Douglas MacArthur was one of the finest military leaders the United States ever produced. John Gardner, in his book On Leadership described him as a brilliant strategist, a farsighted administrator, and flamboyant to his fingertips. MacArthur’s discipline and principled leadership transcended the military. He was an effective general, statesman, administrator and corporate leader.
William Addleman Ganoe recalled in his 1962 book, MacArthur Close-up: An Unauthorized Portrait, his service to MacArthur at West Point. During World War II, he created a list of questions with General Jacob Devers, they called The MacArthur Tenets. They reflect the people-management traits he had observed in MacArthur. Widely applicable, he wrote, “I found all those who had no troubles from their charges, from General Sun Tzu in China long ago to George Eastman of Kodak fame, followed the same pattern almost to the letter.”
Do I heckle my subordinates or strengthen and encourage them?
Do I use moral courage in getting rid of subordinates who have proven themselves beyond doubt to be unfit?
Have I done all in my power by encouragement, incentive and spur to salvage the weak and erring?
Do I know by NAME and CHARACTER a maximum number of subordinates for whom I am responsible? Do I know them intimately?
Am I thoroughly familiar with the technique, necessities, objectives and administration of my job?
Do I lose my temper at individuals?
Do I act in such a way as to make my subordinates WANT to follow me?
Do I delegate tasks that should be mine?
Do I arrogate everything to myself and delegate nothing?
Do I develop my subordinates by placing on each one as much responsibility as he can stand?
Am I interested in the personal welfare of each of my subordinates, as if he were a member of my family?
Have I the calmness of voice and manner to inspire confidence, or am I inclined to irascibility and excitability?
Am I a constant example to my subordinates in character, dress, deportment and courtesy?
Am I inclined to be nice to my superiors and mean to my subordinates?
Is my door open to my subordinates?
Do I think more of POSITION than JOB?
Do I correct a subordinate in the presence of others?
BORN in San Gabriel, California, in 1885, George S. Patton, Jr. was the general deemed most dangerous by the German High Command in World War II. Known for his bombastic style, it was mostly done to show confidence in himself and his troops, says author Owen Connelly.
On December 21, 1945, Patton died in Heidelberg, Germany. The following day the New York Times wrote the following editorial:
History has reached out and embraced General George Patton. His place is secure. He will be ranked in the forefront of America’s great military leaders.
Long before the war ended, Patton was a legend. Spectacular, swaggering, pistol-packing, deeply religious, and violently profane, easily moved to anger because he was first of all a fighting man, easily moved to tears because, underneath all his mannered irascibility, he had a kind heart, he was a strange combination of fire and ice. Hot in battle and ruthless, too. He was icy in his inflexibility of purpose. He was no mere hell-for-leather tank commander but a profound and thoughtful military student.
Everyone is to lead in person.
Commanders and staff members are to visit the front daily to observe, not to meddle. Praise is more valuable than blame. Your primary mission as a leader is to see with your own eyes and be seen by your troops while engaged in personal reconnaissance.
Issuing an order is worth only about 10 percent. The remaining 90 percent consists in assuring proper and vigorous execution of the order.
Plans should be simple and flexible. They should be made by the people who are going to execute them.
Information is like eggs. The fresher the better.
Every means must be used before and after combats to tell the troops what they are going to do and what they have done.
Fatigue makes cowards of us all. Men in condition do not tire.
Courage. Do not take counsel of your fears.
A diffident manner will never inspire confidence. A cold reserve cannot beget enthusiasm. There must be an outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace.
Discipline is based on pride in the profession of arms, on meticulous attention to details, and on mutual respect and confidence. Discipline must be a habit so ingrained that it is stronger than the excitement of battle or the fear of death.
A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution ten minutes later.
It’s not just you, and it’s not just in healthcare: Poor behavior ranging from the impolite to the violent is having a moment in society right now.
The Atlantic’s Olga Khazan spoke with more than a dozen experts on crime, psychology and social norms to suss out contributing factors to the spike in poor behavior, which she details in her piece, “Why People Are Acting So Weird,” published March 30.
