[October 31, 2016] Today is Halloween; a secular holiday with popular “scary” themes. But here is something scarier that keeps leaders up at night. There are two regrettable but headline making, leading issues that put senior military leaders in a very bad light. First, over the past several decades we’ve known that the U.S. military system is not… Read More »
[October 30, 2016] In Part 1 of this two-part series on T.E. Lawrence, I wrote about how he recommends fighting alongside Arab troops. But what Lawrence does best is give us his thinking on how to be successful when working with another culture so different from his own British origins. Lawrence gives a good view of this thoughts… Read More »
[October 29, 2016] On occasion I present a leader who is well known through their actions or their writings. My intent is to get into the mind of that person so that those of us who study leadership can better understand the thinking of those who were successful, and even exceptional, in carrying out their leadership duties. Today,… Read More »
[October 28, 2016] One of my themes1 here at theLeaderMaker.com has been that anyone can learn a great deal about leadership through the study of the successes and failures of other leaders. This is best done by doing our darndest to learn about what leaders think and thus how they carry out their responsibilities; for good or for… Read More »
[October 27, 2016] I grew up in the Deep South, rural Louisiana, where we had strict rules about how children were to behave. One hard-and-fast rule in my family was that my brother and I got to watch only one “war show” per week and the one we chose was the television series called Combat! The show was… Read More »
[October 26, 2016] In the early days of World War II, the Allies had many strategically difficult problems to solve. The most pressing and most dangerous if wrong was how to fight the Germans and Japanese (and the Italians) simultaneously and not be stretched too thinly and thus be defeated by either. In the past 100 years, this… Read More »
[October 25, 2016] My great uncle owned and operated an animal feed store in Arkansas until the early 1960s when his business failed; which he blamed on racial integration of blacks. His racism was a serious blind spot because it deprived him of potential customers. Blind spots for leaders can also have disastrous consequences. But what are typical… Read More »
[October 24, 2016] Ten years ago exactly on this date in 2016, my unit was part of a major fight north of Baghdad. At the end of the day I was getting on a transport at the nearby Forward Operating Base that would take a few officers back for a debriefing. The appearance of the senior civilian in… Read More »
[October 23, 2016] If we were to have an official slogan for leadership it would be Follow Me! From the beginning of human existence, those who lead have inspired others to follow them to perform a task, to complete a mission, to engage the enemy on the battlefield, or to win on the playing field. It means that… Read More »
[October 22, 2016] In 1868, former U.S. Army General Ulysses S Grant was elected president to an office that had bore witness to a national divisiveness over the aftermath of the great U.S. Civil War that ended just a few years before. While Grant is best known for his generalship during that war, it was what he did… Read More »