When I commanded the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, I had several gifted commanders with radically different personalities. I could tell one of them to go take a hill, and it was done. I could tell another to go take a hill and he immediately asked questions: “When? How? What other support can you give me? Do I have the priority on resources? Then what do I do?”
Both commanders would take the hill and accomplish the mission. Who was the better commander? The can-do commander was exciting and admirable, but he sometimes charged off without asking basic questions. He could get in trouble quickly. He did not always capture all my guidance and the larger picture of the battlefield. The other commander could annoy me with his pestering questions, but he often came up with the more skillful plan and the more careful execution.
My job was to get the best out of both and complement their strengths and shortcomings. I would often question the can-do commander to make sure he understood the answers to the questions he didn’t ask. His aggressiveness and can-do attitude needed to be monitored and controlled. And I would often lose patience with the pesterer, cut him off, and toss him into the action.
You will seldom get a perfectly matched set of subordinates. They are not clones, and even clones aren’t identical. As long as they understand what I want and are in harmony with me, I can manage their differences. Within the range of my personality, experience, tolerance, and expectations I can work with practically any combination of subordinates—as long as they can do the job.
Now and again it turns out that a subordinate is not in harmony with me, and I have to relieve him. This is never easy. It can be especially difficult when a subordinate has done nothing specifically wrong that warrants relief. During my assignment to the 101st, I had to relieve a commander for that hard-to-pin-down reason. He’d so far had a successful career; he’d done nothing specifically wrong that would have demanded his relief; but I never sensed that I had him, that he was in my space. He performed well enough to be seen as competent, but that was not enough. He wasn’t leading to my satisfaction. He executed my instructions, but only marginally and without passion and intensity. He went through the motions with minimal enthusiasm and commitment. His unit reacted in like manner. He didn’t inspire or fire up his troops. I was dragging a weight behind me.
His personality made him a good manager, but not a leader who made a difference. Everyone could see it, and I had to let him go. It was difficult, but I hadn’t acted precipitously or in an arbitrary manner. I had tried counseling him, but that didn’t help. He knew my concerns and lack of satisfaction directly from me.
When I told him that I had to relieve him, I made it clear that I was quite sure he could be successful in another job in a different capacity. He was crestfallen, but the needs of the unit came first.
During my transition to Secretary of State, I recruited an old friend as a speechwriter. He was one of the best speechwriters I had ever met; he had worked at the very highest levels of government; and I had worked with him before and knew his style. It had all the elements of a brilliant choice.
It didn’t last long. He kept trying to cram his thoughts into my words, rather than use his skills to enhance my thoughts and words. We had a heart-to-heart one evening, and he quietly found a senior official to work for in another department. I wished him all the best, but my game, my ball.
What do I look for in subordinates? The usual qualities: competence, intelligence, character, moral and physical courage, toughness with empathy, ability to inspire, and loyalty. Beyond that, I want subordinates who will argue with me and execute my decisions with total loyalty, as if the decision were originally their own. Past performance is examined closely, but I try to sense future potential. I want imaginative and creative folks with ideas and the ability to anticipate. I treasure the person who sees a problem before I do and does something about it before I even know it exists. I treasure the person who sees opportunity before anyone else and smells risks and threats early.
I also look for people who will fit in with me and with my team. When I commanded a battalion in Korea, my brigade commander asked me to give a company command to a brilliant young captain on the brigade staff. He was an exceptional officer—extremely talented—but he’d let his brilliance go to his head. He had trouble getting along with other captains. His personal behavior left something to be desired and was the subject of much gossip in the brigade. He was good, and I could have managed him, but he would not have fit in on my team.
I suggested to my boss that the captain be assigned somewhere else. He was. He got off to a solid, though too self-promotional start. But after a few months his personal behavior problems publicly manifested themselves, resulting in an ugly inspector general investigation and his relief.
On some occasions, I’ve passed on people I probably should have hired. On other occasions, I have stuck with people I should have let go. And many times, people have strengths you need, even when that means you have to put up with weaknesses that you forever have to cover. In selecting people you just hope you bat over .500.
Because you have to have spice in the stew, I also look for characters. An organization is invigorated when a handful of slightly felonious, offbeat eccentrics are on the team. Some of my most memorable experiences and good ideas have come from folks who get out of the box and have fun. Guys like Tiger Honeycutt. Brigadier General Weldon “Tiger” Honeycutt was my immediate boss in the 101st Airborne. A heavily decorated hero, he never flinched from taking on anybody or anything.
One weekend the senior leadership of the division was convened to participate in a two-day “Organizational Effectiveness” seminar, run by a civilian academic facilitator. His first instruction was to list on charts our goals and objectives, after which we would discuss our feelings about them. When he finished his opening presentation, Tiger raised his hand. “How much are we paying this son of a bitch?” he asked. Tiger was excused from the course.
Every morning, I gave him my standard greeting, “Good morning, sir, how are you?”
