Document created: 26 March 04
Air University Review, March-April 1971
Lieutenant Colonel Victor D. Sutch, USAF (Ret)
With few exceptions, works on leadership seem to be written by two classes of people: scholars, usually psychologists interested in explaining group behavior; and successful businessmen and generals who, believing strongly that leadership is the key to success, feel impelled to press their principles upon those who follow after them. Very often the scholar becomes so bogged down in technical terminology and involved methods that his work is useful only to his colleagues. On the other hand the retired general or businessman, while often an outstanding leader himself, usually comes to intellectual grips with the problems of leadership only after thirty or more years’ experience as a member of a managerial elite. Indeed, if his success has been such as to warrant putting his thoughts on paper, he very probably spent the final decade of his career in the rarefied atmosphere at the top of the pyramid. Thus, when the successful general or industrial manager begins to theorize about leadership, it may have been years since he had any significant contact with the man in the ranks. Consequently, to the foreman, the NCO, or the company-grade officer, all of whom work regularly at that level, his ideas may appear to lack realism.
This article, on the other hand, examines the subject of leadership from the standpoint of the “man in the ranks.” It is based primarily on reactions of the author and his colleagues to actual leadership which they experienced in “real life” situations—though occasionally leavened with historical example.
what leadership is
Before defining leadership, one might first consider what it is not. It is not generalship, managership, or commandership—if I may coin the latter term. Generalship has to do with strategy and tactics, the movement of equipment and troops so as to achieve victory. (This quality has nothing to do with rank. Today most generals are managers, while even noncommissioned officers on occasion display generalship on the field of battle.) Managership has to do with the ordering of equipment and men so as to achieve a certain end—such as the production of a product or the rendering of some needed service. Commandership, a military term, although it has its counterpart in industry, refers to the legal act by which a man is made responsible for a certain area of endeavor, along with the people who are assigned to work in that area. Official orders make a man a commander, but no official orders have been designed that can make him a general, a manager, or a leader. He becomes these things only as a result of his natural endowments, his training, and his experience. A man may be a brilliant general (in the sense defined), an outstanding manager, or a satisfactory commander—or all three—but being any or all of these does not necessarily make him a leader. In fact it is possible for a man with quite negligible leadership qualities to experience a measure of success in any of the three areas. However, one must conclude what is obvious: if he is a leader, then he is much more apt to enjoy a significant measure of success as a general, manager, or commander, simply because all these positions require him to rely upon and to motivate other human beings in order to accomplish his ends.
How, then, does one define leadership? Leadership is the attribute or attributes that a man possesses which cause other people to look to him for direction and guidance in accomplishing a common task. What those attributes actually are, scholars are loath to say. They find that leaders, being as variable in method and character as the whole of the human race, are almost impossible to categorize or describe in any comprehensive fashion. Whether able to describe them or not, however, all agree that some men do possess qualities which cause their neighbors to accept their lead in accomplishing group tasks.
Following this definition, if the general, the manager, or the commander is a leader, if the man in the ranks is indeed looking to him for guidance in accomplishing the common end and furthermore is willing to follow his direction in achieving that end, then these two—the leader and the follower—are each a part of a team, a team working to achieve a common goal. When one looks at any individual leadership situation, it seems evident that when leadership is effective the sense of team spirit is invariably present. Thus, one can say that where the majority of the men in the ranks feel themselves to be members of a team—a team composed of their fellow workers and the man who is ordering their daily activity—there is leadership. On the other hand, where the man in the ranks has no such feeling of unity with his comrades and his superior, there leadership does not exist. Thus, one might call this necessary ingredient team spirit, and, to reiterate, that term means a spirit which includes both the man in the ranks and his superior.
Team spirit is not the same as morale, nor is it the same as esprit de corps. Morale may be high in a situation in which team spirit is nonexistent. This may be true because the task assigned to the worker is inherently satisfying or rewarding, or because his fellow workers respect his outstanding ability to perform his job. Esprit de corps also may be relatively high when team spirit is not present. In fact a commander who is disliked or despised—and thus a poor leader—may create esprit de corps in a unit by his very presence. The members of the organization may achieve greater cohesion simply because together they are enduring a miserable, disgusting, or frightening experience which the commander—by stupidity, arrogance, or perhaps by design—is creating. If it is present, team spirit includes the commander or the factory manager; morale or esprit de corps does not necessarily have anything to do with him. However, again one must admit that both high morale and esprit de corps are more apt to be present if team spirit—and hence leadership—is present also.
