Korea Military Academy Hwarangdae International Symposium
Hwarangdae International Symposium
Developing Leaders of Character -
The most important duty of military academies
Special Presentation to
Korea Military Academy
Robert Caslen, Jr.
Lieutenant General, U.S. Army (retired)
59th Superintendent of the United States Military Academy
Introduction.
I am honored to be invited to speak to the Korean Military Academy as part of the Hwarangdae International Symposium. Having served in my nation’s army for 43 years, cumulated as the Superintendent of the United States Military Academy, I have come to appreciate the incredibly important role military academies and their graduates have, not only for their army, but for the nation as a whole. Also known as West Point, the United States Military Academy’s mission was to educate, train and inspire leaders of character for a lifetime of service to our Army and our Nation. I’ll speak to “character” later, but “lifetime of service” is a critically important concept that West Point has the mission and responsibility to do. And that is to produce leaders of character who will serve their country – not for a couple years after they graduate while they’re on active duty – but to serve their country for a lifetime, because a military academy’s product is not just to prepare an officer for an army, it is to prepare a graduate for a lifetime of service to their nation. And because they prepare servants to serve their nation, the institution earns the trust and confidence of the people of that nation.
You may be familiar with the game we play in America called “football”. No, it is not soccer, but we have this weird shaped ball that we run with and throw. But it is a beloved sport played not only professionally, but also in many colleges and universities across America to include all of our military academies. As a matter of fact, our greatest rivalry is the Naval Academy, and when that game is played, it is on national TV, and no other game competes with it. Millions of Americans will stop what they’re doing on that busy December Saturday afternoon, and watch an intense, emotional, and gritty Army-Navy football game.
But what is special, is that as America watches the game, they do not see a bunch of tough, scrappy young men on the field, they see the future of those who will stand in the gap between the evil that threatens our Nation and the American people. And when they see a game that is so emotionally played, with tough, gritty, men laying it on the line for each other, they see the future leaders of our Army, and our Nation, and those are the qualities they expect in their military leadership. But more importantly, when they see these men, they build tremendous trust in their Army and their Navy, knowing that if these men are called to serve in harm’s way, America will trust that they will prosecute the war in accordance with the values of our Nation, and win.
So, to the cadets sitting here today – as you sit here today - you are not only getting a great education. And you are not only getting great training to be a competent leader in your Army. You are earning the trust and confidence of the Korean nation. They trust you because you are competent. They trust you because you demonstrate the character in everything you do, 24 hours a day, in both your public and your private life. And they trust you because you demonstrate the tenacity, intellect, commitment, and competence to win on the battlefield every time. It’s a big order that is being demanded of you; but you wouldn’t be here right now if your country did not have full confidence in you.
A Professional in a Profession.
Professions are defined by a unique expertise by a person providing a service to their client, and by providing this service, they have a unique relationship with their client, and it is a relationship that is built on trust. In the profession of arms, our unique service is the lawful use of lethal force to protect our countrymen, and we are prepared to give our lives in its use. And in democratic nations where militaries are subordinate to their elected officials, our client is the people of our Nation that we are defending, and whom elect the civil authorities we are subordinate to.
This relationship built on trust is significant. Steven Covey in his book, The Speed of Trust, says trust is a function of competence and character. If someone is working for me and they cannot do what they are hired to do, they are incompetent and I cannot trust their work. Similarly, they can be highly competent, but if they have character issues, I too cannot trust them. In the profession of arms, our client – the people of our nation – expects us to be highly competent in the use of lethal force, and that our character would be embraced by the values of our nation, our military, and our institution. If we breach those values, we compromise our character, and we lose trust.
Within a profession, professionals hold each other accountable. They don’t look for someone else to make the correction, it is expected we will fix it, and do so honorably. That is stewardship. If we fail to make corrections, we have compromised our standard, and by default, have established another standard. And if we fail to correct to this new standard, we will continue to embrace a lower standard. This cycle of not holding each other accountable will spiral until we hit bottom, and the unit unravels, simply because they have lost the one ingredient that holds organizations together, and that is discipline.
My Top 5 Leadership Principles.
Having served in the United States Army for 43 years, there has been a lot of learning that has molded and shaped me over all these years. But for me, 5 lessons seemed to percolate to the top, and I have come to believe how important these are in military leadership – leaders from the lowest to the highest ranks.
The 5 key principles are:
1. Character: If you fail in character, you fail in leadership. Trust
2. Excellence: Perform to the upper levels of your potential in everything you do.
3. Purpose: You must have a purpose. It forces you to pay the price for success; the grit and determination to never quit.
