The West Point Way of Leadership (Book Excerpts)

Amazon.com introduces Dr. Larry Donnithorne’s book this way: “West Point has bred more CEO’s than any business school, and the leadership skills taught there are truly matters of life and death. Bolder than Sun Tzu, savvier than Gracian—this is the book on learning to lead.”

My old boss, Dr. Ralph D. Winter, often described the structure of mission organizations by contrasting their “mission-oriented” structure with the “nurture-oriented” structure of congregational ministry. If the congregation is “the clan,” he would say; then the mission organization is “the army of the clan.”

So for those of us involved in leader development in mission organizations, one question is: what can we learn about leader development from the way the army trains leaders?

(Note: I consistently use the term “leader development” rather than the more common “leadership development,” because as missions leader development expert (and former US Marine Corps Officer), Dr. Bobby Clinton, of Fuller School of World Missions, pointed out, “the emphasis is on the person, not the performance, of the leader.”)

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West Point Way of Leadership

By Col. Larry Donnithorne

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At every Fortune 500 institution in America, people are taught ethics. At West Point, people are taught character. “Leader of character” is the phrase the Academy uses to describe the kind of leader it wants its cadets to become. A leader of character has all of the qualities we normally associate with leaders, ambition, confidence, courage, intelligence, eloquence, responsibility, creativity, compassion, and one thing more which we unfortunately overlook too frequently among civilian leaders: A leader of character is absolutely trustworthy, even in times of great stress, and can be depended upon to put the needs of others, the organization, the community, above personal considerations, not now and then, or when the spirit moves him, or when it will look good on his resume, but in every instance.

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But the leaders at West Point know something that may sound paradoxical: Rules, especially the rules of leadership, set the stage for initiative, loyalty, and teamwork of a highly powerful nature.

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The sergeant got it right. A West Point education is a powerful curriculum for meeting the demands of leadership. The system is as rigorous as it is thorough. It works on the body, the mind, and the heart. As leadership education, it can’t be smothered.

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From the very first day, cadets find themselves submerged in a cauldron of experiences, which are frequently complex and fast-paced. At first, there isn’t even enough time to think. But every one of these experiences, every aspect of every day of the cadet’s training, is designed to teach leadership.

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As organizational theorist H. A. Simon put it, “A good executive is born when someone with some natural endowment (intelligence, vigor and some capacity for interacting with his fellow men) by dint of practice, learning and experience, develops that endowment into a mature skill.”

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We teach leadership by teaching the raw recruit how to do everything, from eating to walking to thinking, in a new way, a way that will build his or her new stature. That process, and how it can be adapted to organizations outside the military, will become clear in the pages that follow. The core of our program is more than strategy or vision: It’s the philosophy and practice of a set of values.

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In the armed services, one notices the emphasis on subordination, not only to the will of leaders, but frequently of an individual’s desires and goals.

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This is not the prototypical military style, and I would go one step further to state that there is no established military style of leadership at all. Illustrating this point, John Gardner, in his book On Leadership, pointed to the diversity of leadership styles of military commanders. He described George Marshall as a “self-effacing, low-keyed man with superb judgment and a limitless capacity to inspire trust.” Douglas MacArthur was “a brilliant strategist, a farsighted administrator, and flamboyant to his fingertips.” Dwight D. Eisenhower was “an outstanding administrator and coalition builder,” George Patton “a slashing, intense combat commander,” and Bernard Law Montgomery a gifted and temperamental leader of whom Churchill said, “In defeat, indomitable; in victory, insufferable.”

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…observed that “there seemed to be no obvious patterns for [the CEOs’] success. They were right-brained and left-brained, tall and short, fat and thin, articulate and inarticulate, assertive and retiring, dressed for success and dressed for failure, participative and autocratic. There were more variations than themes. Even their managerial styles were restlessly different.”

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I would argue that executive styles are not very important. The roots of sound leadership, be it civilian or military,  are in ideals: moral principles (such as justice and beneficence), high-minded values (loyalty, integrity, consideration for others), and selfless service, all of which this book examines in practical detail. But these values hold no power unless they are practiced. The reader will see how to enact a self-disciplined leadership designed to go beyond personal ambition to serving the best interests of other people, to goals and commitments larger than oneself.

