Soldiers Made Me Look Good

by Lewis MacKenzie

  The detective smiled, rose up on his toes and scanned the room, peering through the smoky haze, looking for someone or something. His eyes rested on a man standing in a far corner and surrounded by four or five other officers in plainclothes. The man was short, overweight, balding, dishevelled and smoking a massive cigar, which I discovered later kept him permanently covered with ash.

  “You see that short guy over there in the corner smoking that cigar?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Well, sir, that’s my boss, and I’ll do anything to keep working for him, no matter where he goes and what he does. And he is going to be here for another two years.”

  Twenty-five years ago, that young police officer provided me with the best example I could ever have of what leadership looks like.

  For the past two decades it has been satisfying to see the subject of leadership regain importance. Starting in the 1960s, with the U.S. nuclear submarine project, large organizations— and that includes many militaries—genuflected at the altar of management. Program evaluation and review techniques (PERT) charts were everywhere as leaders (now calling themselves managers) joined U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s management bandwagon, which produced the Polaris Class submarine and helped Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. Airport bookstores were filled with best sellers telling the reader how to be a better manager and do things more efficiently.

  The problem, as I saw it, was that management techniques were only one piece of the puzzle for getting anything done. Management is “doing the thing right,” whereas leadership is better described as “doing the right thing.” There is a big difference between the two, and although they are complementary, leadership is the key contributor to success both in business and in the military, that is to say, in dealing with people. If I wanted to talk to groups about leadership, I would need to focus on interpersonal skills. I would also explain that studying and discussing leadership was a bit like studying first aid: you could spend an hour a day studying it, and if you used your skills to alleviate someone’s suffering or even save a life just once in your lifetime, the many hours you had spent preparing for that moment were well worthwhile. So it is with leadership: no one ever masters the subject, so you can never spend too much time considering it. I decided to come up with ten practical leadership tips, with the thought that if at the end of a one-hour presentation each member of the audience found one or two of them to be useful, even if that time was far in the future, the hour wasn’t wasted—particularly if I made the presentation entertaining.

  It was also important to stress to the audience that I wasn’t presenting myself at the podium as an outstanding leader—far from it, as many of those who worked with me over the years would probably attest. What I brought to the subject was practical experience that began at the age of twenty in commanding a platoon of thirty soldiers, including some Korean War veterans, and ending thirty-three years later in commanding the fourteen-thousand-strong Army of Ontario. In between those milestones I had the privilege of leading soldiers from more than forty countries and working for twenty-nine bosses, of whom six were not Canadian. I had ample opportunity to observe what worked and what didn’t. Some of the ten tips I decided to present I learned the hard way and to my regret didn’t always follow myself until later in my career.

  Students of leadership will notice here many similarities to the opinions of other practitioners who write and speak on the subject. They will also notice some dissimilarities: in the following tips, there are neither pie charts nor references to the “vision thing.” Many people who speak to me after listening to my presentations express some surprise that I focus almost exclusively on developing interpersonal relations. They anticipate that a general would explain how to give orders and how to discipline people who don’t follow those orders. Fortunately, however, generals and other senior military officials do this less than one per cent of the time. The remaining ninety-nine per cent of their time is dedicated to motivating and, dare I say it, trying to inspire.

  With an upfront apology to my navy and air force colleagues for this simplistic analogy as I try to make a point: consider the unique leadership challenges facing leaders in the army. On board a ship, when the captain turns the wheel starboard, everyone on the ship goes to the right. When the captain of an aircraft moves the joystick to the left, everyone behind the captain goes to the left. When an army leader says to the hundred soldiers behind him, “We are attacking that hill four hundred metres to our right—follow me!” he really should look over his shoulder before climbing that hill because he might just find himself alone. Motivation and inspiration—not orders—will take the hill.

  Tip Number One—Be Yourself

  The vast majority of the bosses I had and observed were excellent. A few, however, became real dorks on promotion and elevation to the rank of boss. They obviously bought into the idea that they were now the most important individuals in the organization. They actually thought that the perks—the car, the driver, the extra windows in the office, the additional staff and all the other trappings of increased responsibility—were for them. But they weren’t. They were for the position, and when the boss moved on, the perks would pass to the new guy. The fact is, once you are out of diapers it’s probably too late to change your personality. Don’t even try. You have to work with who you are and what you are.

  I get a kick out of the “loneliness of command” theory. It opines that the person at the top is going to be lonely because he or she has no peer group, since he or she is the only one wearing the senior rank in the organization. Over the years I have explained to a few individuals who have brought up the subject that it is impossible to be lonely in a military organization unless you intentionally isolate yourself. This isolation usually results from assuming that you are indispensable to the organization (see above). Once you accept that you are merely the conductor of the organization that employs a whole gaggle of experts to assist you in your leadership role, you can start to enjoy their company.

  Above all, leadership—at all levels—should be an enjoyable and satisfying role. If it’s not and you prefer to stay in your current role in your trade, job or profession, don’t seek or aspire to a leadership position. Life is too short.

