The military is one of the most successful institutions that builds and develops leaders. Over half of the United States Presidents have served in the military. Russ sits down with Lee Delony and Ric McClain, both retired Military service members to talk about their time in the service and what they have learned about leadership and how that can translate to help anyone who wants to be a leader in whatever capacity.
“THE DAY THE SOLDIERS STOP BRINGING YOU THEIR PROBLEMS IS THE DAY YOU STOPPED LEADING THEM. THEY HAVE EITHER LOST CONFIDENCE THAT YOU CAN HELP THEM OR CONCLUDED THAT YOU DO NOT CARE. EITHER CASE IS A FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP.” GENERAL COLIN POWELL, RETIRED FOUR-STAR GENERAL IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY AND FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE
A big point of emphasis was servant leadership. Each person in the armed forces has a specific job they are specialized in and it is the leaders job to removed all distractions and impediments for their men and women to do their job effectively. As leaders, our job is to help those we lead be excellent at what they do.
The military is one of the most successful institutions that builds and develops leaders. Over half of the United States Presidents have served in the military. Russ sits down with Lee Delony and Ric McClain, both retired Military service members to talk about their time in the service and what they have learned about leadership and how that can translate to help anyone who wants to be a leader in whatever capacity.
“THE DAY THE SOLDIERS STOP BRINGING YOU THEIR PROBLEMS IS THE DAY YOU STOPPED LEADING THEM. THEY HAVE EITHER LOST CONFIDENCE THAT YOU CAN HELP THEM OR CONCLUDED THAT YOU DO NOT CARE. EITHER CASE IS A FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP.” GENERAL COLIN POWELL, RETIRED FOUR-STAR GENERAL IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY AND FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE
A big point of emphasis was servant leadership. Each person in the armed forces has a specific job they are specialized in and it is the leaders job to removed all distractions and impediments for their men and women to do their job effectively. As leaders, our job is to help those we lead be excellent at what they do.
Eh, not what your country can do for you and what you can do for your country. You are on one word. I have a dream of one thing. This may terminal will
Speaker 2:
welcome to the lead different podcast. Uh, we're excited today because we have, uh, in the room with us as part of our podcast. Uh, two really great friends of the program and Great Friends of mine, uh, lead Aloni and Rick McClain. And today we're going to talk about building leaders, the military's role in developing leaders. Now, some of you may not be huge fans of the military for some reason, and I'm going to guarantee you by the time we're done with this podcast, you're going to see the military in a very different light. Uh, one of the reasons I want to do this podcast with Lee and Rick is because I believe that, uh, if not number one, uh, among the top two or three, uh, entities or institutions in America that develops leaders is the military. And if you look around, you'll see that I was listening to a podcast last night, uh, from, uh, politics and prose bookstore in Washington DC. And that was from 2016 or so. It was Joseph fellows, one of my favorite historians. He wrote founding brothers, I think it's a Pulitzer Prize winning book on the revolution and from Mount Holyoke. But as he was preparing to speak, he was talking about different leaders and everything. Uh, and it turned out that he taught, um, at, he taught at West Point for about three to six months. And one of the people who taught at West Point was a guy that many people out there listening, Noah, Mike Shashefski coach or Duke University. I bring that up because for a lot of us, we don't understand how many people in America, in the world learned how to lead in the military and that the military does an extraordinary job of doing that. As I mentioned, we have Lee delone with us and Rick McLean. Lee graduated from the u s naval academy completing the naval nuclear power training program, served as an engineering department officer and two nuclear powered cruisers. Active duty for nine years with the rank of lieutenant is currently associate chief of inpatient, uh, medical support at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Palo Alto, which we're all inspired by because he's taking care of our vets. Writing a claim was an aesics petty officer, first-class in the U s navy active duty for 11 years. I hope nobody's going to hate on us because we only have navy guys in here. Fresh stationed on two ships. Destroy your Tinder and aircraft carrier. Working in data processing, working with computers for the u s navy is currently SVP of technology at the largest broker dealer on the west coast in San Francisco. And so we've got two really great guys. Now again, I said, well, why did I do this? One of my favorite things to read about in history, uh, is our military leaders. I don't even know how it all happened. One of the best books, and I'm going to give them to you at the beginning, is a why courage matters by John McCain had just passed away. It's one of the best books on courage and his life. Uh, forget about politics. I'm not talking about politics, I'm talking about who he is as a person. One of the most courageous men I've seen in public life and not a good book is team of teams by General. Stanley McChrystal, U s army retired and I think the military does a great job with teams. But my absolute favorite, my absolute favorite military guy of all time is Ulysses s grant. I have, uh, at least 10 books about Ulysses s grant or grant in Sherman. And uh, and uh, one of the reasons I love him is because he was a, he went to west point. Um, he was in the, uh, the, the war between the, you know, the u s and in Mexico. That's where he first got going. Came out of that though and basically hit rock bottom of working at his dad's store, going into debt, had nothing civil war breaks out. And the guy comes iffy, barely gets in, you know, because they didn't think he was much of an officer. He had a reputation for being a drunk, which Smitty historians think was exaggerated. Uh, how much he drank and how often he drank. Uh, but, uh, he turned that around and become the fiercest fighter and it was his determination. One of my favorite lines is they were just getting thrashed by the confederates, just completely thrashed by them. And Sherman went and go, man, we've lost all these men. You know, what are we going to do? And he said, a simple phrase, we'll beat them tomorrow. And that determination, a turn. Well, you know, it's the most transformative battle ever fought in the history of America because it made the nation what it was, Shelby Foote, a great civil war historian says, uh, the revolutionary war was the founding, but the defining of America was the civil war. Uh, military has provided us with all kinds of people. George Marshall, the Marshall Plan, Dwight Eisenhower President, you've assessed grant president. I can go on and on and on. They are one of the premier leadership developers that we have. And so one of the things that we wanted to start off with Lee and Rick to talk about is what have you learned about leadership that your time in military service? What did, what did, what did you gain and what can we gain from understanding how the military raises up trains and develops leaders?