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Upperclass cadets don’t treat the first-year cadets, known as plebes, this way any longer. Today, the prevalent style of leadership in the Army has been evolving to a less autocratic one, which gives greater weight and respect to subordinates than has been the primary mode in the past. At West Point, the obligation emphasized for the upperclass cadet is to behave toward a plebe the way a leader should toward a subordinate. On the first day, the young man or woman in the red sash speaks very firmly, in businesslike terms, but without the bag-dropping exercise. He or she tells the new cadets what they need to know, where they need to go, and what they are going to do. The upperclass cadet makes sure the new cadet understands, and if anything has been left unclear, he or she explains again.

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Before plebes can learn the skills of leadership, the Academy must first remind them of all they don’t know.

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Because from this point on, the only thing that’s important is what they don’t know. Cadets don’t know how to lead soldiers well. They don’t know how to motivate or train or reward or discipline effectively. They don’t even know how to march, salute, or wear the West Point uniforms. The Academy makes it clear to them that they don’t know a lot. Starting from zero is not easy; it’s at best confusing, most probably frightening. Point Zero for new cadets is followership. Cadets spend a year learning the lessons of followership: self-discipline, stress- and time management.

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From there, the cadets embark on four passes of leadership training. The First Pass shows how the Academy forges the bonds that strengthen the organization. Essentially this is done by emphasizing teamwork and the satisfaction of absorbing an institution’s value system, one perhaps higher than their own. The Second Pass helps the individual begin to find his or her own voice in the organization by emphasizing direct or face-to-face leadership, an experience akin to first-level management positions in the corporate world, and moral reasoning, the basis of honorable leadership. The Third Pass teaches the self-reliance and leadership skills necessary to lead people who lead others. This is called indirect leadership. The Fourth Pass, executive leadership, which in corporate life occurs at the upper echelons of management, shows the cadets how to act in their organization’s long-term interest.

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West Point’s proven methods of leadership development are not merely applicable to the civilian world; I believe they offer an important corrective to the world of organizations that has come to accept chaos as naturally as we accept the air we breathe. Chaos may be pervasive, but it needn’t be accepted as inevitable. West Point’s traditional understanding of the value of rules, the value of honor, the point of living by your word,  all of these are fundamentals that bring stability in the midst of chaos, provide a shelter from the storm, and will surely benefit any leader in any business.

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Followers’ jobs are at their essence to do as they are told. They are asked to surrender, for a time, their independence and devote themselves exclusively to practicing the values of the institution they have joined.

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These rituals reinforce the intense concentration required to open the plebes’ minds. Because they have to rethink the most basic aspects of their behavior, their character changes in response from one of self-limiting certainty to awareness, questioning, wondering. West Point is preparing them to change their lives. These rituals teach the basic skill necessary for the first phase of leadership development, self-mastery.

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This is the West Point standard for excellent followership. There is no time to be wasted making excuses for not performing, no time to lose covering up your tracks. There is only time to do the job, for success.

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This is the extension of the four answers: “No excuse, sir.” West Point had trained me to understand that my superior officer only wanted results.

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MAKING A HABIT OF SUCCESS West Point does not teach cadets to listen merely for the good of their souls. It does so because a cadet’s success depends on his understanding of the demands being placed on him.

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LISTENING AT A GUT LEVEL West Point believes there are clearly times when leaders have the responsibility to tell subordinates exactly what they are expected to accomplish, and subordinates have the responsibility to do exactly as they are told.

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FOLLOWING THEM During Beast Barracks such a high volume of information must be absorbed, and so many tasks must be accomplished, that there is not even time to think. Plebes are kept so busy, and have so little time, that free choice is not even an option. They are simply learning what their business is, and how to follow its rules accurately and instantly.

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Honor Is the Language We Speak The cadet’s moral education, as with many other aspects of the Academy’s program of leadership, begins with rules, with the honor code. When they enter, these budding leaders receive as their first and most important matter of business this law, which is short, sweet, and to the point: “A cadet will not lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerate those who do.” The language of honor is spoken in this code.

