the ranks difficult to understand, it may be that the younger generation of Soldiers and leaders find this to be a non-issue. The value system - not to be confused with individual moral beliefs - is constantly evolving.
FM 6-22 "Leadership" begins the section on Integrity like this:
"Leaders of integrity consistently act according to clear principle, not just what works now."
It is always easy to take the 'right now' road and make our lives easier. Having integrity requires that we consider whether or not that 'right now' road is legally or morally correct and then discarding it as an option if it is not. In light of the "Black Hearts" saga, it should be recognized that many of the other Army values can and did exist in 1st platoon. The platoon was intensely loyal to certain people. They believed that because they were in that place and that time facing those circumstances that they had an absolute right to conduct business in the manner that they saw fit. Importantly, when things went wrong or did not have the intended outcome, then reinterpretations and shadings began to take place. They created an internal value code that superseded the national and Army value system. This happened out of a misplaced sense of loyalty. It is difficult to completely blame junior soldiers for believing that their friends and platoon-mates were they only ones who they learned to trust and believe in. The same can be said for duty. They believed that killing Iraqis was the method of reducing the threat and eradicating the insurgent threat in our area of operations. Their duty was to kill or capture insurgents. That is what they had trained for and was the modus operandi for most operations. That created a behavioral dynamic that placed a premium on threat reduction and violence. Obviously, at a critical moment, the small-unit values subsumed the Army value system with catastrophic results.
The value of integrity in many ways supersedes all of the other values because it is integrity that overcomes small unit loyalty and equals the 'higher' duty to the national and Army values over a small unit's demand for loyalty. It is integrity that allows individuals to stand alone and do what is correct within the recognized American value system. This was done by many people throughout that time as well.
At the end of the day, individuals who wish to lead people, in either business or the military, need to spend time looking at their integrity. When all else fails, at the human being level, it may be all we have.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#48 Thanks and Thoughts
Since I last posted, I have received 3 separate emails from people regarding the blog posts having to do with the publication of "Black Hearts". All of them were totally unexpected and were a complete surprise to me. One, as mentioned in the last post, came from a family member of one of the perpetrators. The second came from a friend of mine who was in Iraq during my time as the platoon sergeant. The final one came yesterday from a Facebook friend who I knew as a child who follows the blog.
I want to thank each of them for taking the time to write. They all expressed their wishes that I can come to some sort of resolution about this matter and in essence, 'put it behind me'. I am truly grateful for their concern and their willingness to provide me the comfort of their words.
Throughout these posts it is true that I have regularly brought up the events of that period. However, in light of these generous gifts that people have given me this weekend, I want to clarify the reasoning behind my writing. I am not writing to elicit any sympathy from any reader anywhere. No one should feel sorry for me, nor should they feel sorry for those Soldiers, our platoon or the company. We were handed a set of circumstances and we did the best we could to see our way through the situations we faced. They were hard times, yes, but war by definition is hard. We enlist to serve our nation when it needs us, not when it is convenient or easy for us to do so.
I do not, nor have I ever, felt personally responsible for the actions those 5 people took on March 12, 2006. There is nothing that anyone can present anywhere under any circumstances that justifies or even partially mitigates their behavior. Hundreds of thousands of servicemembers have rotated through Iraq over the years - many serving in dangerous areas such as we were, and suffering the loss of friends and comrades to the viciousness of war as we did - without resorting to raping and murdering non-combatant civilians.
I write this blog to express my thoughts and opinions on the current state of Army leadership. Not the people who hold the positions, but the structure, doctrine and instruction we provide current and future generations. I want my readers to think hard about what it means to be a leader and what the implications are for accepting leadership positions. While my situation may be a once-in-a-lifetime and extreme occurrence of what can happen, it is an instructive episode in values, OODA, responsibility, vision and leadership. I am only trying to share my lessons learned with others.
Two examples: First, there is a lot of talk going around the Army right now about decentralization - what it means, what it entails, what levels certain things can be delegated to. The nature of insurgencies and counterinsurgencies requires this kind of approach. We need to be able to break down into the smallest units possible and provide those leaders the ability to make decisions (some of which will undoubtedly have strategic impacts) and the freedom to make them. That was precisely the situation my platoon and our unit was in in 2006. What then are some of the things that will be required prerequisites of following this path? First, a common value system that each person understands and has internalized. A baseline understanding of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. That is why I started the Values series of the blog. An understanding and appreciation of just how critically important the Army and National values are to decentralized military operations cannot be understated. Second, the development of judgment skills. The ability to look at a situation from multiple viewpoints and see the 2nd and 3rd order effects of each. Even more critical is the acceptance that there can be more than one way to look at an issue or problem. OODA is a method of doing this, and is outlined in Army manuals. The problem is that those manuals rarely make it down to the junior leader level. From my point of view, if we are going to pursue decentralization, then we must make values and OODA the bookends of the education platform for all junior leaders. Third, trust. Without trust nothing else is remotely possible. If senior leaders do not trust the values and judgements of junior leaders, then we will fail. A lack of trust in junior leader skills and abilities will lead to more investigations and recriminations. Like it or not, we are in a fight which demands thinking, adaptive junior leaders. Therefore, we must provide them the tools we can and then trust them to follow through. Conversely, senior leaders have a right to trust that junior leaders have internalized the values of the Army and understand the complexities of insurgent warfare. The end effect of pursuing this would inevitably be a 'flattening' of the organization. Someday, somewhere, a young leader is going to get on radio and make a call to a senior leader and recommend a particular course of action. Whether that action is successful or not, the senior leader is going to have to trust that the junior has an appreciation and understanding of his/her situation that demands whatever resource he/she is asking for. Second guessing and armchair quarterbacking will not engender this trust. I spoke about this a few weeks back when discussing the incident at COP Wanat in Afghanistan.
A second example can be found in the word 'accountability'. The author of "Black Hearts" has an article on the Time magazine website right now entitled, "The Threat From Within - Stopping Soldiers from becoming Murderers":
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1963818,00.html
pushing the idea of greater 'accountability' by senior leaders. Sounds good. Let's make someone accountable for everything. He states in the article that there is a military maxim that says that "A leader is responsible for everything their unit does or fails to do." There has to be someone to account for the outcome. Good or bad. The downside of accountability is blame. What he is asking for is someone higher up the chain of command who can be blamed when something goes wrong. When I asked in an earlier post whether or not I am responsible for the death of that family because I sent those Soldiers to that particular place, I was not looking for absolution. I was asking, where does accountability end? Working backwards from the crime, I would be accountable for sending them there. The squad leaders who volunteered their names to me would be accountable for volunteering their names. The company commander would be accountable for picking my platoon for that mission at that time. The battalion commander would be accountable for sending out that company to that particular region. The brigade commander would be accountable for sending one battalion over another. And on and on. And it can be done the other way as well. Should we hold accountable the recruiter who enlisted Steven Green? How about the teachers, family, and friends who thought the Army might do him some good? How about his poor raising? The Army has been a great place for many other troubled youths, why not him? We don't spend a lot of time looking at this in our junior officer and enlisted classrooms. Maybe we should.
I am all for accountability for my actions and decisions. Both as they effect me personally and my platoon. I have been since the day I took over. What I want future generations to recognize are the limits of accountability. I am accountable for the decisions I made. While you may agree or disagree with them, that is a matter of opinion. I made them. Just as others above and below me made them. They may have had horrible unintended consequences, but nobody could have known that at the time they were made. Decisions are only validated or invalidated by their outcomes and results. This is why we need to develop junior leaders capable of seeing the same issue from multiple viewpoints. There could be successful outcomes from bad decisions just as easily as there can be bad outcomes from solid decisions. At least we need to recognize this and make our junior leaders recognize it too.
The notion of accountability brings with it the idea that people can see into the future and know the outcome of events before they transpire. Since they cannot, the idea that a leader is responsible for everything their subordinates do or fail to do is critically flawed because it removes the requirement of individual responsibility. By continually teaching each new generation of leaders this flawed idea, what we are really doing is creating an blame/escape-from-blame mechanism for Soldier actions. My situation demonstrates this perfectly. "Black Hearts" states on page xviii of the forward:
"March 12, 2006 was one such disaster. Nothing can absolve James Barker, Paul Cortez, Steven Green, and Jesse Spielman from the personal responsibility that is theirs, and theirs alone, for the rape of Abeer Qassim Hamzah Rashid al-Janabi, her vicious murder, and the wanton destruction of her family. It is one of the most nefarious war crimes known to be perpetrated by US Soldiers in any era-singularly heinous not just for it's savagery but also because it was so calculated, premeditated, and methodical. But leading up to that day, a litany of miscommunications, organizational snafus, lapses in leadership, and ignored warning signs up and down the chain of command all contributed to the creation of an environment where it was possible for such a crime to take place."
Blame...Espcape from blame. The author should have stopped at personal responsibility. For no amount of miscommunication or organizational failures or leadership lapses or ignored warning signs or poor raising or troubled youth mitigates, explains or minimizes the rape and murder of a 14 year old girl, her 6 year old sister and their parents. Not now. Not then. Not ever. And to even consider for a second that something could, presupposes the ability to look into an individuals heart and soul. No leader has that ability. Working in a decentralized manner, I trusted that those Soldiers had an internalization of a common value system. Sadly, they did not.
I write because it forces me to think. It forces me to test ideas. Hopefully, it does the same for others. I believe that what happened to 1st platoon is a critically instructive event. It could be used to demonstrate the incredible complexities of leading human beings during war. I have said in the past that that is exactly what the Army should be doing. While the events of that time have some unique characteristics, the truth is that they are a microcosmic demonstration of the connection between values, behaviors, trust, decentralization and mission requirements.
Finally, for those who will continue to believe that I am only trying to mitigate some personal responsibility, I offer the following thought. In this day an age, if I wanted to make this become yesterday's news, it would be too simple. 3 and 1/2 years have passed. This book will have a lifespan and then end up in your local bookstore alongside all the others. Very few people outside of those intimately involved even remember the incident. I talk about this because leading human beings is hard work. To not look at it squarely is a greater injustice to future leaders.
Once again, I want to sincerely thank those who have reached out to me. Your caring and kindness are appreciated. As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
I want to thank each of them for taking the time to write. They all expressed their wishes that I can come to some sort of resolution about this matter and in essence, 'put it behind me'. I am truly grateful for their concern and their willingness to provide me the comfort of their words.