4. Teamwork: We not I; 3 teams
5. The Man in the Arena; It is not the critic who counts
A Conversation on Character
When I was a division commander in northern Iraq during the surge, I lost one of my most trusted and competent battalion commanders in western Mosul to a suicide car bomber. It was tragic for that battalion, because this commander was so admired and respected. He was an incredibly talented leader, who was also a man of incredible integrity.
He was soon replaced by an officer of very compromising integrity. This officer had a negligent discharge and he tried to cover it up. He also had an illicit inappropriate relationship on line with one of his staff officers.
He was fired and removed. But the issue was not him. It was what happened to that unit. What was once an outstanding, competent battalion, was now an ill-disciplined, ineffective unit. Character issues in leadership are not so much about the poor leader, as they are about the unit that can no longer function and do its job.
Stephen Covey’s book, The Speed of Trust, talks about effective organizations which operate at great speeds if there is great trust within its ranks. He defines trust as a function of competence and character. If you don’t know what you’re doing, how is anyone going to trust you? And if you are competent, but a liar and cheater, then how will someone trust you? In comparing which of the two characteristics is more important, character will swallow competence every time. Simply because you can be #1 in your class in competence, but if you fail in character, you have failed in leadership. Trust, therefore, is the most important element of effective leadership.
People will ask, “what is character”? That is an excellent question. But character is nothing more than an ethic, which is a set of principles that embrace a set of values. As the unit internalizes these values and they become part of our very essence, the values will define who we are both in public and in our private lives.
Live a Life of Excellence
Leaders live lives of excellence. Excellence is defined as performing to the upper level of your potential. So, what is excellence to one, may be average to another. But if every person establishes a goal to perform to the upper level of one’s potential, then this universal definition can apply to everyone.
Key to excellence is that it is the opposite of average. If we would chart out performance over time, we would have times when we performed higher than average, and times when we performed lower than average. But by definition, there is an average level of performance out there. And if we put our performance on a bell-shaped curve, we can see where average is, and where above and below average are as well. So, excellence here is performing to the upper level of our potential, or said another way, we would be performing to about two standard deviations to the right. The diagram illustrates where this occurs along the curve.
When we perform consistently better than average, we’re going to not only get a better performance, but we’re going to show improvement and growth over time. The problem though is when we perform to the upper level of our potential, we’re likely to be operating in areas we’re unfamiliar with, and we’re likely to make mistakes as a result. Key here is not to look at mistakes as bad performance, but look at mistakes as opportunities to learn and grown. It is like breaking a bone. When we break a bone, and it heals correctly, it is stronger where the break occurred than it was before the break. If we make a mistake and learn from our mistake, we are going to improve and get better as a result.
Coach Mike Krzyzewski, Hall of Fame basketball coach, said it best. “I do not strive to win. I strive for excellence, because out of excellence, success naturally happens.”
Find Your Passion and Live it!
What is your passion? Your passion is your “why”. Why you do what you do. Why you put up with what you put up with. Why you keep going when everything tells you to stop. Your why is your goal, your success, your accomplishment, your win.
The why is so important because if you don’t have a why, you’re not going to tolerate the BS and the crap that you have to put up with. Quite simply, your why will not allow you to negotiate the price of success. You will pay the price of success. Regardless of what it takes. Regardless of what it costs. None of that matters. If you have a why, you will not negotiate what it will take to get there. And in so doing, you will persevere under every adversity. You will develop the grit and determination to never quit.
When I graduated West Point, I incurred a 5-year commitment, and I was certain, I would do my 5 years, and then get out. But what I found once I got in the Army, was a brotherhood and sisterhood, that drew me into it, and I found the men and women I was leading in the crucible of ground combat was closer and tighter than my own blood brothers and sisters.
I also was driven knowing my nation trusted me to lead her sons and daughters in the worse of circumstances, knowing they would accomplish the mission, and they trusted I would do everything within my power to enable them to come back home to their loved ones.
These troops motivated me. They became my why. My why became my passion. And I no longer negotiated what it would take to be successful. I did not negotiate the price of success! And I did not get out after 5 years, but ended up remaining in the Army for 43 years!
Building Teams
Great leaders build great teams. The character slide (slide #5) may be the most important slide in my presentation, but this is the most informative slide for developing leaders, simply because great leaders build great teams, and they belong to great teams because they are great teammates as well. This slide will address being a member of 3 teams – first is the team you lead, second is the team where you are a teammate along with the rest of your teammates, and third is the first lesson of leadership, and that is how to follow, and this talks about how to be the best subordinate team member on your boss’ team.
