[November 23, 2017] In the early days of my military career, I thought it important to copy the behavior and speech of those known to be the very best leaders. It came naturally, it seemed to me at the time, to find out what those leaders did when they were not “working” – for example, what they were… Read More »
[November 19, 2017] Scandal is Hollywood is not new; everyone knew about the sexual harassment and exploitation that occurred there. It was no secret. Now we find out from pianist James Rhodes, through a twitter post, that actress Maureen O’Hara called out this Hollywood sexism 72 years ago (see newspaper article).1 The Internet is alive with her railing… Read More »
[November 11, 2017] A few days ago Boy Scout Troops from across the rural area where I live, gathered at a local Veterans Cemetery to plant American flags on each grave. Yes, that’s what we call “old-fashioned leadership” and it works like it has always worked. Communities throughout the world have relied on small-town leadership since the beginning… Read More »
[October 21, 2017] Corruption, moral depravity, cruelty, criminality… all these things are believed to disappear if only there was sufficient leader transparency. While perceived as achieving grand results, the truth is that while transparency is good it is also somewhat overrated in its effect. Transparency does work but few of us know what it is about. The days… Read More »
[September 24, 2017] During my first assignment with the 1st Cavalry Division in the Iraqi War, one of our early engineer tasks was to design and build a military dog facility. Dog handlers and their canine friends were part of our unit and were responsible for local security. The Iraqi insurgents we captured called them the dogs of… Read More »
[September 17, 2017] This date in history is well-known in the annals of humankind for September 17th produced a number of life-changing events for Americans and most Western nations. For example, this was the date in 1787 that the U.S. Constitution was signed, in 1939 the Soviet Union invaded Poland as part of that war’s beginning, and in… Read More »
[September 13, 2017] Several years ago, a small group of us “grunt” Infantrymen were invited to attend a formal U.S. Marine Corps’ Mess Night with the 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines (Infantry). We had much in common as our primary job in defending the nation has always been to “close with and destroy the enemy.” That night U.S. Army… Read More »
[September 11, 2017] When we speak of past events it should be noted that people remember things differently and attach many levels of meaning and emotion to them. Like most of us in the United States, things changed for my military peers after the Islamic attacks on September 11, 2001 (aka 9/11). For senior leaders 9/11 meant seeing… Read More »
[September 3, 2017] Happy “4th” Anniversary to theLeaderMaker! Special thanks to all my regular and new readers who have all made this leadership blog successful. As every regular reader knows, I post usually once per day on a topic of relevance to leaders across the world. There is never a shortage of topics and although most of those… Read More »
[August 31, 2017] We don’t hear much about American core values anymore and we certainly don’t see them on television, read about them in the news, or have politicians discuss them. But we do see them in action. The latest are values shown by volunteers who have come out to help those in the state of Texas where… Read More »