Throughout these posts it is true that I have regularly brought up the events of that period. However, in light of these generous gifts that people have given me this weekend, I want to clarify the reasoning behind my writing. I am not writing to elicit any sympathy from any reader anywhere. No one should feel sorry for me, nor should they feel sorry for those Soldiers, our platoon or the company. We were handed a set of circumstances and we did the best we could to see our way through the situations we faced. They were hard times, yes, but war by definition is hard. We enlist to serve our nation when it needs us, not when it is convenient or easy for us to do so.
I do not, nor have I ever, felt personally responsible for the actions those 5 people took on March 12, 2006. There is nothing that anyone can present anywhere under any circumstances that justifies or even partially mitigates their behavior. Hundreds of thousands of servicemembers have rotated through Iraq over the years - many serving in dangerous areas such as we were, and suffering the loss of friends and comrades to the viciousness of war as we did - without resorting to raping and murdering non-combatant civilians.
I write this blog to express my thoughts and opinions on the current state of Army leadership. Not the people who hold the positions, but the structure, doctrine and instruction we provide current and future generations. I want my readers to think hard about what it means to be a leader and what the implications are for accepting leadership positions. While my situation may be a once-in-a-lifetime and extreme occurrence of what can happen, it is an instructive episode in values, OODA, responsibility, vision and leadership. I am only trying to share my lessons learned with others.
Two examples: First, there is a lot of talk going around the Army right now about decentralization - what it means, what it entails, what levels certain things can be delegated to. The nature of insurgencies and counterinsurgencies requires this kind of approach. We need to be able to break down into the smallest units possible and provide those leaders the ability to make decisions (some of which will undoubtedly have strategic impacts) and the freedom to make them. That was precisely the situation my platoon and our unit was in in 2006. What then are some of the things that will be required prerequisites of following this path? First, a common value system that each person understands and has internalized. A baseline understanding of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. That is why I started the Values series of the blog. An understanding and appreciation of just how critically important the Army and National values are to decentralized military operations cannot be understated. Second, the development of judgment skills. The ability to look at a situation from multiple viewpoints and see the 2nd and 3rd order effects of each. Even more critical is the acceptance that there can be more than one way to look at an issue or problem. OODA is a method of doing this, and is outlined in Army manuals. The problem is that those manuals rarely make it down to the junior leader level. From my point of view, if we are going to pursue decentralization, then we must make values and OODA the bookends of the education platform for all junior leaders. Third, trust. Without trust nothing else is remotely possible. If senior leaders do not trust the values and judgements of junior leaders, then we will fail. A lack of trust in junior leader skills and abilities will lead to more investigations and recriminations. Like it or not, we are in a fight which demands thinking, adaptive junior leaders. Therefore, we must provide them the tools we can and then trust them to follow through. Conversely, senior leaders have a right to trust that junior leaders have internalized the values of the Army and understand the complexities of insurgent warfare. The end effect of pursuing this would inevitably be a 'flattening' of the organization. Someday, somewhere, a young leader is going to get on radio and make a call to a senior leader and recommend a particular course of action. Whether that action is successful or not, the senior leader is going to have to trust that the junior has an appreciation and understanding of his/her situation that demands whatever resource he/she is asking for. Second guessing and armchair quarterbacking will not engender this trust. I spoke about this a few weeks back when discussing the incident at COP Wanat in Afghanistan.
A second example can be found in the word 'accountability'. The author of "Black Hearts" has an article on the Time magazine website right now entitled, "The Threat From Within - Stopping Soldiers from becoming Murderers":
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1963818,00.html
pushing the idea of greater 'accountability' by senior leaders. Sounds good. Let's make someone accountable for everything. He states in the article that there is a military maxim that says that "A leader is responsible for everything their unit does or fails to do." There has to be someone to account for the outcome. Good or bad. The downside of accountability is blame. What he is asking for is someone higher up the chain of command who can be blamed when something goes wrong. When I asked in an earlier post whether or not I am responsible for the death of that family because I sent those Soldiers to that particular place, I was not looking for absolution. I was asking, where does accountability end? Working backwards from the crime, I would be accountable for sending them there. The squad leaders who volunteered their names to me would be accountable for volunteering their names. The company commander would be accountable for picking my platoon for that mission at that time. The battalion commander would be accountable for sending out that company to that particular region. The brigade commander would be accountable for sending one battalion over another. And on and on. And it can be done the other way as well. Should we hold accountable the recruiter who enlisted Steven Green? How about the teachers, family, and friends who thought the Army might do him some good? How about his poor raising? The Army has been a great place for many other troubled youths, why not him? We don't spend a lot of time looking at this in our junior officer and enlisted classrooms. Maybe we should.
I am all for accountability for my actions and decisions. Both as they effect me personally and my platoon. I have been since the day I took over. What I want future generations to recognize are the limits of accountability. I am accountable for the decisions I made. While you may agree or disagree with them, that is a matter of opinion. I made them. Just as others above and below me made them. They may have had horrible unintended consequences, but nobody could have known that at the time they were made. Decisions are only validated or invalidated by their outcomes and results. This is why we need to develop junior leaders capable of seeing the same issue from multiple viewpoints. There could be successful outcomes from bad decisions just as easily as there can be bad outcomes from solid decisions. At least we need to recognize this and make our junior leaders recognize it too.
The notion of accountability brings with it the idea that people can see into the future and know the outcome of events before they transpire. Since they cannot, the idea that a leader is responsible for everything their subordinates do or fail to do is critically flawed because it removes the requirement of individual responsibility. By continually teaching each new generation of leaders this flawed idea, what we are really doing is creating an blame/escape-from-blame mechanism for Soldier actions. My situation demonstrates this perfectly. "Black Hearts" states on page xviii of the forward:
"March 12, 2006 was one such disaster. Nothing can absolve James Barker, Paul Cortez, Steven Green, and Jesse Spielman from the personal responsibility that is theirs, and theirs alone, for the rape of Abeer Qassim Hamzah Rashid al-Janabi, her vicious murder, and the wanton destruction of her family. It is one of the most nefarious war crimes known to be perpetrated by US Soldiers in any era-singularly heinous not just for it's savagery but also because it was so calculated, premeditated, and methodical. But leading up to that day, a litany of miscommunications, organizational snafus, lapses in leadership, and ignored warning signs up and down the chain of command all contributed to the creation of an environment where it was possible for such a crime to take place."
Blame...Espcape from blame. The author should have stopped at personal responsibility. For no amount of miscommunication or organizational failures or leadership lapses or ignored warning signs or poor raising or troubled youth mitigates, explains or minimizes the rape and murder of a 14 year old girl, her 6 year old sister and their parents. Not now. Not then. Not ever. And to even consider for a second that something could, presupposes the ability to look into an individuals heart and soul. No leader has that ability. Working in a decentralized manner, I trusted that those Soldiers had an internalization of a common value system. Sadly, they did not.
I write because it forces me to think. It forces me to test ideas. Hopefully, it does the same for others. I believe that what happened to 1st platoon is a critically instructive event. It could be used to demonstrate the incredible complexities of leading human beings during war. I have said in the past that that is exactly what the Army should be doing. While the events of that time have some unique characteristics, the truth is that they are a microcosmic demonstration of the connection between values, behaviors, trust, decentralization and mission requirements.
Finally, for those who will continue to believe that I am only trying to mitigate some personal responsibility, I offer the following thought. In this day an age, if I wanted to make this become yesterday's news, it would be too simple. 3 and 1/2 years have passed. This book will have a lifespan and then end up in your local bookstore alongside all the others. Very few people outside of those intimately involved even remember the incident. I talk about this because leading human beings is hard work. To not look at it squarely is a greater injustice to future leaders.
Once again, I want to sincerely thank those who have reached out to me. Your caring and kindness are appreciated. As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#47 A Tough Week
In a post that was never published, I wrote the following paragraphs when Steven Green was sentenced to 5 life terms in Federal prison:
"In an earlier post, I made mention that my experience in Iraq from Sep 05 - Sep 06 began the personal transformation that has resulted in a lot of the thoughts about leadership, mentorship and the importance of training people over tasks that I have been posting since starting this blog.
On Sept 4th, 2009 Steven Dale Green was sentenced to 5 consecutive life terms in prison for killing an Iraqi family and raping a 14 year old Iraqi girl in March of 2006. He was the final person in that horrific event to be brought to justice, but the episode is much more complex than just him. Green will die in jail. He will never be a free man again. Maybe that equals enlightened justice, and maybe not. I'm not sure. Although I am not an advocate of the death penalty in general, once you are faced with a situation like this, it can change how you view the application of justice. If the jury in the Green trial had given him the death penalty for his crimes, I really don't think it would have bothered me, and I think that I would have said a silent prayer of thanks. I struggle to come to peace with the idea that the Iraqi family's lives were taken in a horribly violent and obscene and undeserved manner, yet he will live (albeit in prison) until he dies of natural causes. In fact, tax payer dollars will ensure he is provided proper medical care when required to make sure he is healthy enough to die in prison. 3 other members of the platoon are serving long prison sentences at Ft. Leavenworth, KS by virtue of plea deals they cut with the government, or by virtue of the jury's decision at court martial.
I was the platoon sergeant of that platoon. I am not saddened by that statement, nor am I proud of it. It is a simple statement of fact. There are many many details that surround that statement, and I have been investigated, poked, prodded, questioned, challenged etc more than I would wish on anyone. However, the fact that this crime happened on my watch cannot be wished away. It was the card I was dealt. I am still emotionally working my way through it today, almost 3 years later.
When I took over the platoon, I was told that they needed 'discipline'. Do the basics. Nothing fancy etc. etc. Question: How do you instill discipline in a group of men who, up to this point - we would go on to lose 3 more at a later time, have had 2 of their members blown to pieces by an IED, and another 2 assassinated, and then had there 'home' destroyed by fire? How exactly do you instill discipline when they are on their 3rd platoon sergeant in 45 days? How do you do that when they stop caring about the very fabric that binds them together? When they cease to be a values-based organization and become basic animals working in a predatory manner?