I had a great assignment at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) where I was the senior evaluator of the Brigade Commanders rotating through. Brigade commanders are colonels in rank, and command up to 6,000 soldiers. They command very powerful and well-trained combat teams. But my job was to coach, teach, and mentor the commanders themselves.
The rotation itself was a 2-week combat simulated environment, that was a free play event, 24 hours a day. The troops used laser tags and third-party observers and controllers would adjudicate each engagement. Most soldiers who went through one of these rotations would eagerly say they would prefer to have been in combat than to go through another JRTC rotation.
When I walked into the brigade’s headquarters at the beginning of the rotation, I could sense right away if it was going to be a successful rotation or not, simply by the climate that existed within the unit. Units that were learning organizations, that produced successful rotations, had climates where everyone was actively participating, where junior NCOs were asking senior commanders questions, and the senior leaders would stop and respond back. There was a lot of formal and informal conversation, and everyone felt they had a valued mission, the resources they needed to accomplish this mission, and the authorities to make it happen. But what really caught my eye was how the commander engaged with each of his staff, and that was most evident at the end of the day when the staff gave the commander its daily update.
When each staff briefed, the junior staff members wanted to be the ones to brief the boss. They were proud of their work, and they wanted to show-off to the commander. And when they briefed the boss, he edified them, he uplifted them, he encouraged them, and as a result these staff members were falling over themselves to please the boss. But what the boss did more than anything was that he made the staff feel good about themselves within the climate he created. Notice the uniqueness of this most valued statement. The boss did not make them feel good about him; he made them feel good about themselves. And when they felt they were contributing they would do whatever was necessary to continue to be a contributing member of the team.
That climate was not always the climate I would observe in units rotating through the exercise. Those who were challenged in the rotation normally was a result of a toxic and intimidating command climate. And as the observer-controller, I could sense if that was the case the minute I walked into the headquarters. In units like this, the climate felt like ice. When I would walk in, there was no dialogue and no people walking around. They were glued to their computers, doing only what they were told to do. And when it came time to brief the boss in the evening update, no one wanted to brief him, and the senior staff officer ended up doing the briefing only because he was responsible to do so. But when they briefed the boss, I saw right away what the problem was. The boss was intimidating and threatening. There never was a case where the team met the boss’ intent. And when they didn’t, the boss would intimidate them and ridicule the briefer or the senior staffer in that public setting.
What was key in this climate, was that subordinates will do only what they are told to and nothing more, out of fear that if they exercised initiative, and made a mistake, they would be raked over the coals and embarrassed by the boss. So rather than risk this ridicule, there was no initiative, but only execution of the directed tasks. And sooner than later, the demands were so high, that the unit just failed to operate because everything rested on the back of the commander and him alone. Those units eventually collapsed internally.
When a boss creates a climate that encourages people to get out of their comfort zone, and to stretch into areas that had not normally entered, he must also underwrite the risk of making a mistake. In other words, making a mistake is not something to be upset about, it should be viewed as an opportunity to learn and to grow. Making a mistake is like breaking a bone. If the bone breaks and heals correctly, the bone becomes stronger where the break occurred than the strength of the bone itself. When we make a mistake and learn from our mistake, then we become stronger in competence and in character.
That is not to say we should tolerate mistakes. Mistakes are opportunities to learn, and we want learning subordinates who want to learn and grow. But if the people in our organizations will grow, and if we want command climates that encourage people to stretch and grow, then we, as leaders, need to created the climate and underwrite the risk where our subordinates can stretch and in so doing, both the organizations and our people will grow bigger, more capable, and stronger.
The second part of “building teams” is to be a great teammate. Being a great teammate means that you’ll do whatever you can to help your partner, or teammate. Normally, our teammate is our peer, who will fight along aside of us on our left or right. But here is the key of being a great teammate. If you care and partner with your teammate, you take your eyes off of yourself, and selflessly put your eyes on your partner. This is the key characteristic of selflessness and humility. What is occurring on the battlefield is not only what is happening to you and how you will respond, but you are also aware of your teammates, and how they are doing, and what you can do to help them.
I have always told those who worked for me, who I rated in their performance ratings, that they must get along with their subordinate peers. If I have a subordinate that was not a “team player”, that would be the last rank he would ever achieve as I will be sure he does not see another command or promotion.