Here is one example. A group of Air Force officers gathered in a small auditorium where they were to be briefed by a lieutenant colonel and his staff concerning a survey which the officers were to conduct. A civilian member of the staff was discussing the reasons for the survey, the forms to be used, and how they were to be filled out so as to minimize the number of errors. On the whole he was providing a satisfactory example of leadership. He spoke to them with respect as fellow adults, and they were listening attentively, apparently accepting his suggestions concerning the survey. Team spirit seemed to be present.
Suddenly an officer interjected a question. “Do we,” he asked,” have to check every form for accuracy before we turn it in?” Such a check, he pointed out, would involve several hours of his time. The civilian paused to consider. His superior, the lieutenant colonel, had been sitting on a table at the front of the room, his legs dangling, saying nothing. The officers had forgotten he was there. Now he suddenly rasped out ominously, “I’ll tell you one thing, if there are too many errors, we will send them back to you, through channels.” The room grew quiet. Looking around, one could see resentment and even open hostility expressed on many faces. Leadership ceased, team spirit evaporated, morale sagged. But judging from the unanimity of opinion about “that arrogant ass” (which one heard as the officers filed from the room), the esprit de corps of that group had risen perceptibly.
what leadership does
In creating team spirit the aspiring leader must keep uppermost in his mind one basic principle: he must respect the men he commands. He must look upon them as men much like himself, with the same outlooks, desires, and needs which he himself possesses. No man will voluntarily follow another who looks down upon him or scorns him. It is not in human nature for team spirit to cast along with scorn. If, therefore, a man in a position of leadership feels that because of his breeding, his education, or his background he is inherently superior to the men he commands, he has failed before he ever picks up the reins of his organization. His basic attitude makes the creation of team spirit impossible. In fact, it would seem that anyone who considers himself inherently superior to the man in the ranks should choose his occupation very carefully. He may be qualified to work in a laboratory or to be a scholar in a library, or he might become a successful staff officer; but he is generally doomed to failure in any position requiring him to lead a group of men.
Nor can such respect be fabricated. Attempts at this sort of manufacture are common, frequently taking the form of a crude raillery by which the commander twits a subordinate about some personal shortcoming or error—much as one would tease a child who has committed a gaffe. Invariably the twitting is done in the presence of the man’s peers, and invariably the subordinate leaves the room seething with indignation. No adult wishes to be treated like a child, especially by a commander whose position renders him immune to counterattack. The most ignorant soldier or worker sees through such pseudo respect, or rather he feels the commander’s patronizing attitude and distrusts him. No trust, no leadership. Respect has to be sincere to be reciprocated, and mutual respect and confidence must be present if team spirit is to be generated.*
*It has been suggested that noblesse oblige is as good as or better than respect in terms of caring for and looking after one’s men. Noblesse oblige may, in certain societies in times past, have been a satisfactory outlook for the officer in relation to his men. However, in our democratic age no man in the ranks is willing to admit that his officers are “to the manner born” (nor are they). Noblesse oblige in twentieth century would seem to be an anachronism.
How does respect for the man at the lower levels manifest itself? In what kinds of activity on the part of the commander does it eventuate? Respect may be evidenced in a variety of ways, but all add up to one thing—a sincere interest in the career and welfare of one’s subordinates. In a SAC squadron it once took the form of a continuing survey of the daily activity of every crew member by the squadron operations officer. He knew every day what his people had done the day before, and any exceptional performance—in any area of his supervision—was noted and recognized publicly and immediately. Good navigation scores from the day before, extra long hours spent refueling aircraft by a copilot, extra diligence in preparing a plane for its scheduled flight by a ground crew—nothing went unnoticed or unrecognized by that operations officer, and the morale and team spirit in his unit were unbeatable.