The Army prides itself on Soldier discipline. Everyone dressing sharply, marching in step, following commands, accomplishing the mission. And we do all those things. We get fresh haircuts, polish our boots (well, we used to), press a uniform, render proper courtesies etc. We do that well and people say how 'disciplined' we are. All Servicemembers do these things - each in their own service-related manner. The same way that every business has it's own expected norms of dress and behavior. The problem happens when you realize that all of these things are only surface deep. That while spit-shined boots and creased uniforms and clean haircuts are important, they are not critical. When you run into a platoon like mine where those standards and traditions don't hold up really well to the harsh light of reality in a combat zone. When everyone starts to question the validity or necessity of the small standards when viewed against their personal observation of their surroundings, loss of friends and the destruction of their living quarters. The question then becomes, what is critical? What do we need to instill in Soldiers so that events like mine never happen again? And, as a second line of thought, how do you lead them?
Some folks are likely to reply that my situation is an extreme anomaly and that it is exactly those basics requirements like uniform standards and saluting that make up the root of Soldier discipline. Forcing Soldiers to adhere to small standards when life is easy will make them more receptive to adhering to larger demands when the time comes. And there is merit to that. It is true that instilling discipline in small ways, over time, can create a person who willingly binds themselves to the larger behavior systems of the organization. But that willingness cannot and must not become blind faith. Any faith in the organization and it's values system, must generate from individual acceptance of the norms of accepted behavior. The important 'glue' of the organization has to be felt at the moral core of each member. That is the only way that people can withstand the losses that my Soldiers did and still act in a manner consistent with the organization. When my Soldiers lost that they became nothing more than a gang. Just the same as any street gang except that they wore the 'colors' of the United States Army."
This has been a very tough week. As mentioned in post #45, "Black Hearts" was published last Tuesday, and I immediately bought a copy of it. I spent the next five and a half hours reading it straight through. As the book progressed, I could feel the tension level in my body rising. When I was finished, I was exhausted. Reading it brought back a lot of memories and laid bare people's various thoughts on the entire situation and the people involved.
On the whole, the book is very accurate and pretty fair. As I indicated earlier I think that for every point in the narrative where someone gets vilified for a decision or action, there is another place in the book where they get vindicated for some other decision or action. Overall, I think it is a fair treatment of the unit, the people, and the time minus the absolute annihilation of the battalion commander. I do think it wants the reader to feel a little too badly for all of B Co for the tough conditions we were in, and it doesn't ever render any other judgement besides 'poor leadership' at every level. In fact, I think it's greatest failing is that it doesn't recognize that in war, as in any other endeavor, you lead those you have, with what you have available to you, under the circumstances in front of you. People can wish and hope and pray for a perfect world, but that is not always available. You do the best you can with what you have. Iraq in 2005 wasn't a fair fight, and no matter how much people complain about it now, it wasn't going to get better until the 'Surge'. The author doesn't ever render an opinion of what he thinks could have or should have been done with 1st platoon. Just getting more bodies or more stuff - while it might have helped - would not have solved the 'moral bankruptcy' that existed in the unit at the time. The most personally saddening part for me was to read how little some folks - and mostly people I didn't know that well prior to this time - felt about me. As I have said before, they are entitled to their opinion of me, but it is still difficult to see it in print.
On Thursday, I had lunch with BS and his wife. They were in town for an event on post and it was great to get a chance to see them again. He has been a friend and mentor to me for almost 6 years now and I thank them for taking the time to visit with me. When others abandoned us, he never did. I will be forever grateful.
Yesterday morning I received an email from out of the blue from a family member of one of the perpetrators who is now in prison. This person had found the blog by accident and wanted me to know that they did not think that I should blame myself in any way for what happened, and that no amount of great or poor leadership would have stopped their relative from committing this crime. That if it hadn't been the Iraqi family someday it would have been someone else. Receiving this shocked me. I truly didn't know this person until yesterday. I must have read it 5 or 6 times. I wrote back yesterday afternoon thanking the individual for taking the time to reach out to me and to recognize the enormity of the pressures that they must have had to face over the years. I also asked if I could use portions of the email in the blog if I could find a way to protect their identity. Yesterday evening the person replied that I could use the email exchange, but that they would like to preview it before I post it. I will do that in the weeks ahead.
So, what did I learn from this? What leader lessons are there to pass along? Without nitpicking each and every part of the book, here are some general statements that I took away. First, this story underscores the absolute imperative that we must remain a values-based organization. On page 297, there is the following passage:
"...Norton had never been more relieved in his life. Walter lobbed about four or five shells on and around the spot. Lauzier wanted to follow and make sure the insurgents were dead, but he didn't have any more working weapons. He told his men to break contact, and they headed back to the house. It is something he regretted years later, that he was not able to personally finish the insurgents off."
SSG Lauzier and his Soldiers had been engaged in a firefight. They were pinned down and requested mortar fire. The mortar fire was effective. The enemy was reduced. There was no longer an immediate threat.Does this imply that SSG Lauzier, according to the book, regrets to this day that he wasn't able to go kill people who were no longer an immediate threat to him or his men? And now you know why everything we do has to start with the value system we espouse.
I also think it is important that leaders establish trust with their subordinates, and that that trust must come from the bottom up. The Soldiers trusted their original platoon sergeant, Phil Miller, even when it became evident that he was no longer effectively able to provide them the purpose, direction, and steps necessary to accomplish their mission. Soldiers did not trust Rob Gallagher or me. They did not believe that I knew what I was doing and that my reasons for doing it were sound. Second, trust must be demonstrated downward as well, but leaders should be aware that it can be abused.
If you put this into a larger perspective, I think the most critical point of these events is that Soldiers must have a clear purpose for what they are being required to do and that every level of leadership must continually ensure that every other level shares that common understanding. If there is one clear lesson that stands out to me from this, it is that every leader in the battalion believed they were doing the right thing. They believed that the decisions they were making and the actions they were taking were in the best interest of those below them. If there is one common motif throughout the story, it is that those below never believed that to be true.
On a personal level, I think this story also brings home two other interconnected ideas: There is what you think people think of you and what they actually think of you, and there is what you think you are doing, and how those decisions can be interpreted by others. These are important considerations because they are what leads to the misunderstanding of purpose outlined above. I have continually driven home the point of critical self analysis throughout this blog. I do that because leaders must be absolutely sure of who they are and what they stand for before they can make decisions.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
"In an earlier post, I made mention that my experience in Iraq from Sep 05 - Sep 06 began the personal transformation that has resulted in a lot of the thoughts about leadership, mentorship and the importance of training people over tasks that I have been posting since starting this blog.
On Sept 4th, 2009 Steven Dale Green was sentenced to 5 consecutive life terms in prison for killing an Iraqi family and raping a 14 year old Iraqi girl in March of 2006. He was the final person in that horrific event to be brought to justice, but the episode is much more complex than just him. Green will die in jail. He will never be a free man again. Maybe that equals enlightened justice, and maybe not. I'm not sure. Although I am not an advocate of the death penalty in general, once you are faced with a situation like this, it can change how you view the application of justice. If the jury in the Green trial had given him the death penalty for his crimes, I really don't think it would have bothered me, and I think that I would have said a silent prayer of thanks. I struggle to come to peace with the idea that the Iraqi family's lives were taken in a horribly violent and obscene and undeserved manner, yet he will live (albeit in prison) until he dies of natural causes. In fact, tax payer dollars will ensure he is provided proper medical care when required to make sure he is healthy enough to die in prison. 3 other members of the platoon are serving long prison sentences at Ft. Leavenworth, KS by virtue of plea deals they cut with the government, or by virtue of the jury's decision at court martial.
I was the platoon sergeant of that platoon. I am not saddened by that statement, nor am I proud of it. It is a simple statement of fact. There are many many details that surround that statement, and I have been investigated, poked, prodded, questioned, challenged etc more than I would wish on anyone. However, the fact that this crime happened on my watch cannot be wished away. It was the card I was dealt. I am still emotionally working my way through it today, almost 3 years later.
When I took over the platoon, I was told that they needed 'discipline'. Do the basics. Nothing fancy etc. etc. Question: How do you instill discipline in a group of men who, up to this point - we would go on to lose 3 more at a later time, have had 2 of their members blown to pieces by an IED, and another 2 assassinated, and then had there 'home' destroyed by fire? How exactly do you instill discipline when they are on their 3rd platoon sergeant in 45 days? How do you do that when they stop caring about the very fabric that binds them together? When they cease to be a values-based organization and become basic animals working in a predatory manner?
The Army prides itself on Soldier discipline. Everyone dressing sharply, marching in step, following commands, accomplishing the mission. And we do all those things. We get fresh haircuts, polish our boots (well, we used to), press a uniform, render proper courtesies etc. We do that well and people say how 'disciplined' we are. All Servicemembers do these things - each in their own service-related manner. The same way that every business has it's own expected norms of dress and behavior. The problem happens when you realize that all of these things are only surface deep. That while spit-shined boots and creased uniforms and clean haircuts are important, they are not critical. When you run into a platoon like mine where those standards and traditions don't hold up really well to the harsh light of reality in a combat zone. When everyone starts to question the validity or necessity of the small standards when viewed against their personal observation of their surroundings, loss of friends and the destruction of their living quarters. The question then becomes, what is critical? What do we need to instill in Soldiers so that events like mine never happen again? And, as a second line of thought, how do you lead them?
Some folks are likely to reply that my situation is an extreme anomaly and that it is exactly those basics requirements like uniform standards and saluting that make up the root of Soldier discipline. Forcing Soldiers to adhere to small standards when life is easy will make them more receptive to adhering to larger demands when the time comes. And there is merit to that. It is true that instilling discipline in small ways, over time, can create a person who willingly binds themselves to the larger behavior systems of the organization. But that willingness cannot and must not become blind faith. Any faith in the organization and it's values system, must generate from individual acceptance of the norms of accepted behavior. The important 'glue' of the organization has to be felt at the moral core of each member. That is the only way that people can withstand the losses that my Soldiers did and still act in a manner consistent with the organization. When my Soldiers lost that they became nothing more than a gang. Just the same as any street gang except that they wore the 'colors' of the United States Army."
This has been a very tough week. As mentioned in post #45, "Black Hearts" was published last Tuesday, and I immediately bought a copy of it. I spent the next five and a half hours reading it straight through. As the book progressed, I could feel the tension level in my body rising. When I was finished, I was exhausted. Reading it brought back a lot of memories and laid bare people's various thoughts on the entire situation and the people involved.
