Stand Your Ground: Building Honorable Leaders the West Point Way

(from the Kindle book description) Management professor and West Point graduate Evan Offstein approached leaders at the United States Military Academy (USMA) with two primary questions:

(1) How does West Point develop its leaders?

(2) Can other individuals and organizations apply these methods effectively?

Two years later, after conducting extensive on-site research at West Point and with business leaders in a variety of industries, he offers unprecedented access to the process of leadership development at West Point, and practical insights that can, indeed be applied in any type of organization that strives to operate on the principle of integrity. West Point is the ideal laboratory for studying the dynamics of character, honor and leadership: first, it operates a comprehensive honor education and enforcement program that has been subjected to rigorous Congressional scrutiny; second, it builds all of its academic, athletic and military programs on the bedrock of honor.

(Book Excerpts)

Stand Your Ground: Building Honorable Leaders the West Point Way

By Evan H. Offstein

==========

“I did it because it was the right thing to do. I was very scared. I had worked my way through college and was nearing the end. Teaching has been a lifelong dream of mine. But I thought to myself, “What kind of teacher do I really want to be? And, if I were in the girl’s shoes, I’d pray every day for someone to save me. I’ve gotten good grades and I’ve done well here, but I’m most proud of this one incident. I didn’t back down. I was strong. And the way I handled this event only made me stronger.”

==========

Instead, the question that I attempt to answer is “What do the greatest leaders share in common that distinguishes them from everybody else?” In the end, I found that the missing link between great, good, and horrible leadership at all levels and throughout all organizations was that of honor.

==========

During this presentation, he defined leadership as “providing purpose, direction, motivation, and application in order to accomplish the goal or improve the organization.” After consulting several recent leadership books, I noticed a subtle difference between his definition and that of most others. His last three words “improve the organization” seemed to distinguish Dave Jones’s concept of leadership from many of the common ones that exist today.

==========

Although West Point and the honorable leaders that I interviewed there and in other organizations did focus on “knowing” and “doing,” stronger emphasis was first placed on “being.”

==========

The BE component of this model involves a person’s attributes, his or her honor. More importantly, the BE directly affects the knowledge we seek and how we go about “doing” and executing. Without an honorable BE, the Knowing and Doing are rendered ineffective and, in some cases, can become downright dangerous.

==========

Several years after the December 2001 collapse of Enron, beat reporters and academicians agreed that the story of Enron was really not a complex one. In fact, it boiled down to the BE. Lay, Skilling, and their CFO Andrew Fastow, had the Know and Do, but lacked the BE. As a result, the Know and Do were destined to fail.

==========

Leading from the high ground is quite different from what I call low-elevation leadership. This high-ground leadership philosophy emphasizes honor in the BE portion of the BE-Know-Do leadership development model. By honor, I simply mean the attributes of leaders who shape their actions and decisions against a higher, usually noble principle.

==========

At our crest, what does it say? It says, “˜Duty, Honor, Country.’ We cannot fulfill our duty to our country if we all act dishonorably. We are a beacon for others. We are under constant and continual scrutiny. We must conduct ourselves, even in the dirty business of war, with honor. If not, our duty is hollow and our country has no legitimacy. Yeah. Honor is what holds the ideals of duty and country together. Without honor we can just go ahead and bulldoze West Point off its perch and right into the Hudson River.”

==========

To begin with, honorable leaders possess a mature and often wise perspective. Moreover, I noticed that this perspective often balanced short- and long-term consequences. Specifically, I found that many leaders understood that skimping or cheating on the short-term was bound to cause long-term problems.

==========

In summary, honorable leadership from the high ground offers insight where others are blind.

==========

Discretion and Freedom Next time you go for a hike or climb, make a particular note of your feeling the instant you reach the summit. I’ve heard some people remark, “I’m on top of the world” or “I feel so free!” Remarkably, I detected this precise sentiment from honorable leaders. This runs counter to the feelings of those on the low ground who feel that telling the truth or abiding by the highest standards of conduct are constraining forces.

==========

From the high ground, you can usually take a step in any direction you want””forward, backward, east, west, north, or south. The same cannot be said of those that are on the low ground.

