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Patton on Leadership
I received a new leadership book in the mail... don't know who sent
it! It's a book by Alan Axelrod and he calls it Patton On Leadership,
Strategic Lessons For Corporate Warfare. I thought we would give you something
in a different vein and therefore a look at the business of killing people
-- a challenging business in which to be a leader. I have picked out some
quotes I thought were interesting. Enjoy for the difference of it!
Alan states: "Battle is a worst case condition in which risks are high, the uncertainty great, and the hardships and "workplace conditions" are unknown in any other field of human endeavor. If these weren't enough, battle is probably the only leadership environment in which both followers and leaders would rather be somewhere else. In these extremely challenging situations, successful combat leaders help those they lead to accomplish almost incredible feats and cause them to perform at almost superhuman levels of productivity. Moreover, they do this while assuming responsibility for their follower's lives and welfare, and risking their own lives as well."
He analyzes a speech made by Patton but it is too long to reproduce here. But I will pick a few pieces just to give you an idea. By the way, Patton swore like a soldier so the gaps in the parts of his speech, which I have reproduced, can be filled with the appropriate expletive!
"Look at how the speech begins. It commands attention by saying precisely the opposite of what all soldiers in all armies have wearily expected to hear since the Roman poet Horace (65-8 B.C.) wrote "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" - it is sweet and dignified to die for your country.
Instead Patton says: "No b... ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other dumb b... die for his country.
In this opening statement, Patton introduces humor that rings with truth. He lets his troops know that he does not want them to die. What would be the value of that? With his first sentence, the goal of war ceases to be some hollow, oft repeated abstraction like "glory" or "sacrifice," but becomes instead a practical, immediate, individual issue of survival and victory.
Now keep reading the speech.
For, after defining the impending mission as something that -without doubt-will be accomplished, Patton suddenly takes his men 30 years into the future. He paints for them a picture, first and foremost, of their survival to be grandfathers. And it is not just survival, but comfortable, secure survival, bathed in the glow of glorious achievement that Patton states with the humor of utter sincerity. He does not wrap his audience in the flag. He does not tell them their "sacrifice" is making the "world safer for democracy." Nor does he tell them what they will or what they should tell their grandchildren perched on their knee. Instead he simply tells them what they won't have to say: "Well, I shoveled s... in Louisiana."
The rest he leaves up to the pleasant fantasy of the individual.
The mark of a great motivational speaker is the ability to present ideas as if they come not from him or her, but from those who listen to him or her. Thus Patton presents his vision, but does so in a way that allows each of his hearers to make their vision their own. In this, he gives each man a personal stake in the battle to come."
Just to give you a few more Patton quotes on leadership:
"The best is the enemy of the good. By this I mean that a good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week. War is a very simple thing, and the determining characteristics are self-confidence, speed, and audacity. None of these things can ever be perfect, but they can be good."
"Good tactics can save even the worst strategy. Bad tactics will destroy even the best strategy."
"I prefer a loyal staff officer to a brilliant one."
And finally ...
"So many battles are fought in war and civilian life, and nothing is gained by the victory. Every battle we fight will result in a gain for us or we will not fight .. There is no great gain in merely being right. To be right about some unimportant subject is not important."
I hope you have enjoyed our look at true crisis leadership.