Stress is one likely explanation for the bad behavior. Keith Humphreys, PhD, a psychiatry professor at Stanford, told Ms. Khazan the pandemic has created a lot of “high-stress, low-reward” situations, in which someone who has experienced a lot of loss due to the pandemic may be pushed over the edge by an inoffensive request.
Not only are people encountering more provocations — like staff shortages or mask mandates — but their mood is worse when provoked.
“Americans don’t really like each other very much right now,” Ryan Martin, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay who studies expressions of anger, told Ms. Khazan.
It doesn’t help that rudeness can be contagious. At work, people can spread negative emotions to colleagues, bosses and clients regardless of whether those people were the source of the negativity.
“People who witness rudeness are three times less likely to help someone else,” Christine Porath, PhD, a business professor at Georgetown University, said in the report.
Just as the pandemic has reaped high-stress, low-reward moments, it has brought on a level of isolation that has affected how people behave.
“We’re more likely to break rules when our bonds to society are weakened,” Robert Sampson, PhD, a Harvard sociologist, told Ms. Khazan. “When we become untethered, we tend to prioritize our own private interests over those of others or the public.”
Richard Rosenfeld, PhD, a criminologist at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, went one step further to describe society operating with “a generalized sense that the rules simply don’t apply.”
Ms. Khazan makes a point to distinguish mental health in the broader conversation about poor behavior.
“People with severe mental illness are only a tiny percentage of the population, and past research shows that they commit only 3 to 5 percent of violent acts, so they couldn’t possibly be responsible for the huge surge in misbehavior,” she said.
For a quantified look at how problematic behavior — including crime, dangerous driving, unruly passenger incidents and student disciplinary problems — has spiked, turn to journalist Matthew Yglesias’ deep dive, born from his observation that “the extent to which we seem to be living through a pretty broad rise in aggressive and antisocial behavior” is underdiscussed.
We find the questions, “What makes a great leader?” and “What does great leadership mean in practice?” to be really interesting.
We have seen, for example, the following types of people as leaders: (1) people who appear to have been born to lead and excel as leaders, (2) people anointed as leaders or future leaders who had bold personalities, a certain presence and/or great charisma disappoint completely as leaders, (3) hardworking, organized people without bold personalities who organizations may not have expected to be top leaders grow into their roles and lead organizations to great results.
The greatest leaders leave an organization better than they found it. They leave it in a position to thrive long after they are gone. They have the ability to deliver results today while improving and preparing the organization for tomorrow. Great leaders, as stated by some, have a vision and plan, can build great teams, can motivate the team to pursue and achieve the plan, can take in feedback and adjust the plan as needed.
Here are seven thoughts on great leadership.
1. Great leaders are engaged, excited and passionate about success. Great leaders remain excited about what they are doing and what their team is trying to accomplish. Teams sense whether a leader is engaged or not. It does not take long to detect. It is the unusual leader who can stay enthusiastic and in top form in a position for more than 10 to 20 years; for many, the attention span is less. The phrase “lame duck leader” often applies to those who are still in office despite losing their spark. When leaders find they are losing excitement or engagement, it is time to step down from leadership or take time to rediscover themselves. An excited and engaged leader is critical to success.
We should not confuse passion and excitement with a huge or “rah-rah” personality. A great leader can have a winning personality, and most have excellent people skills, but those two things are only part of the picture. Great leaders are more than mascots or faces of a company — they are engaged with their teams. They are constantly talking to, communicating with, seeing and visiting their teams. They know what is going on with their teams, they know what is going on with their key customers, and they know what is going on with the business.
2. Great leaders build teams and the next level of leaders. The greatest accomplishment of a leader may be building the next level of leadership in a way where the leader is less needed. This is so important to the organization and requires tremendous energy from current leadership, yet it’s not always a leader’s first and foremost goal.
An elite team can go exponentially further and accomplish a great deal more than an elite leader. Anyone who has built an organization beyond a few people understands the importance of great teams and colleagues. When a high-performing team is built, the leader remains important. However, more and more, you can identify a great leader or manager by how special their team is. When a team is magnificent, it is a lot easier to be a great leader or manager. A core concept in Jim Collins’ Good to Great is to build great teams and then set plans. If one has great people, a company or team can then accomplish all kinds of things.