On the whole, the book is very accurate and pretty fair. As I indicated earlier I think that for every point in the narrative where someone gets vilified for a decision or action, there is another place in the book where they get vindicated for some other decision or action. Overall, I think it is a fair treatment of the unit, the people, and the time minus the absolute annihilation of the battalion commander. I do think it wants the reader to feel a little too badly for all of B Co for the tough conditions we were in, and it doesn't ever render any other judgement besides 'poor leadership' at every level. In fact, I think it's greatest failing is that it doesn't recognize that in war, as in any other endeavor, you lead those you have, with what you have available to you, under the circumstances in front of you. People can wish and hope and pray for a perfect world, but that is not always available. You do the best you can with what you have. Iraq in 2005 wasn't a fair fight, and no matter how much people complain about it now, it wasn't going to get better until the 'Surge'. The author doesn't ever render an opinion of what he thinks could have or should have been done with 1st platoon. Just getting more bodies or more stuff - while it might have helped - would not have solved the 'moral bankruptcy' that existed in the unit at the time. The most personally saddening part for me was to read how little some folks - and mostly people I didn't know that well prior to this time - felt about me. As I have said before, they are entitled to their opinion of me, but it is still difficult to see it in print.
On Thursday, I had lunch with BS and his wife. They were in town for an event on post and it was great to get a chance to see them again. He has been a friend and mentor to me for almost 6 years now and I thank them for taking the time to visit with me. When others abandoned us, he never did. I will be forever grateful.
Yesterday morning I received an email from out of the blue from a family member of one of the perpetrators who is now in prison. This person had found the blog by accident and wanted me to know that they did not think that I should blame myself in any way for what happened, and that no amount of great or poor leadership would have stopped their relative from committing this crime. That if it hadn't been the Iraqi family someday it would have been someone else. Receiving this shocked me. I truly didn't know this person until yesterday. I must have read it 5 or 6 times. I wrote back yesterday afternoon thanking the individual for taking the time to reach out to me and to recognize the enormity of the pressures that they must have had to face over the years. I also asked if I could use portions of the email in the blog if I could find a way to protect their identity. Yesterday evening the person replied that I could use the email exchange, but that they would like to preview it before I post it. I will do that in the weeks ahead.
So, what did I learn from this? What leader lessons are there to pass along? Without nitpicking each and every part of the book, here are some general statements that I took away. First, this story underscores the absolute imperative that we must remain a values-based organization. On page 297, there is the following passage:
"...Norton had never been more relieved in his life. Walter lobbed about four or five shells on and around the spot. Lauzier wanted to follow and make sure the insurgents were dead, but he didn't have any more working weapons. He told his men to break contact, and they headed back to the house. It is something he regretted years later, that he was not able to personally finish the insurgents off."
SSG Lauzier and his Soldiers had been engaged in a firefight. They were pinned down and requested mortar fire. The mortar fire was effective. The enemy was reduced. There was no longer an immediate threat.Does this imply that SSG Lauzier, according to the book, regrets to this day that he wasn't able to go kill people who were no longer an immediate threat to him or his men? And now you know why everything we do has to start with the value system we espouse.
I also think it is important that leaders establish trust with their subordinates, and that that trust must come from the bottom up. The Soldiers trusted their original platoon sergeant, Phil Miller, even when it became evident that he was no longer effectively able to provide them the purpose, direction, and steps necessary to accomplish their mission. Soldiers did not trust Rob Gallagher or me. They did not believe that I knew what I was doing and that my reasons for doing it were sound. Second, trust must be demonstrated downward as well, but leaders should be aware that it can be abused.
If you put this into a larger perspective, I think the most critical point of these events is that Soldiers must have a clear purpose for what they are being required to do and that every level of leadership must continually ensure that every other level shares that common understanding. If there is one clear lesson that stands out to me from this, it is that every leader in the battalion believed they were doing the right thing. They believed that the decisions they were making and the actions they were taking were in the best interest of those below them. If there is one common motif throughout the story, it is that those below never believed that to be true.
On a personal level, I think this story also brings home two other interconnected ideas: There is what you think people think of you and what they actually think of you, and there is what you think you are doing, and how those decisions can be interpreted by others. These are important considerations because they are what leads to the misunderstanding of purpose outlined above. I have continually driven home the point of critical self analysis throughout this blog. I do that because leaders must be absolutely sure of who they are and what they stand for before they can make decisions.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#46 Honor
"Honor is the glue that holds the Army Values together." - FM 6-22
"He has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct though it is inconvenient, unprofitable or dangerous to do so." - Walter Lippmann (A Preface to Morals - 1929)
Of all the Army Values, honor is the least discussed and arguably the most important. In the Army's Leadership manual, the word honor is never really defined, and there are only 4 short paragraphs devoted to its' discussion. And yet the manual calls it the glue that binds all the other values together.
When I was a Drill Sergeant I always enjoyed teaching the Army Values to trainees. I would volunteer to do it when others didn't want to. I believed it to be the most important class we could provide a new Soldier. I used to tell them that at the end of the day, all you really have in the world is your name. That's it. Fenlason, Smith, Jones, Johnson, whatever. The whole of your being is wrapped up in your name. What do you want the world to remember of you? What is your name worth? Your honor is the way you carry yourself in the world and how your actions and words are interpreted by others. Your name is the foundation of your character. At first it is an inheritance given by your parents. Over time, it becomes the legacy of the life you have lived.
For me, my honor more closely resembles Lippmann's quote above. My honor is an ideal of me; what I aspire to be. It is the recognition that I must always strive to be a better person tomorrow than I am today. It is an unattainable goal of the person I hope I can become. It is the embodiment of what it means to be Fenlason. And recognition that the name itself has weight and form and requirements that must adhered to.
Honor also means living up to the expectations and obligations of those around you. Your family, friends, community. It sometimes means walking alone and following your own calling.
In the context of leader development, honor means possessing a deep and abiding understanding of who you are and what you value. Of knowing when and where to draw the line in the sand that says to others, "You may come this far, but one more step and you will not be allowed to proceed any further." It is knowing how far you can bend for compromise before you must resist.
Over the last month or so, I have repeatedly come back to the idea that self-awareness and self-study are essential parts of the leader development process. We must encourage a training model where we continually place people in situations that allow for increased self-actualization and then point out to them the importance of their self-discovery. Namely, that it serves to help define their honor code. The questions we must ask are not only how or why did something succeed or fail, but what did you learn about yourself during the event? How has your self-awareness changed due to this experience? By encouraging this, we are helping leaders arrive at those 'lines in the sand' that define them for their subordinates. These definitions are critically important for the follower. They must know what their leaders value before they can decide whether or not they will follow. And they can only know this if the leader has a clear picture of what those values are and then explains and demonstrates them to their followers. A leader who cannot do this will rapidly lose the faith and trust of his/her subordinates. They must know who you are, what you value and, most importantly, why you feel that way. They must see you act consistently to adhere to them.
Both individuals and organizations work this way. As much as I must understand myself, so too does an organization have to engage in the difficult task of analyzing it's purpose and its' allowable norms of behavior. From time to time, it must examine it's honor code. For example, we live in a free market society. One of the binding beliefs of all Americans is that we each have an inherent right to make money and attain wealth. But, at what cost? Is it ok to steal the pension of a senior citizen? The answer is no. But isn't that what happens when large investment banks do not carefully and wisely invest the retirement money that we give them? Aren't they abusing the faith and trust that we place in them? In this example, the investor is the follower and the banker is the leader. By placing our faith (and our money) in a risky investment plan that could make large profits, but just as equally could cause large losses, it is the value system of the organization that is at stake. Organizations have the same obligation to define themselves for their employees and the public as Fenlason does to his Soldiers. They both must know where the leader stands and what he/she values. We need to consider this.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
"He has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct though it is inconvenient, unprofitable or dangerous to do so." - Walter Lippmann (A Preface to Morals - 1929)
Of all the Army Values, honor is the least discussed and arguably the most important. In the Army's Leadership manual, the word honor is never really defined, and there are only 4 short paragraphs devoted to its' discussion. And yet the manual calls it the glue that binds all the other values together.
When I was a Drill Sergeant I always enjoyed teaching the Army Values to trainees. I would volunteer to do it when others didn't want to. I believed it to be the most important class we could provide a new Soldier. I used to tell them that at the end of the day, all you really have in the world is your name. That's it. Fenlason, Smith, Jones, Johnson, whatever. The whole of your being is wrapped up in your name. What do you want the world to remember of you? What is your name worth? Your honor is the way you carry yourself in the world and how your actions and words are interpreted by others. Your name is the foundation of your character. At first it is an inheritance given by your parents. Over time, it becomes the legacy of the life you have lived.
For me, my honor more closely resembles Lippmann's quote above. My honor is an ideal of me; what I aspire to be. It is the recognition that I must always strive to be a better person tomorrow than I am today. It is an unattainable goal of the person I hope I can become. It is the embodiment of what it means to be Fenlason. And recognition that the name itself has weight and form and requirements that must adhered to.
Honor also means living up to the expectations and obligations of those around you. Your family, friends, community. It sometimes means walking alone and following your own calling.
In the context of leader development, honor means possessing a deep and abiding understanding of who you are and what you value. Of knowing when and where to draw the line in the sand that says to others, "You may come this far, but one more step and you will not be allowed to proceed any further." It is knowing how far you can bend for compromise before you must resist.
Over the last month or so, I have repeatedly come back to the idea that self-awareness and self-study are essential parts of the leader development process. We must encourage a training model where we continually place people in situations that allow for increased self-actualization and then point out to them the importance of their self-discovery. Namely, that it serves to help define their honor code. The questions we must ask are not only how or why did something succeed or fail, but what did you learn about yourself during the event? How has your self-awareness changed due to this experience? By encouraging this, we are helping leaders arrive at those 'lines in the sand' that define them for their subordinates. These definitions are critically important for the follower. They must know what their leaders value before they can decide whether or not they will follow. And they can only know this if the leader has a clear picture of what those values are and then explains and demonstrates them to their followers. A leader who cannot do this will rapidly lose the faith and trust of his/her subordinates. They must know who you are, what you value and, most importantly, why you feel that way. They must see you act consistently to adhere to them.
