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Affirm Your Leadership

In war nothing is impossible, provided you use audacity.

Patton was fond of quoting the eighteenth-century Prussian emperor and military genius Frederick the Great, who advised commanders thus: "L'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace." Audacity, audacity, always audacity.

In modern usage, the word audacity is more often than not negative, signifying insolence, carelessness, or heedlessness. But Patton used it in an earlier sense, in the way that Frederick would have appreciated: fearlessness, daring, intrepidity - heedless, indeed, but specifically heedless of conventional restraints.

Few business people are comfortable with the idea of audacity, yet without it, little of great merit can be accomplished. The stakes of audacity are doubtless high, because the price of failure is great. Yet the price of avoiding audacity is high as well: a long, drawn-out consignment to mediocrity.

On the twenty-fifth [of March 1945], the 87th Division succeeded in making its crossing and had two regiments over the river by daylight, in spite of the fact that all the historical studies we had ever read on the crossing asserted that, between Bingen and Coblentz, the Rhine was impassable. Here again we took advantage of a theory of our own, that the impossible place is usually the least well defended.

General George S. Patton

Patton valued the lessons of the past and was an intense and avid student of history, yet he departed sharply from precedent when he believed he had a better idea. A true leader, he was a bold innovator and used innovation to surprise the enemy. You cannot take your competition by surprise if you act exclusively on precedent and received wisdom. Look at the situation afresh and always consider the advantages of taking the road less traveled.

A highly effective way to affirm your leadership is to preside over celebration and commemoration. Create special events from time to time, and always greet your subordinates and colleagues on major holidays.

The weather was so bad that I directed all Army chaplains to pray for dry weather. I also published a prayer with a Christmas greeting on the back and sent it to all members of the Command. The prayer was for dry weather for battle.

General George S. Patton

Patton left no stone unturned in the effort to create conditions favorable to his army's enterprises. On the eve of the desperate Battle of the Bulge, on or about December 14, 1944, he called the Third Army chaplain into his office: "Chaplain, I want you to publish a prayer for good weather. I'm tired of these soldiers having to fight mud and floods as well as Germans. See if we can't get God to work on our side."

Patton's combination prayer and Christmas card created a sensation with his troops. As to the rains, they stopped the day after the prayer was issued; Patton pinned a Bronze Star on the chaplain: "Chaplain, you're the most popular man in this Headquarters. You sure stand in good with the Lord and soldiers."

Real Leadership

The U.S. presidential election transcends American politics, because the reality is that the U.S. president wields enormous power. The United States and its policies have a profound affect on many nations' economies and their quality of life. American voters will soon determine who will occupy the most powerful position in the world, but only after carefully scripted campaigns designed to present the candidates in the most favorable light—as the epitome of leadership, compassion, strength and wisdom—run their course. Both men have tried to be all things to all people, so inevitably the country will be disappointed when the winning candidate fails to live up to the high expectations.

If we ever needed real leadership, now is the time. This campaign should cause us to consider several crucial questions: What is real leadership? Some leaders assume that since they occupy positions as leaders, they automatically exhibit leadership. But this is not accurate. While a leader is generally defined as someone who is over a country, organization or group of people, the quality of leadership concerns how a leader acts toward others.

If a leader views himself as elevated above others and them beneath him, he is unlikely to be a good leader. His perspective erodes the respect others have of him. While he may think everything is fine, others secretly lament his approach toward them. Too many people in authority falsely equate their positions as leaders with being automatically smarter and better than those they lead. Conversely, a good leader is inclusive, honorable and fair, compassionate and merciful, and honors others. His leadership is clearly with humility.

Ideally, the terms leader and leadership should go hand in hand. Sadly, in many cases these terms are contradictory. Yet leaders can develop good leadership over time, like that of the first U.S. president, George Washington. The greatest leaders are characterized not by wielding great power, but by their humility and service to those they lead. George Washington was such a leader—a true public servant.

Many presidential observers cite various characteristics that made George Washington an effective leader. The quality least cited is intellect, possibly because he was surrounded by such luminaries as Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

Pulitzer Prize–winning author Joseph Ellis wrote admiringly of Washington's leadership even in the midst of such brilliant men: "It seemed to me that Benjamin Franklin was wiser than Washington ; Alexander Hamilton was more brilliant; John Adams was better read; Thomas Jefferson was more intellectually sophisticated; James Madison was more politically astute. Yet each and all of these prominent figures acknowledged that Washington was their unquestioned superior. "Within the gallery of greats so often mythologized and capitalized as Founding Fathers, Washington was recognized as primus inter pares, the Foundingest Father of them all. Why was that? . . . I have looked for an answer, which lies buried within the folds of the most ambitious, determined, and potent personality of an age not lacking for worthy rivals".

Early in Washington 's military career (1755), while serving as a colonel with the Virginia troops under the direction of the British army's Gen. Edward Braddock, he and his fellow soldiers engaged, quite accidentally, a large detachment of French and Indians. The French and Indians spread out in a semicircle and started firing.