==========

Thus, it is apparent that honorable leadership from the high ground expands, never restricts, a leader’s discretion and freedom. Since leaders must solve problems and respond to challenges both inside and outside their organization, this managerial discretion is quite valuable.

==========

True Sense of Safety and Security The National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) examined the brokerage houses of Jefferies Group, Inc., SG Cowen & Company, and Lazard Capital Markets for funding a lavish bachelor party for Thomas Bruderman, a onetime star trader for Fidelity Investments. The suspected motive for throwing a $100,000 party for this Fidelity trader was a simple one: “these brokerage houses wanted a leg up in doing business with Fidelity Investments.”³ In addition to the firing of several top managers within and among these firms, regulators notified these brokerage houses in June 2004 that civil charges would be filed against certain traders.

==========

What these people, teams, or organizations miss that honorable leaders on the high ground possess is safety and a sense of security. Many of the low-ground leaders just mentioned must deal with the constant fear of investigation or sanction, both professionally and personally.

==========

Symbolic Motivation This point can be best conveyed through humankind’s experience with Mount Everest, “the world’s ultimate high ground.” Mount Everest rises over 29,000 feet above sea level. Modern attempts by Westerners to scale Mount Everest began in 1921. Two great adventurers, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, lost their lives in a failed ascent in 1924.5 Because of that incident, many began to doubt the ability of man to conquer this mountain. Two men thought it could be beaten and refused to give up. In 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit, the high ground. From these two leaders, others followed despite the danger. Overall, more than 600 climbers from at least 20 different countries have reached this high ground. It began, though, with the will of two. In investigations and inquiries, I repeatedly saw the power of indirect role modeling. Plainly speaking, when people see others reach the high ground, they say, “It can be done” or “I can do this.” More important, other great people will tend to want to join you once you make it to the high ground. Because of that, the high ground will always be a special place with special people. The same cannot be said for those on the low ground.

==========

Like those 600 people who have ascended Everest, few people really can or choose to exercise honorable leadership. In reality, the difficult ascent is what makes it such a special place and a place of the ultimate competitive advantage. A competitive advantage exists if you have something that others lack. Since reaching the high ground is such a difficult, time-consuming, and momentous task, you are, in effect, guaranteed a special advantage.

==========

Frank Borman is a great example of the difficulty of this journey. Frank Borman was a West Point graduate and one of the early astronauts.

==========

He later became the CEO of Eastern Airlines. There he was charged with turning around the troubled airline company. When he arrived, he found a poisonous and toxic culture filled with excuses and blame. There was no sense of employee ownership and no strong leadership. Frank Borman tried to reach the high ground. He began by trying to repair an ailing and corrosive corporate culture. But, in an experience that brought a grown and honorable man to tears, he failed. He was fired by the board, and Eastern dissolved.

==========

Secure can mean two things. The first is to gain possession or to acquire. But you can’t stop here. You must do more than just seize the high ground, which puts too much emphasis on the journey and the initial occupation. If you don’t protect the summit by honorable leadership once you’re there, you are destined to fall from your perch.

==========

It is a sad fact, but many often let up once they reach the high ground and this is when the danger begins. Indeed, many of the executives involved in corporate scandals have not always been dishonorable or low elevation leaders. It would be difficult to fool that many people on their way to the top.

==========

What is important is that he secured the high ground through his BE - his honor. We know that his honor and the high ground on which it rested were under constant siege. He could have cheated. But he chose to secure and to protect his integrity.

Ask yourself, “What kind of leader do you think this young man will be?”

==========

 “How much better would your team be, or your organization be, if you could implicitly trust each other?”

 “How much time would be saved by honorable behavior and trusting relationships?”

“How much cognitive energy would be freed to explore other more important priorities if negative politicking were reduced?”

“How much more competitive could I be, could we all be, by working in a culture of mutual trust?

“What’s stopping you from moving toward this honorable standard?”

“How can I get to the high ground?”

==========

I found, however, that the West Point approach toward honorable leadership actually begins with thinking. Put differently, good thinking precedes good leading.