Both individuals and organizations work this way. As much as I must understand myself, so too does an organization have to engage in the difficult task of analyzing it's purpose and its' allowable norms of behavior. From time to time, it must examine it's honor code. For example, we live in a free market society. One of the binding beliefs of all Americans is that we each have an inherent right to make money and attain wealth. But, at what cost? Is it ok to steal the pension of a senior citizen? The answer is no. But isn't that what happens when large investment banks do not carefully and wisely invest the retirement money that we give them? Aren't they abusing the faith and trust that we place in them? In this example, the investor is the follower and the banker is the leader. By placing our faith (and our money) in a risky investment plan that could make large profits, but just as equally could cause large losses, it is the value system of the organization that is at stake. Organizations have the same obligation to define themselves for their employees and the public as Fenlason does to his Soldiers. They both must know where the leader stands and what he/she values. We need to consider this.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#45 The Reason
Next week, on Feb 9th, a book will be published entitled, "Black Hearts, One Platoon's Descent Into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death." It is written by Time magazine editor Jim Frederick and is the story of 1st platoon, B Co, 1/502 Infantry, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and the events and tragedies that occurred from September 2005 to September 2006. It will tell the story - hopefully accurately - of the events that began my personal odyssey and transformation.
As many of you are already aware, I was the platoon sergeant for 1st platoon from Feb 5th, 2006 - December 31st 2006. During this time the principle, although certainly not the only, significant events that became the basis for the book, took place. These are the rape of a 14 year old Iraqi girl and the murder of she and her family by US forces, and an insurgent attack against 3 of my Soldiers which resulted in a 3 day manhunt to recover their tortured and booby-trapped bodies.
I have not read the book so I have no idea what it will say. What I do know is that short of the official investigations, this will probably be the most complete record of that period that has been conducted. Mr. Frederick interviewed hundreds of members of the battalion and the reviews that I have seen all say that it has been painstakingly researched. What conclusions he has drawn from those interviews remain to be seen.
I think that many of us who went through that time will be looking for some sort of absolution or vindication in the pages of the story - some sense that we did all we could, or knew how to do. But I'm not sure that that sort of comfort will be provided. My guess is that for every event where it appears that someone is vindicated, there will likely be another point where he will be vilified. As Mr. Frederick told me when he interviewed me, everybody gets a little messy in the end.
Personally, I think I'll have to read it 3 times. Once, to see the parts that directly involve me, a second time to learn how others saw the events unfolding and finally to try and draw some leadership lessons from it.
That time and those events are also the beginning of my personal journey. They have become the reason behind this blog and my somewhat amateurish study of leadership. As I have told other people, when you have travelled through the looking glass as events like this force you to do, when you emerge you no longer see your world the same way again. Any personal dramatic event in a person's life will do this, death, illness, injury etc. The sheer emotional weight of the event itself has a changing effect on those who were part of it. I, like many others who were part of that unit at that time and place, have been changed.
For me, that time was a crucible. I gave all I had to rebuilding the platoon prior to July '06 and then trying to keep it together until we could get back home after everything came to light. It was emotionally exhausting and difficult. I was forced to question everything I knew about the Army and leadership. I lost friends and professional acquaintances along the way. All my Soldiers did too. I saw extreme heroism and the absolute best of the American character in a Soldier who had the courage to come forward after the deaths of our 3 Soldiers to inform me that the Iraqi family may not have been killed by insurgents but rather by Americans. Knowing that that information would make our ordeal even more difficult, he did the right thing anyway. That is the Army and American value system at it's finest. I also saw the worst in people. I saw a sergeant cover up the crime and then watched as he memorialized a friend of his who was killed as a result of him covering it up. I saw people lie and try to rewrite facts in order to explain away their partial ownership in the events that transpired. I saw and experienced the anger and resentment and hostility and denial by many people looking to make the events go away.
I write this blog to talk about leadership. Leadership is easy when there is nothing critical at stake. It's all a matter of perspective. In the civilian sector there will always be pressure to turn a profit or meet sales goals or performance expectations, and those who are in charge often have to make very difficult choices in order to meet those expectations. In the military however - and in particular during a time of war - leaders make decisions that can have permanent effects. People can live or die on the outcome of the decisions we make. I sent those 4 Soldiers to that checkpoint from which they carried out their crimes. They were sent there for just and valid reasons. Am I then somehow responsible for the death of Abeer Al Janabi and her family? That is the ultimate difference between military and civilian leadership. It is rare in the civilian world that a person pays the ultimate price for the decision a leader or supervisor makes. In an Army at war it is a much greater possibility.
In the weeks ahead as people read the book and work through it, more accusations and denials will likely arise. And most will be self-serving. As much as I would like to think that I won't participate in that, the odds are I will. Someone, either a reader or the author, will fault me for something I did or did not do and I will feel compelled to defend my actions. I wish I could say that I won't participate in another round of tit-for-tat, but I know myself too well. I cannot take an attack without responding. It's not in my nature.
Here's the interesting part though....What if all of those decisions, made at all the varying levels of command, were 'correct'? What if each of us who were making decisions at that point in time were doing everything that we believed to be correct? Then what? What if there isn't anyone to blame? Where will that leave us? What lessons will there be to be learned?
The Army pays me to make decisions. They trained me and promoted me and gave me positions of authority over the course of my career. I am expected to take my knowledge, skills and abilities and make decisions that will help achieve the unit's mission. From Feb 2006 to December 2006 that's what I did for the men of 1st platoon who were in my charge. That's what we do. But they didn't train me for something like this. And they didn't train any of the people above me for something like this either. Once the events began to unfold we no longer had a road map or leadership manual to guide us. We were in uncharted waters.
I think any study of leadership has to begin with the question, "What would I have done if I were in that position?" So, if you are inclined to read the history of that time and those events, please keep this in mind: Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the actions we took, we were the one's who were required to make them. And we did. Many with the best of intentions and bringing to bear all of the experience and knowledge we had available to us at the time.
Events like this can be very instructive however. They show the fault in the leader education system where we provide lists of memorized phrases and vignettes of former heroes and hand a person a graduation certificate and call them a leader. In 1st platoon, I had Soldiers who had great leadership qualities, and I had leaders who were morally bankrupt. We had heroes and villains.
Finally, if you read the book and have questions about what and why things happened, please ask. The only good that can come of these tragic events will be that another young leader gains an insight into the human condition and the difficulties of leading men in battle and comes away with a better understanding of both.
As always, I look forward to your thoughts and comments.
As many of you are already aware, I was the platoon sergeant for 1st platoon from Feb 5th, 2006 - December 31st 2006. During this time the principle, although certainly not the only, significant events that became the basis for the book, took place. These are the rape of a 14 year old Iraqi girl and the murder of she and her family by US forces, and an insurgent attack against 3 of my Soldiers which resulted in a 3 day manhunt to recover their tortured and booby-trapped bodies.
I have not read the book so I have no idea what it will say. What I do know is that short of the official investigations, this will probably be the most complete record of that period that has been conducted. Mr. Frederick interviewed hundreds of members of the battalion and the reviews that I have seen all say that it has been painstakingly researched. What conclusions he has drawn from those interviews remain to be seen.
I think that many of us who went through that time will be looking for some sort of absolution or vindication in the pages of the story - some sense that we did all we could, or knew how to do. But I'm not sure that that sort of comfort will be provided. My guess is that for every event where it appears that someone is vindicated, there will likely be another point where he will be vilified. As Mr. Frederick told me when he interviewed me, everybody gets a little messy in the end.
Personally, I think I'll have to read it 3 times. Once, to see the parts that directly involve me, a second time to learn how others saw the events unfolding and finally to try and draw some leadership lessons from it.
That time and those events are also the beginning of my personal journey. They have become the reason behind this blog and my somewhat amateurish study of leadership. As I have told other people, when you have travelled through the looking glass as events like this force you to do, when you emerge you no longer see your world the same way again. Any personal dramatic event in a person's life will do this, death, illness, injury etc. The sheer emotional weight of the event itself has a changing effect on those who were part of it. I, like many others who were part of that unit at that time and place, have been changed.
For me, that time was a crucible. I gave all I had to rebuilding the platoon prior to July '06 and then trying to keep it together until we could get back home after everything came to light. It was emotionally exhausting and difficult. I was forced to question everything I knew about the Army and leadership. I lost friends and professional acquaintances along the way. All my Soldiers did too. I saw extreme heroism and the absolute best of the American character in a Soldier who had the courage to come forward after the deaths of our 3 Soldiers to inform me that the Iraqi family may not have been killed by insurgents but rather by Americans. Knowing that that information would make our ordeal even more difficult, he did the right thing anyway. That is the Army and American value system at it's finest. I also saw the worst in people. I saw a sergeant cover up the crime and then watched as he memorialized a friend of his who was killed as a result of him covering it up. I saw people lie and try to rewrite facts in order to explain away their partial ownership in the events that transpired. I saw and experienced the anger and resentment and hostility and denial by many people looking to make the events go away.
I write this blog to talk about leadership. Leadership is easy when there is nothing critical at stake. It's all a matter of perspective. In the civilian sector there will always be pressure to turn a profit or meet sales goals or performance expectations, and those who are in charge often have to make very difficult choices in order to meet those expectations. In the military however - and in particular during a time of war - leaders make decisions that can have permanent effects. People can live or die on the outcome of the decisions we make. I sent those 4 Soldiers to that checkpoint from which they carried out their crimes. They were sent there for just and valid reasons. Am I then somehow responsible for the death of Abeer Al Janabi and her family? That is the ultimate difference between military and civilian leadership. It is rare in the civilian world that a person pays the ultimate price for the decision a leader or supervisor makes. In an Army at war it is a much greater possibility.
In the weeks ahead as people read the book and work through it, more accusations and denials will likely arise. And most will be self-serving. As much as I would like to think that I won't participate in that, the odds are I will. Someone, either a reader or the author, will fault me for something I did or did not do and I will feel compelled to defend my actions. I wish I could say that I won't participate in another round of tit-for-tat, but I know myself too well. I cannot take an attack without responding. It's not in my nature.
Here's the interesting part though....What if all of those decisions, made at all the varying levels of command, were 'correct'? What if each of us who were making decisions at that point in time were doing everything that we believed to be correct? Then what? What if there isn't anyone to blame? Where will that leave us? What lessons will there be to be learned?