His standard reply: “A helluva lot better than you. I’m a friggin’ general and you ain’t.”
Guys like Tiger are the spice every organization needs.
When I’m choosing people, I try to support my strengths and fill in my weaknesses. I want people around me who are better than I am in areas where I am not comfortable. I want folks who are smarter than I am, but who neither know it nor show it.
In selecting a deputy, I always want someone who is tougher and nastier than I can be. I’m the good guy and chaplain. He is the disciplinarian and enforcer. Major Sonny Tucker was my executive officer in the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division. His office was right next to mine; I heard just about everything that went on in there. When someone had displeased me, all I had to do was let Sonny know. Later that day I could hear him through the wall. “C’mere, boy, you made my colonel unhappy; and when he is unhappy, I am pissed. And now I am going to eat your lunch.” After Sonny retired he became a minister.
I always fully empower my deputy to act for me.
Early in my tenure as Secretary of State, my deputy, Rich Armitage, was given a document to sign while I was on a trip. The staff put the title “Acting Secretary of State” under his signature. “That’s not necessary,” I told them. “I’m always available through the miracle of modern communications. We’ll never need an ‘Acting Secretary’ while I’m Secretary.”
The staff was confused about what they should do when I was on the other side of the world. The answer was simple: Rich could sign as Deputy Secretary of State. His signature was as valid as mine. In the very few instances where the law required my signature, I’d sign. Those were the only exceptions.
The point was, Rich had my total trust and I had his. The staff tried to write this arrangement up in a regulation. I told them not to bother; they’d soon see how it worked. There was never a problem.
Do I look for good managers or good leaders? Let us bury that old distinction. Good managers are good leaders, and good leaders are good managers. But great leaders have a special touch that separates them from managers. Good management gets 100 percent of a team’s designed capability. Great leaders seek a higher ground. They take their followers to 110, 120, 150 percent of what anyone thought was possible. Great leaders do not just motivate followers; they inspire them. The followers are turned on by their leaders.
Superior leaders also tend to be superior managers. They are rare gems. Always be looking for the person with the potential to give you 150 percent.
In the early 1980s, we were working hard to see if we could use simulators to make unit training cheaper and more effective. I was a brigadier general in the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colorado, when we received for testing new tank gunnery simulators.
Tankers love to race cross-country and shoot their main gun. It is how they train to win in battle. But there are downsides. Not the least of these is the cost of the shells they fire, up to $1,000 each in 1981 dollars. For that reason, each tank crew got an allocation of only ninety shells per year.
This is where the simulators came in. Could the same level of proficiency be achieved using simulators? We were instructed to test our new simulators to find that out.
The crews were put in an isolated booth replicating the inside of a tank turret. The terrain rolled by on a screen; enemy tanks popped up; and the crews engaged them with an electronic gun.
We selected two tank battalions to test the concept. One got the full ninety rounds per tank and did not train on the simulator. The other battalion got only fifty rounds, but had hours of training per crew on the simulator. We then reversed the battalions and repeated the trials.
In the first trials, the battalion with no simulator time scored better. But then when we put the same battalion on simulator training, they scored higher again. We cut fifty rounds to forty rounds, and the same battalion won. We reversed the process again; the same battalion kept winning. The analysts were bewildered.
The answer was simple. The difference was the battalion commander. He was determined to do better, no matter what we threw at him. He drilled that into his soldiers. Every night they worked on it. Every man was determined to do his best and to hell with the analysts. The other battalion was a good battalion, but the commander didn’t have those extra qualities of hunger, competitiveness, drive, passion, and imagination that his buddy did and that infected his whole unit.
I don’t want to carry this lesson too far. Simulators are great for training, and we do a lot with them today that you couldn’t dream of thirty years ago. Yet we can never have enough battalion commanders like the one who kept winning no matter what.
On the whole, I like people who work hard, have a purpose, inspire folks, spend time with their family, have fun, and aren’t busy bastards. I like a happy team. I work hard to make sure my followers work hard, and I work hard to make sure they enjoy their work. That can only come from believing in what they are doing and feeling they have been prepared and equipped to get the work done.
I set high but not impossible standards. Mine are achievable with maximum effort.
I do not like to see an atmosphere of fear in an organization, where shouting, screaming, and abuse of subordinates are common. You’re probably saying, “Well, who does?” You’d be surprised. I have worked in fear- and abuse-filled organizations and have seen a lot more. Their leaders were at bottom insecure bullies who substituted Sturm und Drang for leadership. I have never known any leader who got the best out of his people that way.
“What is a leader?” people ask me.
My simple answer: “Someone unafraid to take charge. Someone people respond to and are willing to follow.”
I believe that leaders must be born with a natural connection and affinity to others, which then must be encouraged and developed by parents and teachers and molded by training, experience, and mentoring. You can learn to be a better leader. And you can also waste your natural talents by ceasing to learn and grow.