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West Point believes that an organization, like an individual, can fulfill its highest function only when guided by moral principles. Creating this particular sort of high-performance organization, in which every member is guided by the same bedrock principles, is not easy.

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These three stages take the cadets from simply obeying a moral rule for reasons of self-interest to something much more vital in a leader of character, the ability and will to make a moral decision springing from her deepest personal values and conscience.

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At the first stage, the self-serving stage, one obeys the code for survival; if you don’t, you’re out.

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In this second stage,  the social contract stage, people follow a moral precept because they are pleased with the resulting increase in collective prosperity, not simply to avoid punishment. Still later comes the autonomous stage. One gradually comes to believe through the force of independent intellect that a life lived without moral guidelines is not worth living. This may not even occur until after graduation, indeed, some may never reach this stage of independent moral reasoning at all.

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BECOME YOUR WORD Once the code has been introduced, the Academy teaches cadets how to become their word; how to live as if everything they say is as important as everything they do, because it is!

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The poet Byron said that we lie more to ourselves than to anyone else. So these earliest lessons in leadership are based on language. The reason this is so important is that words are the medium of action for any leader. Promises must be fulfilled. Requests must be acted upon. Empty words cause failed actions. We must live by what we say.

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HOW HONOR BUILDS SHARED VALUES The majority of the cadets say they have no trouble learning to observe the first three tenets of the honor code, living a life without lying, stealing, or cheating. But the fourth tenet “”not tolerating those who do, presents them with a moral conflict.

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And this means that cadets may face the difficult situation of having to put the values of the institution ahead of a personal and strongly felt bond.

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At West Point, the importance of the honor code’s fourth tenet is to insist that, in the final analysis, the shared values of the organization are a more important bond than loyalty to one’s peers.

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CHOOSING GOALS THAT BREED “DOUBLE LOYALTY” A leader can foster double loyalty, to a team and to an organization, by inspiring in subordinates the sense that they are the organization. That the company is not “it” but “us.” The leader can do this through language, by specifically referring to the organization as “us,” because indeed it is the employees who make the organization.

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We had to put our institution’s highest goals, to serve all the people of this region of North Carolina, above our own college’s self-interest.

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The harder right here means not giving in to expediency. It means living out what West Point’s program of moral education taught me: that survival and profitability are not ends. They are only means to the end of serving the public good. Leaders of character serve the public good, and go beyond not only their personal horizons, but even past the horizons of their colleagues, to serve everyone whose interests are affected.

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This brief moment represented a giant step for me. In that instant, I had the profound realization that when individuals agree to behave with a prescribed set of high values they can have a much finer life than if they merely follow orders only because they have to, always looking for what they can get away with.

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 “The Harder Right” The Academy teaches that a life directed by moral guidelines promises deeper, richer satisfactions than a self-serving, self-absorbed life. Many people, in asserting their justifications for immoral actions, claim they see no payoff from moral behavior.

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Before a leader makes a decision, she must imagine her range of influence as a circle. “The harder right” is usually the decision that most positively affects the widest possible circle of people. This requires a type of moral math that isn’t instinctual, it must be practiced.

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But at West Point we urge that our leaders draw the circle ever wider, and take into consideration not just those nearest to them, but those in the Army, the community, the nation, the world. It takes years, and considerable devotion, to do this. It is a continual process of raising one’s sights to include more and more.

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Indeed, if one has any doubts about a moral decision, here is a step-by-step series of questions that will sharply increase a leader’s ability to reach for the harder right: What are the relevant facts of the situation? First, a leader must clearly assess the situation at hand. What is the decision that has to be made? Who and what are involved, and how much is at stake?

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What are the alternative actions available? Honorable leaders don’t make decisions solely on impulse. Even if there’s only a moment to ponder, a leader should, as definitively as possible, balance the different choices available.

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Who will be affected? An honorable leader tries to make the decision that will be most advantageous for the largest number of people. Not attempting to repair the bridge wouldn’t have helped anyone, except Presley.

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What moral principles are involved? In this case the dominant principle was beneficence, doing good for others. But also, the leader must ask herself if there are any morally debatable aspects to the choice she makes.