The Army pays me to make decisions. They trained me and promoted me and gave me positions of authority over the course of my career. I am expected to take my knowledge, skills and abilities and make decisions that will help achieve the unit's mission. From Feb 2006 to December 2006 that's what I did for the men of 1st platoon who were in my charge. That's what we do. But they didn't train me for something like this. And they didn't train any of the people above me for something like this either. Once the events began to unfold we no longer had a road map or leadership manual to guide us. We were in uncharted waters.
I think any study of leadership has to begin with the question, "What would I have done if I were in that position?" So, if you are inclined to read the history of that time and those events, please keep this in mind: Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the actions we took, we were the one's who were required to make them. And we did. Many with the best of intentions and bringing to bear all of the experience and knowledge we had available to us at the time.
Events like this can be very instructive however. They show the fault in the leader education system where we provide lists of memorized phrases and vignettes of former heroes and hand a person a graduation certificate and call them a leader. In 1st platoon, I had Soldiers who had great leadership qualities, and I had leaders who were morally bankrupt. We had heroes and villains.
Finally, if you read the book and have questions about what and why things happened, please ask. The only good that can come of these tragic events will be that another young leader gains an insight into the human condition and the difficulties of leading men in battle and comes away with a better understanding of both.
As always, I look forward to your thoughts and comments.
#44 Leadership and Followership
In 1985 Gen Glenn Otis, the commander of US Army Europe contributed an introduction to section 3 of a book entitled, "Military Leadership, in Pursuit of Excellence" 2nd edition, edited by Robert Taylor and Walter Rosenbach.
"Leaders must adapt to a constantly changing world. Technological, economic, social and political environments are at a rapid pace; so are the education and experience levels of effective leaders and followers. The military too is in flux. Weapon systems have grown more technically sophisticated; organizational structures have grown leaner and flatter. Multinational armies embrace diverse cultures and values. Although military leaders were once elite in terms of economic and social background, as well as education, our society now endorses personal and professional development for everyone, regardless of economic and social background. Thus there are truly no inherent demographic differences between leaders and followers."
What struck me about that paragraph is that it was written 25 years ago, but might just as well have been written in the last week. Leaders must spend more time and energy understanding the people in their organizations rather than the equipment and stuff of their organizations. An understanding of the disparate values, norms, behaviors etc, is an important step in forming the common understanding of the task and it's purpose. And it puts the emphasis on the human factor of both the unit and the problem and recognizes that if the human beings don't have a clear sense of direction, then regardless of technology, the endeavor will probably fail.
Gen Otis goes on to say the following:
"The military's emphasis is increasingly on human skills, the strategic implication of decisions, development of a common purpose, and shared acceptance of accountability for both leaders and followers. The leader can no longer afford to be the most skilled Soldier; technical skills of followers must exceed those of the leaders if the organization is to be successful. Leaders are now evaluated in terms of having people in their units who are brighter and more capable than anyone else. "
The technology revolution has created a new paradigm for military organizations who, in the past, have been excellent generalists - it has created the specialist. The Soldier who essentially has been hired to do one thing exceptionally well rather than possessing an ability to work through a variety of challenges using broader thinking skills. We now have a group of young enlisted Soldiers, for example, who make our digital systems work. Without them we cannot communicate or send information or do any of the coordination that we need to make the Army run. We have become beholden to information and situational awareness and instant communication. As I have said before, the most important kid in the organization is the one who can keep the Internet running. I assure you, any modern day general will gladly step aside and make concessions to the young Soldier who can solve his communication problem. Why? Because the information itself has become the prize. He who has the most, wins. The goal seems to be instant situational awareness of the entire battlefield in real time.
There are however some unspoken aspects of that paragraph that should be considered. Is it the information that is key, or the ability to use it? By creating total situational awareness, are we limiting individual initiative and judgement? If so, what effect does that have on leader development? Are we losing our ability to efficiently use the advantage gained in information by trying to hold on to an outdated hierarchical personnel structure that imposes rules and gates to decision making that turns what was an advantage into a disadvantage? These questions introduce the idea of the effects of organizational structure, it's relationship toward leader development and the required mental agility that modern technology requires.
This also represents an understanding of the role of both the leader and the follower in modern organizations, both business and military. It becomes even more critical that leaders create environments where the skills and abilities of a wide range of technical experts can be brought together to serve a common purpose. The role of the leader is to create the conditions whereby the followers can excel and bring their particular talents to bear against a common problem. It inherently values the follower and their contributions to the unit.
Finally, Gen Otis outlines the things that he thinks are critical components of successful leadership:
"A leaders success depends on self-knowledge, self-confidence and a lifelong commitment to education and training. There are no surefire methods of developing leadership.....we believe that self-knowledge is the only way a person can prepare for the challenge. The discovery of one's own strengths and weaknesses enhances self-confidence. Taking risks and learning from failures are critical to leader development. The more we learn about ourselves, the more effective we can be in the roles of leader and follower."
I wish I'd found that paragraph when I started writing this, it would have saved me a bunch of time and energy! These three paragraphs taken together deserve a lot of consideration, but the final one is, to me, the most important. We must encourage, support, and insist that our young leaders have a clear understanding of who they are as individuals before we can begin to mold them into leaders. Personal study of yourself and the critical values and viewpoints you hold, as well as understanding why and how you came to hold them, is the only way to gain the self-confidence needed to lead people in any organization. This is even more critical for those charged with making decisions that may cause immense hardship and/or suffering to others. Secondly, these values and viewpoints must continually be challenged by mental exercise and ethical challenges to see if they withstand the pressure. Risking personal comfort and learning lessons from value failures is critical to the human understanding of compassion and empathy required from all leaders and followers in any organization.
Generically, I think Gen Otis's comments are pretty smart. The cultural (socio-economic and educational) divide between officers and enlisted Soldiers has changed.....The technology revolution has brought about a levelling based upon the unique specialized skills we now require.....There is no way for a modern leader to keep up with technological change, he/she will have to leave that to people more expert than they.....Successful leaders will create common pictures for follower experts to work within.....The follower's belief in the common picture will generate from their trust in the character and confidence of the leader.....The character and confidence can only be realized through self-study, risk taking, and the lessons learned from experience and sometimes failure.
As always, your thoughts, ideas and comments are welcome.
"Leaders must adapt to a constantly changing world. Technological, economic, social and political environments are at a rapid pace; so are the education and experience levels of effective leaders and followers. The military too is in flux. Weapon systems have grown more technically sophisticated; organizational structures have grown leaner and flatter. Multinational armies embrace diverse cultures and values. Although military leaders were once elite in terms of economic and social background, as well as education, our society now endorses personal and professional development for everyone, regardless of economic and social background. Thus there are truly no inherent demographic differences between leaders and followers."
What struck me about that paragraph is that it was written 25 years ago, but might just as well have been written in the last week. Leaders must spend more time and energy understanding the people in their organizations rather than the equipment and stuff of their organizations. An understanding of the disparate values, norms, behaviors etc, is an important step in forming the common understanding of the task and it's purpose. And it puts the emphasis on the human factor of both the unit and the problem and recognizes that if the human beings don't have a clear sense of direction, then regardless of technology, the endeavor will probably fail.
Gen Otis goes on to say the following:
"The military's emphasis is increasingly on human skills, the strategic implication of decisions, development of a common purpose, and shared acceptance of accountability for both leaders and followers. The leader can no longer afford to be the most skilled Soldier; technical skills of followers must exceed those of the leaders if the organization is to be successful. Leaders are now evaluated in terms of having people in their units who are brighter and more capable than anyone else. "
The technology revolution has created a new paradigm for military organizations who, in the past, have been excellent generalists - it has created the specialist. The Soldier who essentially has been hired to do one thing exceptionally well rather than possessing an ability to work through a variety of challenges using broader thinking skills. We now have a group of young enlisted Soldiers, for example, who make our digital systems work. Without them we cannot communicate or send information or do any of the coordination that we need to make the Army run. We have become beholden to information and situational awareness and instant communication. As I have said before, the most important kid in the organization is the one who can keep the Internet running. I assure you, any modern day general will gladly step aside and make concessions to the young Soldier who can solve his communication problem. Why? Because the information itself has become the prize. He who has the most, wins. The goal seems to be instant situational awareness of the entire battlefield in real time.
There are however some unspoken aspects of that paragraph that should be considered. Is it the information that is key, or the ability to use it? By creating total situational awareness, are we limiting individual initiative and judgement? If so, what effect does that have on leader development? Are we losing our ability to efficiently use the advantage gained in information by trying to hold on to an outdated hierarchical personnel structure that imposes rules and gates to decision making that turns what was an advantage into a disadvantage? These questions introduce the idea of the effects of organizational structure, it's relationship toward leader development and the required mental agility that modern technology requires.
This also represents an understanding of the role of both the leader and the follower in modern organizations, both business and military. It becomes even more critical that leaders create environments where the skills and abilities of a wide range of technical experts can be brought together to serve a common purpose. The role of the leader is to create the conditions whereby the followers can excel and bring their particular talents to bear against a common problem. It inherently values the follower and their contributions to the unit.
Finally, Gen Otis outlines the things that he thinks are critical components of successful leadership:
"A leaders success depends on self-knowledge, self-confidence and a lifelong commitment to education and training. There are no surefire methods of developing leadership.....we believe that self-knowledge is the only way a person can prepare for the challenge. The discovery of one's own strengths and weaknesses enhances self-confidence. Taking risks and learning from failures are critical to leader development. The more we learn about ourselves, the more effective we can be in the roles of leader and follower."
I wish I'd found that paragraph when I started writing this, it would have saved me a bunch of time and energy! These three paragraphs taken together deserve a lot of consideration, but the final one is, to me, the most important. We must encourage, support, and insist that our young leaders have a clear understanding of who they are as individuals before we can begin to mold them into leaders. Personal study of yourself and the critical values and viewpoints you hold, as well as understanding why and how you came to hold them, is the only way to gain the self-confidence needed to lead people in any organization. This is even more critical for those charged with making decisions that may cause immense hardship and/or suffering to others. Secondly, these values and viewpoints must continually be challenged by mental exercise and ethical challenges to see if they withstand the pressure. Risking personal comfort and learning lessons from value failures is critical to the human understanding of compassion and empathy required from all leaders and followers in any organization.
