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REAL LEADERSHIP SKILLS
CurryforAmerica.com
There were many occasions, during my thirty-four or so
years of serving in the U.S. Army, when I took command of failing military
units and nursed them back to good, sound health. I did it so often that it
became one of my specialties.
If you tell soldiers or units often enough that they are
failures, they will become failures even when they are not. A real leader
must instill within his subordinates the feeling and knowledge that they are
or can quickly become certain “winners” and that if they do what he tells
them to do they will not only succeed, but will set the standard for other
units to emulate.
The worst thing a new leader can do is to start off by
blaming others, threatening punishment or, as President Obama so smugly puts
it, “kicking ass.” Obviously he is still in the process of learning that no
one can effectively build a unit and motivate their subordinates to
successfully attack and solve major problems if the subordinates are in
constant fear of being fired or publicly humiliated.
Experience also teaches that sometimes when you assemble a
group of brilliant authorities who expertly wrestle their way through a
problem and come to a brilliant consensus they are sometimes wrong. Thus you
may suffer through the embarrassment of having kicked the wrong “ass.”
Experienced leaders know that it is much more effective to motivate your
subordinates through reward than through punishment.
The mission statement for every leader from President of
the United States to CEO to Boy Scout leader is “well developed skills of
persuasion and openness to working through controversy in a positive way.”
That is, everyone has their say and dissenting views are openly examined,
discarded or expanded upon and adopted. Most of the time an authoritative
leadership style is less preferred than a participatory one. Unfortunately
for Obama, who still has so much to learn about leadership, there is no
substitute for a lack of seasoned instinct and the ability to identify and
deal with ever increasing challenges.
Fort Benning, Georgia is the home of the U. S. Army’s
Infantry School. I have been assigned to or visited it many times; its motto
is “Follow Me!” Those who attend the school major in “LEADERSHIP,
LEADERSHIP, and LEADERSHIP!” To help vividly impress the importance of
leadership upon the minds of the students is the statue of an infantry
leader caught in mid stride, clutching a rifle in his left hand and
signaling with his up-raised right arm for those behind to follow him.
Appropriately it is named “Follow Me!”
We have a saying in the Infantry. To really know what’s
going on in battle you must go to the sound of the guns, the rifles, the
machineguns, the pounding mortars, and the screaming “incoming” artillery
shells. There is no substitute for going where the action is! Dithering in
your headquarters or in the White House for weeks or flying around the
country attending parties, social events, speaking at political fund raisers
or playing basketball and golf simply doesn’t cut it.
A real leader immediately goes to the sound of the guns,
the disaster area, and when he gets there he talks directly to those who are
leading the battle – those directly in charge of stopping and containing the
oil spill. He purposes to talk to the “James Carvilles” who speak for
everyone living and making a livelihood along the Gulf Coast when he cries
out, “We’re dying down here!” A true leader recognizes and responds to the
pleas for a personal visit and measurable, immediate help.
The worst thing to do is to fail to give the “first
responders” and the Governors at the oil spill whatever they request. Most
request made by those involved in close combat are for necessities but some
are just morale building. I remember my soldiers during one of my tours in
Vietnam asking for ice cream to go with their “Thanksgiving” meals. They
certainly didn’t need ice cream and it wasn’t on the menu. In fact, it was a
real challenge and inconvenience to locate and helicopter it in; but it gave
them a sense of home and put a light in their tired eyes. Those who face
death daily deserve all the ice cream they can eat and I got it for them.
Our President has yet to learn that a true leader gives
his soldiers -- those fighting and winning the battle -- and his
subordinates whatever it takes to cause them to rise up and slay the
dragons. Or, in this case, oil spills and plumes. That’s how leaders
motivate their followers to successfully tame catastrophic disasters and to
snatch success from the jaws of failure.
In the meantime, to the dangerous detriment of our
country, Obama is on a very sharp and short learning curve. It is time he
either learned his job, or turned it over to someone who can.