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How would these principles be advanced or violated by each alternative action? A leader thinks through each choice and its potential results. If we had not advanced to the bridge, we would not have been doing our jobs. We would not have been helping the greatest number.

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CHARACTER IS A PREREQUISITE FOR GREATNESS

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Learning to Be a Team Member During their first daunting year at West Point, plebes pursue one and the same goal: to be such exemplary followers that they can avoid the unwanted attention of the upperclass cadets whose incessant corrections and memorization assignments make plebes’ lives difficult. Plebes work together with strength and determination to defeat this common

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The importance of sharing is reinforced as often as possible. For cadets, there are no individual incentives, only team incentives. If a team member shows up on time for inspection with his belt buckle polished, his shoes shined, and his plebe knowledge perfectly memorized, but other members of his team show up late, not only is he not rewarded for his individual achievement, he is berated, even punished, for abandoning his team when they needed his help.

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OBSTACLES TO TEAMWORK Trust is the glue that holds a team together. A leader forgets this at his own peril. If we can make it perfectly clear to leaders-in-training that there are many instances in life where you must entrust your destiny to someone else, we’ve taught them more about teamwork than any assignment or joint project will ever teach them.

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In this context, two roadblocks to successful teamwork recur again and again: 1) technical problems, in the case of our first team crisis, how to get from the ground to the top of the platform (the team boosts up the tallest member who then reaches down and helps everyone else climb up), and (2) human dynamics problems, in this case how to compensate for individual weaknesses, say a shorter or heavier cadet, how to make sure that everyone’s ideas for solving the problem are heard, and how to choose the best solution, all the while retaining enthusiasm for the task at hand and good group spirit.

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LEADERS’ RESPONSIBILITY AND CLASSIC PITFALLS It is surprising how many leaders forget that the high performance of their team is their own responsibility. Instead, they blindly expect the concatenation of the team’s members to naturally produce results. While nearly

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There are four classic pitfalls that many leaders are unfortunately prone to: The autonomy syndrome. Many leaders believe that they alone must have the solution to every problem, the answer to every question.

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The paranoia syndrome. Many leaders jealously guard management data as if they were TOP SECRET Pentagon documents, for fear that someone will exploit the information against them.

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The bully syndrome. Some managers believe they have to “rough people up” verbally or emotionally to get them to perform.

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The “every man for himself” syndrome. A manager may naively believe that if every employee simply does his job, everything will work out fine, no matter how his work affects the big picture, or his colleagues. This approach can never achieve synergy. Only when each individual feels a part of a distinct, more meaningful goal can high performance be achieved.

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The most effective leaders understand the power of a highly productive team working with them. Weak leaders think of their team members as merely extensions of their own hands and feet.

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Rather than giving them missions to accomplish and the freedom to decide how to do them, he simply prescribed one task after another. His subordinates were merely added sets of hands and feet for him to do his bidding. His best subordinates were so miserable that he drove them away, and he had to replace them with lesser people who were willing to be mere gofers.

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The leader of a high-performance team begins with the basis of a high regard for the team members.

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The leader of a high-performance team elicits the team members’ commitment by enabling them to share in the organization’s success.

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A leader can set (or, even better, lead his team to set) collective goals for the team. Stressing that their individual evaluations will be interpreted through the success of the achievement of collective goals,

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The leader of a high-performance team encourages members to participate jointly in analyzing problems and offering solutions.

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When the leader of a high-performance team gives directions, he also provides opportunities to clarify matters in case they are not understood.

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Through establishing open communication, a leader creates an environment in which team members are willing to mutually assist one another, reflecting the team’s cohesion and loyalty.

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Team member performance evaluations use criteria that have already been agreed upon jointly by leaders and team members.

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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

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“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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?”

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 “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?”

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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?

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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.”

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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.

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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?

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

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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My Most Helpful Resource for Organizational Leader Developement

I've spent the past few days locating and listing  the books I have that deal with the subject of organizational leader development.