In an actual military campaign, where a commander is infinitely busier, his concern for his people is all the more necessary, and its evidence is all the more appreciated. One might recall, for example, Marshal Henri de Turenne’s reaction when he and his army suffered a severe defeat in the 1630s and were forced to retreat to the safety of France’s borders. It was winter, raining most of the time, and the 14-day march was a grueling ordeal for men and commander. Turenne threw his personal possessions into the mud to make room in his carriage for some of the wounded. Later, finding another of his soldiers sitting under a tree in the rain, nursing a shattered leg, he boosted the man into his own saddle and tramped for hours through mud and water until he found room for him in a baggage wagon. It was on this trip that his men began to refer to Turenne as Notre Pčre, a name which gained widespread acceptance among the rank and file.
SAC operations officer or seventeenth century marshal, human nature is much the same yesterday, today, and forever, and a manager or a general who can find the time and compassion to consider his people to the degree that these two did will be rewarded the same as they were: their men were willing to go anywhere and unhesitatingly obey any command they were given, so great was the mutual confidence and team spirit in their units.
Another way in which respect on the part of the commander is demonstrated is through his willingness to do any task, put up with any conditions, or undergo any dangers that befall his men. Respect dictates that a commander risk his own life to the same degree that he risks the lives of his followers, for he will recognize what one of Cromwell’s colonels stated in the seventeenth century, “The smallest he has a life to lead as well as the greatest he.” A man can and will put up with almost any degree of hardship or misery and expose himself to almost any danger, providing everyone around him, including his commander, is doing the same. Then will team spirit prevail, and together the members of that unit will gird themselves for the task. But let the idea filter through the ranks that the commander himself is unwilling to undergo what he is asking of his people, and dedication, efficiency, and willingness on the part of his men will take a precipitous nose dive. As Field Marshal Erwin Rommel once stated, “The ordinary soldier has a surprisingly good nose for what is true and what false.”
A World War I leader recognized the truth of this principle. When shells first began exploding around his engineering company, a young South Carolina captain ordered all members of the unit to seek shelter behind a railroad embankment. He himself walked coolly up and down the crest of the bank until all his men were sheltered. No man in his unit ever afterward doubted that captain’s willingness to take any risk he demanded of his men, and one soldier, describing the incident thirty-five years later, still spoke of his commander with the utmost admiration and respect.
Unfortunately, this kind of leadership was often lacking in that long and bloody conflict. Too frequently high-ranking officers and commanders lived and worked in safe bombproofs far from the front lines. Too few generals spent time in the trenches or ever went “over the top” with their men to face the enemy’s fire. The men, of course, were well aware of their commander’s preference for the place of safety. It caused grumbling and damning of officers in all units, and in 1917 it helped bring about a mutiny of such proportions that the French armies were on the verge of complete collapse. Needless to say, team spirit was nonexistent among those rebelling units.
The attitude toward those high-ranking French officers may be contrasted with the respect accorded General Robert E. Lee by his troops. On more than one occasion they refused to fight when he appeared in their sector of the battlefield. They feared their fire might draw a return from the Union side that could not help endangering Lee’s life. On one occasion some of them grabbed his horse’s bridle and led their protesting general to safety; and only when he was a satisfactory distance away did they resume the attack. Among those Confederate troop, team spirit prevailed. The soldiers recognized that their leader’s life was too valuable to risk. However, let a commander himself decide that, and team spirit will immediately evaporate.
Not only does the leader experience what his men experience, he also gives as few orders as possible. The most effective leadership is that provided by example. Once he has satisfied himself that his men know what is expected of them—and here he must take them completely into his confidence—the commander’s best ploy from then on may be to bend his own back to the work. The example of their leader pitching in will do more to unite the men in the task, and will elicit more wholehearted endeavor, than any other single act the commander can perform.
This approach to leadership was displayed by Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus, when debarking at Peenemunde in 1630. The first man ashore, the king picked up a shovel and began digging. Every man who followed did the same, and all worked steadily until the camp was completely entrenched and safe from surprise attack.
General George C. Marshall reportedly took the same tack when he arrived to take command of a drab Midwestern army post. Rather than order his commanders to beautify their areas, he merely took a shovel, dug extensive flower beds around his headquarters, and planted and cared for them himself. That example did not go unnoticed by his subordinates.