There is a common misconception that leaders welcome their team’s elite performance because it means the leader can work less. We find this could not be further from the truth. Great leaders know that nobody likes working harder than their boss. This adage holds true whether a leader has been in the field for five years or 50. The scope and role of the leader may change as the team grows more adept, elite and accomplished. Exceptional leaders give others space to lead, opportunities to shine and chances to succeed, but this should not be misinterpreted as leaders stepping away out of ambivalence or putting their feet up.
3. Great leaders have big goals and set clear plans. Great leaders set goals for their teams and organizations that are exciting, interesting and far bigger than themselves. The leader needs a goal that one can point to as, “This is what we are trying to be,” or, “This is what we are trying to accomplish.” There’s nothing worse than leaders who transparently appear to get ahead for themselves or accomplish their own goals versus the organization’s or team’s goals.
The late Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs and former GE CEO Jack Welch are examples of great leaders who set big goals. Mr. Welch had the core goal to be No. 1 or No. 2 in any market — or not be in the market at all. It is also critical that the goal is well communicated to the team and that key decisions are consistent with the goal. No plan or strategy is perfect. However, most organizations and teams do far better with a plan and strategy than without. Often, the plan is imperfect but adjusted over time. Either way, in nearly every situation, an imperfect plan is far superior to no plan.
4. Great leaders generally don’t micromanage. High-caliber leaders develop great leaders and teams and allow their teams to excel, perform and grow. They constantly look at benchmarks, hold people accountable and follow up with them. However, on a day-to-day and moment-to-moment basis, their teams are given lots of latitude and autonomy. This is coupled with follow-up and looking at what is accomplished. Warren Buffett may be the world’s best example of a leader who has great CEOs, holds them accountable and doesn’t micromanage them.
Some of the best leaders we have seen recognize when they have an amazing leader working with them. In those situations, the best of leaders can set their egos aside and largely allow the next in line to take credit and lead.
5. Great leaders praise often and recognize contributions. A great leader understands that part of team-building is constantly looking for what people are doing well and encouraging more of it. Great leaders provide praise, recognize what is done well and motivate more of that to be done. They look for what people do exceptionally well, and they look to promote those doing great things. They are constantly looking for the next opportunity for people.
6. Great leaders are not afraid to make hard personnel decisions. The best leaders understand that not everyone is a fit for every job. They are not willing to tolerate mediocrity or toxicity. This doesn’t mean they have a quick trigger. It does mean that they constantly compare current performance to great performance and try to fit people in spots where their performance can excel. For example, someone who is not great at something might be given another try at a different role where they may shine. One of the best leaders I ever witnessed subscribed to the view that it was very hard to change people. He counseled to be fair and patient, but that it was easier to change the person than change a person. In essence, sometimes it’s easier to replace a person than change how a person behaves.
7. Great leaders are emotionally mature. Great leaders do not fly off the handle or make rash decisions, but they do follow their instincts. A remarkable leader does not react to every issue with a great deal of stress. Rather, he or she can take things in, move forward and keep a team on board. A leader’s ability to manage emotions — both his or her own and those of team members — is critical. While great leaders often act with urgency and intent, they too embrace common sense approaches of “sleep on it” or “no sudden movements” when faced with volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. They recognize the repercussions of their decisions and movements, and in turn give them the time, thought and reflection they deserve.
In the era of great awakening, leaders have to step up and be conscious about building trust with people they work with.
The old rules and hierarchies, that were already becoming obsolete, have now been thrown out of the window. People look for integration of work and well-being knowing that work is what you do, not a place you go to.
Opportunities are abound and excellent people have ample choices (they always had). It is high time that organizations and leaders think this through carefully to first align their own mindset to this new reality and then take conscious actions to build teams, practices and processes that are not just high-performing but also have a strong fabric of trust woven in.
Employees, after all, are volunteers who exercise their choice of working with you. Effective leadership is about making it worth for them.
Building high-trust environment means putting the human back at the center of how a business functions and building everything – purpose, culture, processes, structures, rituals, systems, tools and mindsets – around it.
How would we know if we are working in an environment where we can trust others and that we are trusted? We can always answer this based on our intrinsic feeling but if you are a leader who is working hard to build trust, here are a few vital signs that you need to look for.
HENRY KOTULA 