The Virginia troops rushed to fight the enemy at close quarters. Ironically, they were caught in the crossfire between the Indians and the British, which nearly wiped them out. The seasoned Braddock, fearless and stubborn, rode into the fracas to rally the men but was cut down with wounds to his chest and shoulder. "With Braddock down and the other aides-de-camp casualties, it fell to Washington to rally the remnants. Riding back and forth amidst the chaos, two horses were shot out beneath him and four musket balls pierced his coat, but he escaped without a scratch, while, as he put it, 'death was levelling my companions on every side of me'".

Washington became a hero by rallying the survivors to retreat in an orderly manner, saving many lives by risking his own. "His specialty seemed to be exhibiting courage in lost causes, or, as one newspaper account put it, he had earned 'a high Reputation for Military Skill, Integrity, and Valor; tho' Success has not always attended his Undertakings.' There was even talk—it was the first occasion—that his remarkable capacity to endure marked him as a man of destiny".

A contemporary, Samuel Davies, wrote of the future president as "that heroic youth Col. Washington, who I cannot but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in so signal a Manner for some important Service to his Country". Time, opportunity, charisma and experience elevated George Washington to prominence. His exploits in the French and Indian War made him a seasoned hero.

As hostilities spread following the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress unanimously elected and designated Washington as the general and commander in chief of the Continental Army on June 15, 1775, for several reasons. They knew they could trust him. He was a man of wealth, less tempted to corruption. He was a fearless, determined and competent leader who shared a common vision with the Colonial leaders.

The impression Washington made upon those he led and many members of Congress was significant. "The feeling was that if he, George Washington, who had so much, was willing to risk 'his all,' however daunting the odds, then who were they to equivocate. That he was also serving without pay was widely taken as further evidence of the genuineness of his commitment".

He served in that capacity through the end of the war, but rather than pursue additional power, he resigned his commission and retired to his estate. Offered the kingship of the new country, he reportedly responded that he hadn't fought a war against Britain's King George the third to become America's King George the first.

In 1789 the electoral college unanimously elected him as the first president of the federal republic of the United States, then unanimously reelected him in 1792. After reluctantly serving his second term, he again surrendered great power and refused any further terms to retire to Mount Vernon.

When Washington died two years later, he was eulogized by one of his former generals as "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." So respected was he that his former adversaries in the British navy flew their flags at half-mast.

Washington was memorialized as the father of his country, his likeness later chiseled onto Mount Rushmore and printed on the omnipresent one-dollar bill. His timeless principles of leadership set a high and lasting standard for all aspiring political leaders.

Less than a century passed before another historical giant led the United States through a bloody civil war and ended, in part, the stain of slavery. Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. president, transformed the country and paid the ultimate price, killed by the bullet of an assassin. Remarkably, Lincoln was a century ahead of his time. "Lincoln revealed the cornerstone of his own personal leadership philosophy, an approach that would become part of a revolution in modern leadership thinking 100 years later when it was dubbed MBWA (Managing by Wandering Around) by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman in their 1982 book In Search of Excellence".

Presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln acquired the moniker "Honest Abe" during the campaign of 1860, but he'd earned it years earlier. During the early 1830s, Lincoln partnered with William Berry to run a general store. However, they ran up a debt he was left with after his partner died in 1835. Although it took him years, Lincoln repaid the $1,100 they owed—a huge sum in those times.

Lincoln led by being led. To bring peace to those he served, he would bring them together to work out their differences. Such was the case of a jealous secretary of the treasury, Salmon Chase, who rallied some senators to accuse Secretary of State William Seward before President Lincoln. The president got them together to talk out the situation. In the process, Chase suddenly realized that he had revealed his hidden agenda. He admitted Seward was not guilty and submitted his resignation. "So what's the lesson to be learned from this episode? Many corporate leaders will recognize Lincoln's method because it is an often-used technique. They get all the members of feuding departments together, lock them in a conference room . . . and compel them to stay together until peace is made . . . Had he dictated [to them], they may have accepted his authority with great resentment. But the problem would not have gone away. It would have lingered and festered. By gathering the disputing parties, Lincoln let his subordinates lead themselves out of the mess".

Neither Abraham Lincoln nor George Washington sought to build empires, amass great personal wealth or gain power for themselves. Their leadership qualities helped save their country in times of great crisis, as did the leadership of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The free world owes Sir Winston Churchill a sizable debt. Had it not been for his bold stand against Hitler's insatiable lust for power, post–World War II Europe (or much of it) might well have ended up under Nazi control.

Churchill's remarkable leadership is highlighted in a memorable speech he gave before the House of Commons on June 4, 1940, just after the British withdrawal from France. In one of his nation's darkest hours, he rallied his countrymen to stand firm in their time of peril: "We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." Churchill became a symbol to the world of his country's determination to resist the Nazi domination of the continent. Through his dogged leadership, his countrymen stood against a bullying tyrant who threatened the free world—and they survived.

Patton on Leadership: Stategic Lessons for Corporate Warfare Illustrated by Patton's decisive moves and distinctive style, executives and managers are presented with straightforward, practical lessons in dynamic, results-oriented management. Chapters cover how to develop a leadership attitude, communicate effectively, inspire others, and more. Photos.

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