When, using these methods, a commander has enlisted his people enthusiastically to the task, he then must be extremely careful about his criticism of their errors of execution. If a subordinate, in his eagerness to get the job done, commits a blunder, the commander may well choose to praise him for it—assuming, of course, that the offender does not make a habit of such errors. He may choose to do this even though in the process the man has brought down the wrath of a higher headquarters on the unit and its commander. For nothing will more surely cement loyalty on the part of a subordinate than the knowledge that his commander will back him to the hilt in the event of an honest mistake. On the other hand, nothing will destroy team spirit more effectively than a commander’s use of a subordinate as a scapegoat to placate higher headquarters.
Finally, besides backing his people, a leader will build team spirit in his unit by keeping his men fully informed about their jobs and about his own problems and responsibilities. Here, to the fullest extent possible, he must take them into his complete confidence. There are two reasons for this: first, they cannot help him or protect him or even accomplish their jobs properly unless they have full knowledge of all that is involved; and, second, they will willingly endure many inconveniences and difficulties if only they know the reasons for them. Anyway there is no place in modern human relations for the old adage, “Shut up and obey orders,” particularly if there is no good reason for keeping the man in the ranks in ignorance.
An example will illustrate some facets of this matter of communication. At a large Midwestern air base, a year or two ago, over a hundred officers and enlisted men who regularly used the gymnasium for a noon-hour workout were suddenly informed that henceforth they would be required to furnish their own towels. For years the administration had provided towels; now suddenly it ceased doing so. Every day there was a chorus of complaints—voiced by all ranks from full colonels down to lieutenants and airmen—about an administration that could not provide towels for its people when they used the base gym. Two weeks of head-shaking and moaning about this problem passed. Then one day in the daily bulletin came the announcement that towels were once more available. A new shipment had arrived and had relieved what had only been a temporary shortage. Just one word —“temporarily”—inserted in the original announcement could have eliminated two weeks of grousing on the part of dozens of people.
what leadership does not do
Thus far we have been discussing the positive actions which the commander must take if he is to create the team spirit that is vital for the efficient functioning of his unit. Certainly the positive aspects are more important than the negative. However, there are certain things a commander must not do under pain of destroying the very spirit he is trying to create. For one, he must not regularly assign his people tasks which, by their very nature, are ridiculous or obviously of little value.
At a Western army post the general in command had a phobia about keeping the grass trimmed and the base area clean. It was his stated policy that every unit would police its area and cut its grass every working day. No exceptions to this rule were permitted. One unit in his command labored for a week to pass an important inspection, even going to such lengths as working until 2100 hours the evening before the inspecting officer arrived. As a result of their outstanding efforts, the unit passed the inspection with excellent marks, and as a reward the commander desired to give his men the remainder of the day off. However, there was the general’s rule, and his men had been so busy that they had not found the time that day to cut the grass. Since the inspecting officer had arrived in the area late in the afternoon, 1800 hours that evening found the soldiers in that unit cutting grass and policing the grounds—something that had been done only the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that. Instead of being rewarded for their good work, they considered themselves punished. Certainty nothing will more quickly ruin morale than superfluous tasks. Even the most ignorant soldier or worker bitterly resents being assigned such jobs regularly, and it was reported that young first-term soldiers were departing the army en masse from that post as soon as their enlistment ended.
Finally, leadership does not make war upon its own people. Unfortunately, there is in the military services, and to some extent in business too, the tradition of the “taut ship.” According to this tradition, the demanding, irascible commander who will not be crossed or who will accept no excuses from subordinates is a good leader. Such a commander relies upon fear to motivate his people to do their jobs; and he cultivates an image of himself as a grim, ruthless, driving individual who enjoys nothing so much as cutting down a subordinate—no matter what rank or who is present—or dressing down a hapless man in the ranks. Such “leaders” often go to outlandish lengths to create their image. I once served under a commander who never permitted himself to smile publicly for two full years. Another, a budding Captain Bligh, refused a photographer permission to take his picture until he had gone to the mirror and adjusted his face into a ferocious scowl.