That exercise reminded me that it has been some time since I've reviewed the most helpful book I used when working with Dr. Dan Bacon on designing the leader development program for OMF International. That book was "Building Leaders" by Dr. Jay Conger of University of Southern California.. Don't confuse this with the much more recent book with the same title by Dr. Aubrey Malphurs of Dallas Theological Seminary.

Conger's approach takes a three-fold perspective of developing leaders for (1) enhancing individual skills; (2) socializing organizational vision and values, and (3) leading organizational strategic initiatives.

Within OMF we developed a program to implement each of these approaches.

1. Our Project Timothy was focused on enhancing individual skill for emerging and current organizational leaders. Project Timothy is an eighteen month program with a week-long training session followed by six months of assignments that build on the training and help participants incorporate the principles into their lives and ministry.
2. Our New Leaders Introductory Course helps newly appointed OMF leaders increase ownership of our vision and values, and orient their leadership to be in harmony with these elements. This is a week-long program held at our international headquarters in Singapore where participants can interact with the top leaders and directors of the mission.
3. Our Organizational Leaders Workshop uses Action Learning methods to engage a group of three to five participants dealing with an existing issue or problem in their ministry under the guidance of a ministry coach. Their goal is to have a solution to implement at the end of the nine months that the program uses over the course of a ministry year. 

A 20 page summary of Conger's book is available by contacting me:

edaviddoug@gmail.com.

Leaders Know How to Get Things Done

I'm usually interested in how leaders make things happen, so I was delighted to see this news analysis piece in the New York Times about how Harry Reed is trying to change "health care as we know it," while trying to get re-elected in Nevada.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/magazine/24reid-t.html?nl=us&emc=politicsemailemb2&pagewanted=all

The Ever Useful Evernote

I'm a software junkie.

And if that wasn't bad enough, my top strength (according to Donald Clifton's "StrengthFinders" inventory is "Input."*defined below

Especially I'm a cheap software junkie. And if the product happens to be useful--so much the better.

One program that "lives" pinned to my taskbar is "Evernote."

Evernote is software that lets me (a) clip anything (article, picture, video, etc.) I see that I want to capture, (b) store it on my computer in an accessible format, (c) organize it into my defined categories, and (d) find it quickly by searching.

There's a free version and an on-going service with almost unlimited storage at a low rate of around $5 per month.


Since Evernote stores stuff locally, as well as on the web, it's accessible from where I happen to be on whatever computer is accessible to me.

*Input: You are inquisitive. You collect things. You might collect information -- words, facts, books, and quotations -- or you might collect tangible objects such as butterflies, baseball cards, porcelain dolls, or sepia photographs. Whatever you collect, you collect it because it interests you. And yours is the kind of mind that finds so many things interesting. The world is exciting precisely because of its infinite variety and complexity. If you read a great deal, it is not necessarily to refine your theories but, rather, to add more information to your archives. If you like to travel, it is because each new location offers novel artifacts and facts. These can be acquired and then stored away. Why are they worth storing? At the time of storing it is often hard to say exactly when or why you might need them, but who knows when they might become useful? With all those possible uses in mind, you really don't feel comfortable throwing anything away. So you keep acquiring and compiling and filing stuff away. It's interesting. It keeps your mind fresh. And perhaps one day some of it will prove valuable.

Learning On the Job

I found this article about President Obama's learning curve in his first year on the job to be quite helpful in highlighting issues any leader faces in assuming new levels of responsibility in a new position.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/18/AR2010011803594_pf.html

List of Leader Development Resources Posted Online

I've just discovered a helpful resource for maintaining book lists. It's provided by Amazon for users of "linked in" the networking website.

I've posted a list of the Kindle and "real" books I have on leader development subjects. If you would like to borrow one of the physical books, let me know.

http://www.linkedin.com/osview/canvas?_ch_page_id=1&_ch_panel_id=1&_ch_app_id=20&_applicationId=1700&_ownerId=33353948&osUrlHash=z_Cs&appParams={"view":"readingList","offset":"0"}

Leader Development is Self Development?

Most of the emphasis I have seen in mission organizations has been in terms of asking what the agency can do to enhance the ministry of its leaders.