==========

The moment is the point in time in which you enter a decisional intersection. Here, your honor is either knowingly or unknowingly tested. The key, I learned, is to know that you are approaching this moment. While some people speed right through decisional intersections without much care or thought, this is hardly, if ever, the case with honorable leaders. Like careful drivers, many West Point young men and women demonstrated a sixth sense that recognized when they were entering a moment challenging their honor.

==========

I collected enough data points at West Point and beyond to surmise that honorable leaders tend to shun passive thinking in favor of critical judgment and acute awareness. This assures them several advantages. Conspicuously, this critical and systematic approach to understanding and solving interpersonal and organizational problems allows honorable leaders to challenge and revisit assumptions that many take for granted.

==========

and they’re like “Don’t you have a fake ID?” And I tell’em, “No.” And they’re like, “You really ought to get one.” But, if you live by honesty, then you just wouldn’t do that. You know, using a fake ID, while it may seem something not really big, it’s the small things in life that really add up to make a person’s character. If you brush off the small stuff and ignore it, what does that say about you? Is a $3.00 beer worth compromising my honor? No way.

==========

These cases also illustrate a key point that marks a significant departure from conventional leadership thought and practice. Whereas most ordinary leaders suggest that you need intent to have a breach of character, those who lead from the high ground strongly disagree. Instead, honorable leaders make no excuse for not knowing. To them, you can have a breach of character without intent. Borrowing from the field of law, their thinking is similar to the concept of negligence. At West Point, it is apparent that leaders see it as their duty to erect their antennae to gain better awareness.

==========

Ignorance never protects your honor. Honorable leaders see a duty to erect and tune their antennae to stay informed.

==========

In a sense, it appears that West Point and other honorable organizations aspire to erect multidirectional antennae in the minds of their leaders. The mental antennae that honorable leaders erect can receive and transmit both short and distant signals. Let me give you an example.

==========

He went on to say that just because systems are bound to break, that doesn’t negate our responsibility to see that they’re fixed. He went on to argue that a system’s breakdown should never be our license to take advantage. To Miles, other stakeholders were involved who might get hurt. What if the system were down for me, but not for others? What kind of unfair advantage would I gain? How about the people who design or have some stake in the system? How can they improve a system if they aren’t told immediately that it’s broken?

==========

When these two cases are placed in front of a person like Miles Nash, who stands on the high ground with the mental antenna up, the response is predictable. Instead of taking immediate advantage of a computer failure for personal gain, there is concern about the other stakeholders involved. There is an understanding of the mistake and an acknowledgement of true intent. I can imagine Miles Nash saying, “Wow, there’s a mistake here. I know that a ticket should not be sold for two dollars. I need to alert US Airways that their system is down and that they’re in trouble.”

==========

When those mental antennae rest on the high ground, leaders tend to use and dispense information that is more transparent, more honest, more forthright, and more constructive. When information is received and transmitted in that manner, everybody within the range of that honorable leader’s antenna is positively affected.

==========

If you’re unhappy with the information you’re getting, don’t check your antenna, check first the placement of that antenna. Similarly, when you look at the way you communicate with others, ask yourself:

“Am I honest?”

“Are there always hidden meanings?”

“Do people spend a lot of time trying to make sense of my messages?”

“Am I communicating or am I politicking?”

Your answers to these questions likely hinge on the placement of your antenna. Is it on the high ground?

==========

If you were perceptive, you probably noted that this young cadet indicated that her antenna wasn’t always there.

==========

In essence, Govern saw his role as that of a Seeing Eye dog. Without leaders like him, we’re apt to dismiss, ignore, or just accept the events that occur all around us. People performing the Seeing Eye dog function force us to see and confront these public lapses of honor.

==========

But “awareness” is where all leadership seems to begin at places like West Point and other honorable organizations. I found that higher elevation leaders and organizations never assume awareness. Instead, they actively cultivate it.

==========

Making honor awareness a priority seems to work as confirmed by a conversation I had with one young lady, a student athlete on the West Point soccer team. She remarked, “They sent us the book In Search of Ethics before we even got here! And then when we did get here, that book became a topic of conversation. In the barracks. Everywhere.”

==========

This movie clip depicts a “dilemma.” A dilemma is a situation or a decision point that requires one to choose between options that are or seem equally unfavorable and mutually exclusive. In addition, most dilemmas have time constraints.

==========