A few years ago a full colonel arrived at a Western air base to assume command of an air division. In “Twelve O’ Clock High” fashion, he established his approach to leadership by angrily reprimanding the airman whose salute at the front gate did not come up to his standard. Dissatisfied with the airman’s response, he sought out his commander, the provost marshal, and fired him on the spot. Later, he fired the base commander—a full colonel—and then proceeded to use his first base conference to dress down a wing commander in the presence of his subordinates. After pointing up the wing commander’s intellectual shortcomings, he told him not to be so stupid in the future or he was not long for his job. Some enlisted men present were acutely embarrassed for their chief.
When the new division commander arrived at the flight line for his first flight—he had been instructor pilot in B-47s—one of the six engines failed to start. (Electric starters on the B-47 were notoriously unpredictable.) Without saying a word, the colonel climbed down from the cockpit, got into his staff car, and ordered the driver to take him to wing headquarters. Upon arrival there he stalked into the wing commander’s office and said grimly, “Come with me.” The startled officer grabbed his cap and trotted out the door behind his chief. The division commander then went to the wing maintenance office, where he picked up the chief of maintenance, to the squadron commander’s office, where he collected the lieutenant colonel who held that position, to the squadron maintenance office, where he summoned the major in that position. He took them all out to the flight line and lined them up at attention, starting with the colonels, down through the aircrew (captains), and ending with the ground crew (two sergeants). Then he proceeded to dress them down ruthlessly, viciously, violently, with all the power and venom which he was capable of mustering. He informed them that in the future when he flew an airplane on that base, it would start, and they had better see that it did! Needless to say, henceforth whenever that division commander flew from his home base, the wing commander, the chief of maintenance, and the squadron commander were on hand to act as his ground crew. None of the twelve men involved wished to repeat the experience.
This is a brutal example of what General Eisenhower once referred to with some scorn as “leadership by assault,” and there are several criticisms that can be leveled against it from anyone’s viewpoint.
First and foremost, it eliminates team spirit, and any unit commander who relies on this method of motivating his men is bound to suffer a decisive decline in efficiency. There can be no team spirit when one member of the team is continually making war upon the others. Faced with a commander who leads by “assault,” the soldier or worker has two problems: one, to accomplish his job, and two, to defend himself from assault. The first cannot help suffering because of the other.
Second, “leadership” of the assault type is not leadership. A new name needs to be coined for it—some more descriptive term, like “drivership”—because a leader ipso facto must be in front of his men; they are following him. But the driver is necessarily behind his men. General George Patton is reported to have said, “I got to be a general because I am the best butt-kicker in the U.S. army.” Perhaps he was joking. However, one can be a “butt-kicker” or one can be a leader. One cannot be both. To kick a man’s butt it is necessary to be behind him. A leader, by definition, is in front of his men.
Third, efficiency suffers because under the “driver” only one man in the unit is thinking—that is the commander himself. By using fear as his total approach to motivation, the commander in effect has cut off the heads of all the other members of his unit. In the presence of a “butt-kicker,” one does exactly what one is told to do and no more. When he completes a task, he waits until he is assigned another. To advance on his own, to show initiative, might lead him into making an error, and an error would certainly bring down the wrath of an angry commander. It is much safer to wait for further orders. Thus, instead of every man thinking about the unit’s mission and how it can best be accomplished, only the commander is thinking and ordering. He has effectively deprived himself of all the rest of the brainpower in his unit, and efficiency cannot help declining markedly over the long term. This is of course particularly true on the battlefield, where every problem is unique and where initiative and thought on the part of the man on the spot may make the difference between success and failure. It is true to only a slightly less degree in the more humdrum activities of industry.
No one will deny, of course, that there are times, both in industry and the military but particularly the latter, when to some people, in some instances, forceful coercion must be applied. When a commander is faced with an opportunity to exploit the enemy’s mistake in warfare, when speed is of the essence, when a sense of urgency must be imparted to subordinates and troops, when to delay an instant may be to lose a golden opportunity—when this situation faces the commander, no one is going to quibble with his use of the most direct and forcefully delivered order of which he is capable. Such a situation faced General Philip Henry Sheridan when he was attempting to flank Lee’s army south of Petersburg in 1865. He saw the opportunity and was himself everywhere in the fighting—driving, cursing his men on. In the heat of that battle Sheridan summarily and heatedly dismissed one of his corps commanders, a man with a national reputation, because he mishandled his troops and almost lost Sheridan this long-awaited opening.