However the reality that I've experienced is that because of many factors inherent in our work (time, distance, cost, etc.) the most leader development will be self development. So the challenge for mission agency leader developers is: what can we do to best support the self development of our people.

A good resource on this subject is from the US Army Research Institute, titled "Understanding, Predicting and Supporting Leader Self-Development. You can find a copy of this report at

http://www.hqda.army.mil/ari/pdf/TR1173Text.pdf

The strictures that we face in leader development in mission agencies are not unlike some of the strictures that Army leaders face.

Reflections on "The Starfish and the Spider"

Today's New York Times carried an interesting piece of news analysis titled: "A Year of Terror Plots, Through a Second Prism." In this article, the author argues that too much credit is given to lone, relatively unconnected terrorists. Here is part of his argument.

"... The term “Al Qaeda,” used as a catchall in many of the plots, blurs important distinctions. By most accounts, apart from possibly the Zazi case, none of the 2009 cases appears to be directly tied to “Al Qaeda central,” as experts refer to the Pakistan-based group led by Mr. bin Laden.
 
"Others involved ersatz “Qaeda” agents who actually worked for the F.B.I. Still others, including the Christmas Day attempt, had links to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a loosely linked affiliate of Mr. bin Laden’s group in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

Audrey Kurth Cronin of the National War College said Qaeda affiliates borrow the name to enhance their appeal but are usually more interested in local goals than in the global jihad proclaimed by Mr. bin Laden.

“The proper response is to stop calling all these plots ‘Al Qaeda,’ ” Ms. Cronin said. “We’re inadvertently building up the brand.”

In 2008, in his book “Leaderless Jihad,” Marc Sageman, a psychiatrist and former C.I.A. officer who has long studied terrorism networks, wrote that Al Qaeda was in decline, to be replaced by dispersed terrorists for whom it provided mostly inspiration. The new generation of extremists, he believed, would be less skilled and would likely pose less of a threat than the network responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks."

The term "leaderless jihad" caught my attention. As a strong advocate of "church planting movements" (CPM) within my organizations (World Team, LeaderLink and OMF), this seemed to be an apt description of what the Church is trying to accomplish. Unlike the Church of Rome, which relies heavily on top-down structure, evangelical mission advocates are seeking to "infiltrate" societies worldwide with reproducing cells of believers, connected virally, more than structurally.

If we are connected fundamentally to the same vision, through an understanding of and commitment to Christ's Great Commission, it makes it that much more difficult for us to be thwarted by earth-based social, political or financial structures.

Viva this kind of "jihad".

Long-Range Planning/Long-Term Thinking

One person who has greatly influenced my thinking about organizations is Dr. Ted Engstrom, former president of Youth for Christ and later World Vision.. When he teamed up with Dr. Ed Dayton to do a series of management seminars for Christian leaders, they soon became known as the Ted and Ed show.

As someone who benefited greatly from their work I remember being specially impressed with one axiom:

You can never do as much in a year as you think you can, but you can almost always do more in five years than you think you can.  

My observation is that most ministry leaders are so over-whelmed at what is currently facing them, that they seldom, if ever, take a step back to consider what might be done over the longer horizon.

A major benefit of long-range thinking for organizations is that it focus on "direction" more than "accomplishment." In most cases, it really doesn't matter how much we've accomplished if we're moving in the wrong direction.

My Word for 2010: Documentation

I've been working this week on designing some training for World Team Asia that will be presented in Bali in March. I'm not planning to deliver the training, but to outline it and then work with a number of colleagues who will facilitate the learning tasks for their colleagues. It is our plan that each session will include a coaching component so that each participant will go away, not just with what they have learned, but also be prepared and equipped to share what they have learned with their colleagues back home.

It hardly seems possible that a whole week of 2010 is past. I only wrote 2009 a couple of times, so I'm getting used to being in a new year. But a new year means a new theme word, and my word for 2010 is "documentation."

I want to focus this year on documenting the things I am doing.

I have several reasons for doing this:

1. It makes me pay closer attention to my own life, just like "journaling" does.
2. It makes it easier to pass along to others not just what I'm doing, but "how" and "why."
3. Since I often work along in the basement in my home office, it provides a layer of accountability for the use of my time.