Generically, I think Gen Otis's comments are pretty smart. The cultural (socio-economic and educational) divide between officers and enlisted Soldiers has changed.....The technology revolution has brought about a levelling based upon the unique specialized skills we now require.....There is no way for a modern leader to keep up with technological change, he/she will have to leave that to people more expert than they.....Successful leaders will create common pictures for follower experts to work within.....The follower's belief in the common picture will generate from their trust in the character and confidence of the leader.....The character and confidence can only be realized through self-study, risk taking, and the lessons learned from experience and sometimes failure.
As always, your thoughts, ideas and comments are welcome.
#43 The Reasons
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave. ~William Drummond, Academical Questions
Six months ago I started this blog in order to help sort out some of my personal thoughts on the Army, leadership, and my role in the organization. Over that time, I have done a lot of reflecting about who I am and the conditions that created my professional being. I have started to challenge my assumptions about who and what a leader is. I believe it is healthy and necessary to do this. I'm hoping that by sharing this experience, you might be doing the same no matter what your career field is.
Each week I set aside some time and try to cobble together thoughts and ideas on whatever has gotten my attention and try to look at a particular issue from some other point of view. I have always solicited your comments because I must be willing to challenge my thought processes and vision. It seems to me that this is the only way I will continue to grow and learn.
As this little mental journey has progressed, I must admit to being pleasantly surprised by the academic freedom that the senior leaders of the Army allow. Every week I find a new professional document where the organization is calling into question some long held belief or norm. I wish more of my peers were doing this. It would truly challenge a lot of what they consider to be doctrine.
Earlier this week, I brought the Effective Training Design brief to a company on post. Interestingly, while there will inevitably be a marksmanship portion to it, I was not hired principally for that. The unit wants (or at least says it wants) to develop it's junior leaders and challenge them to become more creative, responsive, and invested in the training of their Soldiers.
I spent the day with around 25 mostly junior (Sergeants) NCOs and we talked through OODA loops and tried to see if we could come up with a way to look at ourselves and training differently. We began with a simple event - land navigation. The issue was that the Soldiers couldn't navigate with a map and compass anymore and the 'old timers' found this ridiculous and unacceptable. As one SSG put it, "This is a baseline Soldier skill. Everyone is required to know how to do it." He was very sure of himself. He could do it, the Army said everyone needed to be able to do it, so everyone should be able to do it because he can. What he didn't see immediately was how much the proliferation of technology, both in and out of the Army, had changed the dynamic. Is traditional land navigation really something we need to invest much time on considering that every vehicle has a navigation system in it and almost every Soldier carries a personal or issued GPS system with them? That's the very question his Soldiers were asking. Does the task itself still have relevance? We spent a hour or so taking that apart and re-orienting ourselves and looking at ways we could conduct the required training in a manner that ultimately resulted in a Soldier who had acquired a skill that makes them more competent and confident on the battlefield. More importantly, that we could provide them a purpose for acquiring this skill.
The we took a break and looked at an entirely separate issue, - suicide. As I have mentioned before, my post has struggled a lot this year with Soldier's taking their own lives. We have invested a lot of time, energy and resources toward reversing this horrible trend. In this group, the idea was that we could maybe we could OODA that as well. We spent about 2 hours doing that. We took apart what we had observed and then these young leaders began to re-orient themselves as to why they thought we had a problem. The wheels for some were beginning to spin a little more freely. In others, you could still hear the gears grinding away. We didn't come up with any answers, but you could plainly see that folks were starting to think - really think - about the issue and not just throw pat answers on the table.
In the afternoon we deconstructed the parts of OODA again and focused on Orientation. These junior leaders finally began to understand that they are the true center of leadership. That the way they view themselves, their priorities, their organization, and their life forms the manner in which they lead others. Folks were starting to sit up straight and focus a little harder now. You could see that, in some cases, they were beginning to understand their responsibility as a leader starts with their responsibility to understand themselves. Even the 'old timers' were paying attention. Whether or not they would change what they had been doing wasn't the issue, that probably wouldn't happen. It's hard to teach old dogs new tricks. But, they were paying attention to the more junior NCOs who are just starting their leadership journey. They did recognize that there was a new excitement in some of them.
At the end of the day, I asked each one of them what they had taken away from the days discussion. In mostly quiet voices they all replied. We wrote the responses down. Maybe the best comment was from a Sergeant who said, "Maybe I need to re-look how I treat one of my Soldiers. What I'm doing now isn't working very well. Maybe there's a better way." Another said, "I need to figure out what's important to me, before I can help them figure out what's important to them."
My job requires me to meet my audience where they are on the leadership spectrum and then move them to a different - and hopefully better - place. My hope is that they willingly choose to do so. I cannot tell them where their individual journey will lead. I cannot tell them what to think. What I can do is show them a method of thinking about themselves, their Soldiers, and their world.
And that is the reason I write this. My leadership journey is no more or less complete than theirs. As I offered them a new viewpoint the other day, so to do I get offered new ideas and ways to look at myself with each experience.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
Six months ago I started this blog in order to help sort out some of my personal thoughts on the Army, leadership, and my role in the organization. Over that time, I have done a lot of reflecting about who I am and the conditions that created my professional being. I have started to challenge my assumptions about who and what a leader is. I believe it is healthy and necessary to do this. I'm hoping that by sharing this experience, you might be doing the same no matter what your career field is.
Each week I set aside some time and try to cobble together thoughts and ideas on whatever has gotten my attention and try to look at a particular issue from some other point of view. I have always solicited your comments because I must be willing to challenge my thought processes and vision. It seems to me that this is the only way I will continue to grow and learn.
As this little mental journey has progressed, I must admit to being pleasantly surprised by the academic freedom that the senior leaders of the Army allow. Every week I find a new professional document where the organization is calling into question some long held belief or norm. I wish more of my peers were doing this. It would truly challenge a lot of what they consider to be doctrine.
Earlier this week, I brought the Effective Training Design brief to a company on post. Interestingly, while there will inevitably be a marksmanship portion to it, I was not hired principally for that. The unit wants (or at least says it wants) to develop it's junior leaders and challenge them to become more creative, responsive, and invested in the training of their Soldiers.
I spent the day with around 25 mostly junior (Sergeants) NCOs and we talked through OODA loops and tried to see if we could come up with a way to look at ourselves and training differently. We began with a simple event - land navigation. The issue was that the Soldiers couldn't navigate with a map and compass anymore and the 'old timers' found this ridiculous and unacceptable. As one SSG put it, "This is a baseline Soldier skill. Everyone is required to know how to do it." He was very sure of himself. He could do it, the Army said everyone needed to be able to do it, so everyone should be able to do it because he can. What he didn't see immediately was how much the proliferation of technology, both in and out of the Army, had changed the dynamic. Is traditional land navigation really something we need to invest much time on considering that every vehicle has a navigation system in it and almost every Soldier carries a personal or issued GPS system with them? That's the very question his Soldiers were asking. Does the task itself still have relevance? We spent a hour or so taking that apart and re-orienting ourselves and looking at ways we could conduct the required training in a manner that ultimately resulted in a Soldier who had acquired a skill that makes them more competent and confident on the battlefield. More importantly, that we could provide them a purpose for acquiring this skill.
The we took a break and looked at an entirely separate issue, - suicide. As I have mentioned before, my post has struggled a lot this year with Soldier's taking their own lives. We have invested a lot of time, energy and resources toward reversing this horrible trend. In this group, the idea was that we could maybe we could OODA that as well. We spent about 2 hours doing that. We took apart what we had observed and then these young leaders began to re-orient themselves as to why they thought we had a problem. The wheels for some were beginning to spin a little more freely. In others, you could still hear the gears grinding away. We didn't come up with any answers, but you could plainly see that folks were starting to think - really think - about the issue and not just throw pat answers on the table.
In the afternoon we deconstructed the parts of OODA again and focused on Orientation. These junior leaders finally began to understand that they are the true center of leadership. That the way they view themselves, their priorities, their organization, and their life forms the manner in which they lead others. Folks were starting to sit up straight and focus a little harder now. You could see that, in some cases, they were beginning to understand their responsibility as a leader starts with their responsibility to understand themselves. Even the 'old timers' were paying attention. Whether or not they would change what they had been doing wasn't the issue, that probably wouldn't happen. It's hard to teach old dogs new tricks. But, they were paying attention to the more junior NCOs who are just starting their leadership journey. They did recognize that there was a new excitement in some of them.
At the end of the day, I asked each one of them what they had taken away from the days discussion. In mostly quiet voices they all replied. We wrote the responses down. Maybe the best comment was from a Sergeant who said, "Maybe I need to re-look how I treat one of my Soldiers. What I'm doing now isn't working very well. Maybe there's a better way." Another said, "I need to figure out what's important to me, before I can help them figure out what's important to them."
My job requires me to meet my audience where they are on the leadership spectrum and then move them to a different - and hopefully better - place. My hope is that they willingly choose to do so. I cannot tell them where their individual journey will lead. I cannot tell them what to think. What I can do is show them a method of thinking about themselves, their Soldiers, and their world.
And that is the reason I write this. My leadership journey is no more or less complete than theirs. As I offered them a new viewpoint the other day, so to do I get offered new ideas and ways to look at myself with each experience.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
#42 Selfless Service
"Put the welfare of the Nation, the Army and your subordinates before your own." - FM 6-22
As I have made my way through the Army value system over the last few weeks, I have not always been able to form a concise thesis statement for my thoughts. Words on a page, written in a manual, that appear in form to be very black and white and clear cut, seem to run into vast grey areas as I try to think through them. I get the feeling that today will be no different.
In the Army Field Manual on Leadership, FM 6-22, the section on selfless service is a total of 5 paragraphs long. In the first of those 5 paragraphs you find the following quote:
"While the needs of the Army and the Nation should come first, it does not imply family or self-neglect. To the contrary, such neglect weakens a leader and can cause the Army more harm than good."