  Tip Number Two—Lead by Wandering About

  I know I’m showing my age by mentioning an in-box, but the observation still applies today, except it’s now an e-mail in-box. The more senior you get, the more your in-box overflows. It’s only natural. Crap follows the law of gravity and flows downhill, frequently arriving on your desk. Your job as the boss is to intercept it before it splashes onto your subordinates. All kinds of frivolous requests and demands will make their way to you as the boss. Here’s an example: during a particularly heavy shelling of the area in and around our headquarters in Sarajevo, I received a fax from UN headquarters in New York. It complained that I had not yet submitted the design for the ribbon that would be worn with the UN medal to be presented for service with UNPROFOR. Similar idiotic demands will all too often make you feel like you are chained to your desk.

  While all these frequently mundane requests are demanding your attention, it’s important to remember your primary responsibility: the people who work for you. Sometimes it’s necessary to appoint someone to remind you of that fact three or four times a day, particularly when you’re in an operational theatre for military leaders. The appearance of the regimental sergeant major at the office door or the opening of the sandbagged bunker announcing “Sir, it’s time to visit the troops!” provides an instant relief from the insanity of the mundane and severs the chain that ties you to less important matters.

  Tip Number Three—Listen

  It took me twenty years to learn how to listen. For the longest time, when I was talking to subordinates, peers or bosses, I was always thinking about what I was going to say in response to their comments. Not surprisingly, I missed a good deal of what they were really telling me. But when I started to l
isten, it was initially a bit disappointing. I discovered that a significant number, yes, even the majority of people who worked for me, were smarter than I was. I started to pay more attention and picked up on some really good ideas they had about our profession and about how we could do our jobs better. What really surprised me was that when I implemented a suggestion and publicly gave the individual or a group credit for the idea, the positive change was associated with me. The source of the idea got credit, I got credit and our organization got better—you can’t do better than that.

  Now, it’s no good listening if no one is talking to you as you execute your leadership by wandering about. When I was a fifty-three-year-old major-general wandering about, visiting soldiers who averaged about twenty-two years of age in Sarajevo, the gaps in age and rank might have been a problem. Canadian soldiers haven’t changed a lot over the years, and as a good friend, Lieutenant-General Charlie Belzile, said while commanding our brigade in Europe thirty-two years ago, “Only two things motivate a Canadian soldier: his car keys in one hand and his girlfriend in the other.” I have yet to grow up, and I continue to race cars as a hobby. Frequently, soldiers would be the ones to break the ice with me by saying something like, “Hey, General, how’s the racing going?” A few minutes later, they were sharing with me what they really thought about what was happening and how they felt about it.

  The key to listening is to get people to open up and encourage them to be forthright and honest with their comments. Everyone is boring until you scratch their passion. That passion can be anything from gardening to freefall parachuting, but whatever it is most people have a favourite activity that either excites them or makes them feel relaxed, comfortable and happy. It’s important to find out and remember what that passion is because that’s the door to discovering what people really think about their day job and what might be done better.

  Tip Number Four—Set Difficult but Achievable Objectives

  No one ever brags about having accomplished something that was easy. The key to good morale is to give the people who work for you something to be justifiably proud of.

  In early July 1992, I came back to my headquarters from the Sarajevo airport, which we had just secured for the delivery of humanitarian aid the previous day. As I entered the operations room, I noticed what looked like a United Way thermometer pinned to the wall. At the top, and presumably as an objective, was the number 23, and at the bottom, where the mercury was resting, was a 6. I asked Captain Jorge Reta, the operations officer on duty, “What the hell is that thermometer for?”

  Jorge explained: “Sir, those yahoos (pretty good command of the English language for someone from Argentina) at the UN in New York will only allow six humanitarian aircraft a day to land at the Sarajevo airport. They say that we don’t have any mechanical off-loading equipment, proper storage space and a bunch of other things, and that it’s too dangerous. I think we can handle twenty-three.”

  I sat down with Jorge and went over his calculations—something the military calls a staff check. Sure enough, it looked like with extra effort we could handle twenty-three aircraft a day. We had soldiers from more than ten nations doing the unloading, and with the right amount of challenge and leadership each national group would end up competing with the others to unload the fastest. A few well-placed phone calls to UNHCR in Geneva, the lead UN agency for the air flow, and we were accepting around twenty-three aircraft a day.

  There is another component to this “enough to brag about” theory. After my discussions with Jorge I could have become a little too ambitious and said, “Jorge, I think we can do even more. Let’s aim for thirty planes a day,” and broken both the backs and the morale of our unloading teams at the airport. The trick for the leader is to determine how much is enough to be proud of, and how much is too much to ask.

  Tip Number Five—Accept Responsibility,

  Even When You Are Not Responsible

  I know this sounds somewhat bizarre, but let me try to explain.

