Leadership

When I ask children to complete the sentence "Grown-ups are lucky because..." they invariably respond that grown-ups can "do what they want." A book such as The Unforgiving Minute tells us otherwise.

The Unforgiving Minute, by Craig Mullaney (NY: Penguin Press, 2009) details the grueling regimen that West Point cadets must follow in order to graduate. His post-B.A. graduate education at Ranger School is even worse.

What's most interesting to me is what Mullaney learns about his instructors.

They suffer as much as their students.

True leaders cannot do what they want; they know that they are responsible for others. As Mullaney writes (p. 58),

I had always thought my leaders had it easier than me. Being a leader changed my mind. General Eisenhower used to describe leadership as a piece of string. Push it, he would tell a young officer, and the string would bunch up in failure. Instead, he said, you had to pull. There is a chain of command, but there is also a chain of influence. To really get my squad to do anything, yelling was counterproductive. They might return to practicing knots, but as soon as I turned away, they would stop. Instead, I had to lead by example.

We can learn an important lesson about respect and authority from those whose lives depend on it.