In these circumstances no one is going to fault a commander for driving his units with all the power at his command. The very people whose skin is stung by his abrasive tongue will, after the battle, appreciate their leader’s actions. Without them they might not have won, and the war with its killing and slaughter would have continued. The lowliest private in the ranks will understand that the commander, by his action, was saving lives.
There is also the problem of the malingerer or, in service terminology, the goldbricker, the shirker. Almost every organization has a quota of these human derelicts who seemingly have no loyalties and who can be motivated by no method other than forceful coercion, and that continually applied. However, in our society their number is seldom great. One commander of a unit that had some 2500 enlisted men estimated that perhaps one percent of his people were in this category of the emotionally “halt and blind.” The most desirable approach, of course, is to eliminate them from an organization as speedily as possible. This cannot always be done, though, and if they are ever to pull their share of the load then force, in one form or another, would seem to be a necessary tool of the commander in these instances.
The disagreement here is not with the commander who applies force in extraordinary circumstances such as these. It is instead with the peacetime commander who regularly and habitually resorts to “leadership by assault” to motivate the 99 percent who are healthy and willing and who can be motivated by normal leadership techniques. It is with the commander or boss who seems to know no other method than brutal coercion. Or perhaps he knows other methods but chooses this one deliberately because it is easy, requires no imagination, no sensitivity to his people, and quickly provides him with a reputation. Such a man is a driver, not a leader. And even if his methods may at times be useful to his superiors, still it should be clearly recognized that the driver is inferior to the leader, and his methods are to be scorned by all who aspire to that high calling.
The military services, as well as business and industry, have down through the years produced numerous outstanding leaders. Names such as Eisenhower, Marshall, Bradley, Arnold, Ridgway, and Westmoreland come immediately to mind in our own time. In business, too, the Fords, Wilsons, Sarnoff, McNamara, Hughes, and many, many others (one can fill in his own choices) are so well known that a list is redundant. Yet the question one might ask is: Why so often do people who are not leaders and are clearly recognized by most of those who work for them as “drivers,” “assaulters”—why do so many of these people get the promotions? Leadership is nowhere more thought about, analyzed, and discussed than in the military; yet too often here also the nonleader is the man selected for the higher ranks. Why?
Two factors would seem to explain this anomaly. One is the pressure on the commander to get the job done as rapidly and efficiently as possible. Any subordinate who seems to be able to produce, to bend the bureaucracy to his will, to get results, comes immediately to the harassed commander’s attention. And very often the pressure “to get the job done” blinds him to shortcomings in the subordinate’s methods. The results seem to outweigh all other matters, and he promotes the “assaulter” rapidly into more responsible positions and into higher ranks.
The other reason, it would seem, lies in the nature of the military social and hierarchical arrangements. The military traditionally has relied upon coercion. The whole fabric of its system is shot through with coercive elements—traditions, customs, and legal devices. A measure of this coercive underpinning is undoubtedly necessary in any martial organization, certainly no one would deny that. But in any case the tools of coercion lie ready to hand, and thus any commander who has despotic inclinations or who simply chooses to operate as a “driver” finds it relatively easy to do so. And there are no barriers, aside from personal judgment, some social pressures, and fear of one’s superiors, as to how far one may go in this direction.
In summary, what leadership is all about, what it is most concerned with, is the creation of team spirit. Where that precious commodity exists naturally—as with Cromwell’s Ironsides in the seventeenth century, Carnot’s French Revolutionary hordes in the eighteenth, and Moishe Dayan’s Israeli forces in l967—there is no problem. All are concerned in the outcome, all—leaders and followers alike—are striving for the same goal. But where the kind of morale and team spirit which motivated those forces does not exist naturally, leadership can help produce it; drivership never will.
Dayton, Ohio
Lieutenant Colonel Victor D. Sutch, USAF (Ret), (Ph.D., University of Colorado), is associate professor of history, Wright State University, Ohio, having recently retired after twelve years on the USAF Academy faculty. While there he originated the annual Military History Symposiums. As an Air Force officer, he served with Air Transport Command and Strategic Air Command in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Korea. Dr. Sutch has published articles on English and military history.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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