[November 10, 2016] The first election I can remember as a young child was when John F. Kennedy (Democrat) ran against Rich Nixon (Republican) in 1960 and won. Rarely am I any longer surprised about election results but I had bought into current predictions of all the pollsters, political pundits, news reports, etc. that Hillary Clinton would easily… Read More »
[November 8, 2016] Many times I’ve written here that it’s best to learn from the mistakes of others. This is a cheap, effective, and quick way to learn about leadership and it works. It works rather smoothly although it does require some talent to pick up on the real lessons. However, I’m one of those leaders who had… Read More »
[November 4, 2016] On this date, November 4th in 1979, Iranian “students” stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran. This lead to an oil embargo, the holding of American hostages, and to the humiliation of the United States. U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy, his energy strategy, and how he handled the crisis are examples of dangerous outcomes when… Read More »
[November 2, 2016] Nearly 50 years ago, the U.S. was in the middle of the Vietnam War and experiencing a strengthening antiwar movement. U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson met with a group of highly prestigious leaders to ask for their advice on how to unite citizens on the war effort. Their advice was to give more optimistic reports. … Read More »
[November 1, 2016] It was a hot summer day in southern Arkansas when my grandmother decided to teach me about life. It was my turn – at a meager six years of age – to catch, kill, and prepare one of her chickens for our supper that evening. Killing the chicken would be a first for me but… Read More »
[October 31, 2016] Today is Halloween; a secular holiday with popular “scary” themes. But here is something scarier that keeps leaders up at night. There are two regrettable but headline making, leading issues that put senior military leaders in a very bad light. First, over the past several decades we’ve known that the U.S. military system is not… Read More »
[October 28, 2016] One of my themes1 here at theLeaderMaker.com has been that anyone can learn a great deal about leadership through the study of the successes and failures of other leaders. This is best done by doing our darndest to learn about what leaders think and thus how they carry out their responsibilities; for good or for… Read More »
[October 26, 2016] In the early days of World War II, the Allies had many strategically difficult problems to solve. The most pressing and most dangerous if wrong was how to fight the Germans and Japanese (and the Italians) simultaneously and not be stretched too thinly and thus be defeated by either. In the past 100 years, this… Read More »
[October 25, 2016] My great uncle owned and operated an animal feed store in Arkansas until the early 1960s when his business failed; which he blamed on racial integration of blacks. His racism was a serious blind spot because it deprived him of potential customers. Blind spots for leaders can also have disastrous consequences. But what are typical… Read More »
[October 24, 2016] Ten years ago exactly on this date in 2016, my unit was part of a major fight north of Baghdad. At the end of the day I was getting on a transport at the nearby Forward Operating Base that would take a few officers back for a debriefing. The appearance of the senior civilian in… Read More »