The military does not need another leader with an ego that is out of control. That only contaminates judgement and decisions. We need strong leaders with a degree of humility, as that is the precursor for being a great teammate, and the best organizations are teams that are very efficient and effective as a team.
The third part of building great teams is to be a great member of your boss’ team. Or said another way, be a great follower. Heck – the first lesson we all learned about leadership was how to follow. When I was a plebe at West Point, there was nothing in there about leading – it was all about being a good plebe, or a great follower. They even gave me only 4 answers regardless of whatever question that came my way. The 4 answers were: “Yes, Sir”, “No Sir”, “No excuse Sir”, and “Sir, I do not understand”. There was nothing in there about “follow me” or “do as I do”, it was all about learning how to be a good follower.
I can’t stress enough how tremendously important this is. Regardless of whatever leadership position we are in, we are still a follower to someone in higher rank than us. Even the highest ranking officer in the United States military is a follower. He works for the Secretary of Defense and President of the United States. If he is out of touch with either of these two, he will be out of a job very quickly.
I learned a great lesson about this during the Joint Readiness Training Center assignment I referred to earlier. When the boss and his staff would prepare an operations officer, the boss would give some initial guidance and go off and circulate among the units, among adjacent commanders, and get plenty of guidance from his own boss. The staff would work on the order non-stop, and often all night. And with little sleep they would give their staff recommendation to the commander in the morning. The commander slept a lot, was alert, and had his own perspectives from his own battlefield circulation and who all he talked with. As the observer-controller, we too had plenty of sleep, and would stand to the side to watch the briefing dynamics between the staff and their boss.
The staff would give their recommendation and supporting data. The boss would ask a question or two – normally in an area the staff had not fully analyzed. The staff would respond. This would go back and forth for a while, and at some point, the boss made a decision and articulated it to the staff. Well, the staff was emotionally tied to their recommendation because they poured their “blood, sweat, and tears” into their work, and they felt they were right. But the boss would again counter the staff and redirect them – or at least he thought they were redirected. And then it was all over.
What happened next was fascinating. Normally, the emotional staff thought they had convinced the commander to their recommendation and they were under the impression the commander concurred. And the commander left thinking he gave the staff a decision. And we as observers saw the disconnect between the boss and his staff, and the closer they got to execution, the more of a train wreck was about to happen.
I learned that to be a good follower you really have to know your boss, and I always saw my boss in a phase 1 – phase 2 situation. Phase 1 is when the boss is gathering information and needs your subject matter expertise, and candor. Phase 2 is when the boss has made a decision and as long as it is a moral and ethical decision, he is looking for your understanding of his guidance and intent and then to assume ownership of the decision, as though it was your own. The key in all this does not rest with the boss – it rests with us as followers. We have to know when our boss has transitioned from phase 1 to phase 2. The challenge is that as staffers, the more we pour our heart and soul into the problem set, the more reluctant we are to have someone change it on us, to include our boss himself. But the boss doesn’t care. He has experience, perspectives, and in many cases, more sleep over us. Our job is to strip away our emotion, understand the boss, and accept ownership of it.
The Man and Woman in the Arena.
By Teddy Roosevelt (with Caslen’s gender neutral version).
When you are in a leadership position, you can expect to have the critics. It comes with the turf. Especially with the arrival and proliferation of social media, it can also be very ugly. I’ve been there and it is not fun to read or listen to it. But there is some encouragement, and this comes form the former president of the United States, President Teddy Roosevelt. He wrote it as if men only were leaders in the arena. But we know today that many of our leaders are women, and this encouragement certainly applies to them as well – which is why I included the “gender neutral” version.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man or woman who points out how the strong one stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man and woman who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself and herself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he or she fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his or her place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat”.
Conclusion
Service is its own reward. There is a great parable that says, “the greatest among you is the servant among you.” I love the opportunity to serve. It takes your eyes off of yourself, and places them on the needs of our nation, the people in our nation, and those on your team who will accomplish this mission while working for you. While serving, we build trust, and that trust is a function of the competence we have in our profession, and our character. People will often ask me, what’s more important in building trust – competence or character? My response is simple. Character swallows competence every time. You can be number one in your class, but if you fail in character, you fail in leadership. We have seen that over and over. Which is why our service academies, while training and developing the future leaders in our military, are building “leaders of character”. You are that leader. You know the character that your nation expects of you. You have what it takes to accomplish the mission every time and win. You are your nation’s best and brightest. You are the pride and joy of your country.