That sentence troubles me because it is exactly at the juxtaposition of priorities between organizational and personal requirements that we run into problems. First, while it may be a word game, the Army does not come before the Nation. The Nation is why we exist. We have an Army to serve the needs, values, and requirements of the Nation. Get the order wrong, as I think the manual does, and you set up an incorrect structure. First you selflessly serve the Army, and then we'll get to the Nation. Nope. It must always remain the other way around. First comes the Nation and then comes the Army. In fact, serving the Nation can be done in millions of ways and happens every day. Every doctor, teacher, soup kitchen worker, civil service member, civic or faith based organization member etc provides a service to our nation. The Army is only one possible way to be a selfless servant. We often forget that. Look around your community and you will find those servants everywhere. It is not the special province of those in uniform.
Second, and even more importantly, the quote does not offer any ideas on how to manage the conflict between service to the Army and the familial and personal neglect that does, and will, arise. That puts each Soldier in a constant state of struggle when their personal needs and those of their loved ones must be continually sacrificed for the organization. Especially at a time when many are questioning wether or not the organization really does care about them.
The current war has lasted 8 years. Far longer than was ever expected. Over 4000 service members have been killed. In most cases, we are no longer trying to figure out who has deployed and who hasn't, but rather how many times a service member has deployed. The military has approximately 1.5 million members. Considering the fact that at any one time about 300,000 are deployed across the world, that means that we've almost turned the entire service 3 times since the war began. Units on my post are facing their 4th or 5th year long deployment. How is it possible for me to balance my obligation to the Nation and the Army against the strain and demands that are being placed upon my family? How much service is enough? When have I done my part? When have I lived up to my obligation to the Nation and the Army?
Then we need to look at the portion concerning welfare of subordinates. A subordinate is a person. A human being. Which means that I as a leader am responsible to provide for the welfare of a human being. In an earlier post (# 28) I referenced Army Regulation 600-20 'Army Command Policy' that states that a leader has a requirement to meet the needs of a subordinate across 4 domains, physical, mental, material, and spiritual. Leaders are required to provide for the welfare of their Soldiers in those 4 manners collectively, and yet what skills or education do we provide them to accomplish this? From my experience and schooling, none. I have never been taught how to balance the competing demands of selfless service to the Nation and the Army against the human being requirements of my Soldiers. I have learned how to do it over time, experience and age. It has become what is often called wisdom.
When I was a young man service to the Army was my only imperative. The organization told me what it needed me to do and I did it. And that was ok because, although there was sacrifice involved, I really didn't have any competing demands. And the Nation was not at war. For as much as we thought we were working hard and selflessly serving, we really weren't. For every demand placed upon us we were compensated somehow down the road. Selfless service was easy.
Now I am older. I have a family and some of my priorities have changed. We are involved in a protracted war that is ill-defined and likely will persist on different fronts for decades to come. There will not be an endless series of days for me to make up time lost with my wife and daughter. I have learned that life is fleeting. I have memorialized young men who thought that they too would have an endless series of days. And I am left to wonder, how selfless can my service be? Is the possibility of creating a widow and a fatherless child in order to fulfill my obligation to the Nation worth it?
And while we're at it, Selfless Service implies sacrifice for the individual Soldier. That's a given. But what about the families and children and others who, by extension, are also selflessly serving their country and the Army? Make no mistake, the demands that the Army makes on me are easily exceeded by the demands it places upon my wife. And because she is not under some form of contract to the Army, she truly is serving as a volunteer. No compensation, no promotion, no obligation. Only because she is willing to put the Nation, the Army and me above her dreams and aspirations is she willing to accept this sacrifice for our family. Funny, but the manual doesn't address her at all. The Command Policy regulation does, but the leadership manual does not. I wonder why that is? Shouldn't leadership education include an understanding of those regulations that the Army calls it's bedrock imperatives? As a husband and father I know that I cannot equally meet my obligations to both the Army and my family. The difficulty is finding the balance. Maybe we ought to start looking at issues like that in our leadership schools....
And that is the part of Selfless Service that the 5 paragraphs don't address. That each of us will have to reach these decisions and conclusions for ourselves. As I work my way through the Army Values they should serve to drive me back into my own heart and mind to resolve the conflict that each of them raises. They should serve to remind me to reevaluate every now again what my priorities are and how near or far they are from the institution's stated norms.
I often use quotations to help me crystallize my thoughts. In light of this post, here are some I found today that strike a chord with me:
"You can only govern by serving them. The rule is without exception." - Victor Cousin
"Men grow only in proportion to the service they render to their fellow men and women" - Captain Edward V. Rickenbacher
"If in the last few years you haven't discarded a major opinion, or discovered a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead." - Gelett Burgess
The first quote follows my line of thought regarding servant leadership. We serve down. Those we lead do not exist for us to practice leadership. They exist for us to provide selfless service. The second quote recognizes the individual sense of well being that comes from possessing a servant oriented soul. The last is included because it is the reason for the blog.
To figure out who you are and what you value is the very first - and most important - responsibility of leadership.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
As I have made my way through the Army value system over the last few weeks, I have not always been able to form a concise thesis statement for my thoughts. Words on a page, written in a manual, that appear in form to be very black and white and clear cut, seem to run into vast grey areas as I try to think through them. I get the feeling that today will be no different.
In the Army Field Manual on Leadership, FM 6-22, the section on selfless service is a total of 5 paragraphs long. In the first of those 5 paragraphs you find the following quote:
"While the needs of the Army and the Nation should come first, it does not imply family or self-neglect. To the contrary, such neglect weakens a leader and can cause the Army more harm than good."
That sentence troubles me because it is exactly at the juxtaposition of priorities between organizational and personal requirements that we run into problems. First, while it may be a word game, the Army does not come before the Nation. The Nation is why we exist. We have an Army to serve the needs, values, and requirements of the Nation. Get the order wrong, as I think the manual does, and you set up an incorrect structure. First you selflessly serve the Army, and then we'll get to the Nation. Nope. It must always remain the other way around. First comes the Nation and then comes the Army. In fact, serving the Nation can be done in millions of ways and happens every day. Every doctor, teacher, soup kitchen worker, civil service member, civic or faith based organization member etc provides a service to our nation. The Army is only one possible way to be a selfless servant. We often forget that. Look around your community and you will find those servants everywhere. It is not the special province of those in uniform.
Second, and even more importantly, the quote does not offer any ideas on how to manage the conflict between service to the Army and the familial and personal neglect that does, and will, arise. That puts each Soldier in a constant state of struggle when their personal needs and those of their loved ones must be continually sacrificed for the organization. Especially at a time when many are questioning wether or not the organization really does care about them.
The current war has lasted 8 years. Far longer than was ever expected. Over 4000 service members have been killed. In most cases, we are no longer trying to figure out who has deployed and who hasn't, but rather how many times a service member has deployed. The military has approximately 1.5 million members. Considering the fact that at any one time about 300,000 are deployed across the world, that means that we've almost turned the entire service 3 times since the war began. Units on my post are facing their 4th or 5th year long deployment. How is it possible for me to balance my obligation to the Nation and the Army against the strain and demands that are being placed upon my family? How much service is enough? When have I done my part? When have I lived up to my obligation to the Nation and the Army?
Then we need to look at the portion concerning welfare of subordinates. A subordinate is a person. A human being. Which means that I as a leader am responsible to provide for the welfare of a human being. In an earlier post (# 28) I referenced Army Regulation 600-20 'Army Command Policy' that states that a leader has a requirement to meet the needs of a subordinate across 4 domains, physical, mental, material, and spiritual. Leaders are required to provide for the welfare of their Soldiers in those 4 manners collectively, and yet what skills or education do we provide them to accomplish this? From my experience and schooling, none. I have never been taught how to balance the competing demands of selfless service to the Nation and the Army against the human being requirements of my Soldiers. I have learned how to do it over time, experience and age. It has become what is often called wisdom.
When I was a young man service to the Army was my only imperative. The organization told me what it needed me to do and I did it. And that was ok because, although there was sacrifice involved, I really didn't have any competing demands. And the Nation was not at war. For as much as we thought we were working hard and selflessly serving, we really weren't. For every demand placed upon us we were compensated somehow down the road. Selfless service was easy.
Now I am older. I have a family and some of my priorities have changed. We are involved in a protracted war that is ill-defined and likely will persist on different fronts for decades to come. There will not be an endless series of days for me to make up time lost with my wife and daughter. I have learned that life is fleeting. I have memorialized young men who thought that they too would have an endless series of days. And I am left to wonder, how selfless can my service be? Is the possibility of creating a widow and a fatherless child in order to fulfill my obligation to the Nation worth it?
And while we're at it, Selfless Service implies sacrifice for the individual Soldier. That's a given. But what about the families and children and others who, by extension, are also selflessly serving their country and the Army? Make no mistake, the demands that the Army makes on me are easily exceeded by the demands it places upon my wife. And because she is not under some form of contract to the Army, she truly is serving as a volunteer. No compensation, no promotion, no obligation. Only because she is willing to put the Nation, the Army and me above her dreams and aspirations is she willing to accept this sacrifice for our family. Funny, but the manual doesn't address her at all. The Command Policy regulation does, but the leadership manual does not. I wonder why that is? Shouldn't leadership education include an understanding of those regulations that the Army calls it's bedrock imperatives? As a husband and father I know that I cannot equally meet my obligations to both the Army and my family. The difficulty is finding the balance. Maybe we ought to start looking at issues like that in our leadership schools....
And that is the part of Selfless Service that the 5 paragraphs don't address. That each of us will have to reach these decisions and conclusions for ourselves. As I work my way through the Army Values they should serve to drive me back into my own heart and mind to resolve the conflict that each of them raises. They should serve to remind me to reevaluate every now again what my priorities are and how near or far they are from the institution's stated norms.
I often use quotations to help me crystallize my thoughts. In light of this post, here are some I found today that strike a chord with me:
"You can only govern by serving them. The rule is without exception." - Victor Cousin
"Men grow only in proportion to the service they render to their fellow men and women" - Captain Edward V. Rickenbacher
"If in the last few years you haven't discarded a major opinion, or discovered a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead." - Gelett Burgess
The first quote follows my line of thought regarding servant leadership. We serve down. Those we lead do not exist for us to practice leadership. They exist for us to provide selfless service. The second quote recognizes the individual sense of well being that comes from possessing a servant oriented soul. The last is included because it is the reason for the blog.
To figure out who you are and what you value is the very first - and most important - responsibility of leadership.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
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