  During the formal inquiry into the incidents involving the Canadian Airborne Regiment in Somalia, a number of senior officers, including the chief of defence staff, were called to give evidence. When they were asked about their responsibility for what had happened, a common response was something along the lines of “As a senior/general officer I was responsible—but… ” There is no place for “but” after “I’m responsible” because that word is always followed by a long explanation devoted to outlining why the individual thinks he or she is really not responsible.

  More often than not, it’s the organization’s denials and cover-ups following a mistake that most hurt the organization and its leadership. The best example of an individual accepting responsibility for the good of the whole in the not too distant past was the principle and practice of ministerial responsibility in the British parliamentary system. Sadly this is no longer the case, particularly in the Canadian model. As disasters unfold in a department, the minister in charge clings on to his or her appointment with a death grip—until overwhelming pressure from the public forces him or her to let go. At this point it’s too late for the minister to gain any credit for the resignation, and the department remains under a cloud.

  During my presentations to more than a million people on the subject of leadership, I have made only one common request of every group: “Put your hand up if you can think of anyone you thought less of when they said, ‘I’m responsible.’ ” In fourteen years of asking I have yet to see one hand go up. The corollary to this observation is the deduction that accepting responsibility frequently makes the problem go away much more quickly, and thus the organization can get on with its real priorities sooner.

  Tip Number Six—Think Outside the Box

  For almost ten years, one of my ten tips was “touching.” Particularly in an operational theatre, I found that placing an arm around someone’s shoulder was completely natural and reassuring. A few CEOs, particularly in the United States, were uncomfortable with the concept in light of sexual harassment legislation, and they asked me to drop any reference to touching.

  It was a while before I stumbled on a permanent replacement tip. I was never really comfortable with the overworked phrase “thinking outside the box.” Then, in 2004, I was invited to speak at “Idea City,” Moses Znaimer’s annual speakfest in Toronto. I arrived early enough to hear a couple of the speakers who would present before me. One of them, Mers Kutt, the inventor of the personal computer, made sense of thinking outside the box.

  His example drew on the Second World War and the Allied bombing of Nazi Germany. The Allies’ bomber losses were extremely high, and commanders were frantic to discover how to decrease losses attributed to anti-aircraft flak and machine-gun and cannon fire from German fighter aircraft. It was decided to bring in an outsider to provide a fresh point of view. An eccentric professor from Cambridge was invited to one of the largest of the United Kingdom’s Bomber Command bases, where there were hundreds of bombers.

  At his initial briefing the professor was told by the air vice-marshall, “We have a serious problem, Sir. We can attach only so many armour plates to the bombers because they add so much weight. We tend to place them around the cockpit. If we added as many as we would like, we couldn’t carry any bombs.

  Perhaps you could spend the next ten days or so with us and recommend where on the aircraft we should place the limited number of plates we can afford to mount.”

  The professor spent the next ten days at the base inspecting every bomber as it returned from its mission. He was never seen without a large roll of onionskin paper rolled up under his arm. Finally, he said he was ready to brief the senior officers on his findings and make his recommendation. As they gathered around, he unrolled his onionskin and spread it out on a long table. On the paper he had drawn rough outlines of the Lancaster bomber as viewed from its top and side. He had painstakingly marked, with a pencil dot, each and every hit from flak and ammunition sustained by every bomber during the past ten days. Th
e two sketches of the bomber were almost black with dots, but there were a few spots that were totally blank, with no dots whatsoever.

  He pointed to the blank spots (an undisclosed location) and said, “Gentlemen, this is where you should place your armour plates.”

  The assembled leadership of Bomber Command were aghast. One of the most senior commanders exclaimed, “That’s madness, Professor! Look at the concentration of hits in other locations, as you yourself have marked them!”

  The professor smiled and said, “Yes Sir, but those planes made it back. The ones that were hit in places where I couldn’t record the strikes crashed somewhere in the German countryside or at the bottom of the English Channel.”

  The plates were attached at the places the professor recommended, and bomber losses thereafter were considerably reduced.

  The problems facing a leader are frequently simple. The challenge, amidst the confusion and chaos of day-to-day activities, is to recognize that fact. This means making time available to step back and think about the problem, and not just to tinker with the status quo. Leaders should take time to close the door, put their feet up and think.

  Tip Number Seven—Strive for Ethical Decision Making

  The next time you go through an airport, check out the bookstore to see how many volumes are available on the subject of ethical decision making. They might be in upper case, double-spaced and cost thirty-five dollars, but they mirror an obsession with the alleged complexity of the subject. Don’t waste your money or your time, because the issue is not that complicated.

  We all face ethical dilemmas in our lives, regularly and often. Mind you, I’ve actually had people ask me, “When will I know that I’m facing one?” To which my response is always the same, “Don’t worry, you’ll know.” The crux of the problem is that we often make bad ethical decisions when we are alone, literally and figuratively. The solution is to imagine someone you love—a parent, your spouse, a sibling or a best friend looking over your shoulder when making any decision involving an ethical issue. You will do the right thing—and you will have saved yourself thirty-five dollars.