Speaker 3:
Well, first of all, I'm, I'm excited to be here and I'm grateful to be amongst a friends and um, uh, we've all known each other a long time and, and so having two navy guys is not a bad thing. So that's my favorite. My uncle was in the marines, so that was army, my uncle. But you know, I do think that people, when they think of the military, they, they think a lot about command and control and about, hey, you do this. Yes sir. And I'll obey. And, and certainly in a, in a wartime situation, you, you need to have clear command and control and, and, and a complete trust that you have with each other. Those, those that are calling the shots and those that are carrying out the orders. But I think what's not well understood is that that's not the leadership, uh, of great military leaders. Um, uh, I don't remember that we use this term, but, uh, the great leadership I saw as what today would be called servant leadership. Yup. And that's a surprise. Maybe too many people, but, um, what, what my role was all about as an officer was removing the obstacles from the way of my man so that they could take their unique skills and get the job done. I was, my purpose was to get them the supplies they needed to get someone off their back who wow. Falsely accusing them. My job was to remove the obstacles for them to do their jobs. Um, now I worked in the engineering spaces in the, uh, nuclear power plants, a complicated beast. And so, um, you know, uh, each, each of these guys had a skill set that was highly developed and you know, a guy that's working with a massive turbine which is turning the propellers. He does not want the, the, the guy who may understand the electrical network anywhere near his, uh, turbine. And he certainly didn't want me as the division officer to touch the thing. He's like, sir, go away. Don't get close to Mike here. You know. Uh, and so, um, that, that, that's an aspect of, of leadership that people don't understand about the, the, the military is that, uh, it's a matter of, uh, equipping people and letting them shine to do what they've been trained to do yet. But I think just to follow up on that, on the enlisted side, I think what Lee was saying is correct. Cause I, you know, I had good leaders and I had leaders that were not as good as others in the ones that did the best, were successful at removing the obstacles and allowing us to do our job. Cause you know, you're on an aircraft carrier. There's many, many pieces that are needed to keep that big machine running and everybody's job was important. And you know from the junior guy that's the cook, you know, to the Advil, it's up there commanding in the fleet. Everybody's got a job to do and you know the good leadership does take those obstacles away. It allows you to do that job.
Speaker 2:
I love that fish. I love that definition of taking. I'm going to listen to this podcast just to listen to that again, removing obstacles. I was listening to Stanley McChrystal who spoke at Stanford in 2012 and he did a talk basically about his work. He was a green baret and then worked his way up and he was talking about his work in the, in the war in the Middle East, which we're not talking politics today. We're just talking about how leaders are developed. And one of the things he said connected with what you guys are talking about is he kept emphasizing how every person's role is vital. He even said, even to give this speech today, someone had to turn to open the doors of this room. Someone had to turn on the lights and he, he was so in detail about the value of every one of those people. And so when you talk about removing those obstacles, it, it, it, it's a profound view of servant leadership I think even helps me in thinking, am I removing the obstacles from the people I'm leading? So it's very, very practical. Let me ask a question. Um, well, I have two questions. One is I heard, and I don't know if this is just army or whatever, that, that, uh, a vast majority of people in the military are engineers as far as the population base. Is that just maybe one branch or did I get that wrong? Or are there a lot of engineers in the military they were referring to like, they build bridges, they build cities.
Speaker 3:
True. Yeah. Yeah. I guess, I guess we had to choose a single skillset that that would be amongst the highest, a significant one because surprise me, right? You're building airstrips you're designing aircraft. You're, yeah. So I would say that's probably true. I never thought about that to be honest with you.
Speaker 2:
I heard that J it's just, it's, I think when you said falsehoods, I was one of those people who had a false view of the military being command control. And I even, I've taught, I've had friends who grew up in, in the military, their parents were, were military, uh, uh, in the military. And I even think they had that view that their parents were command control. And I think sometimes we project onto people things we think are happening, sometimes order feels like command control. You know, as a parent, we all know as parents, our kids think we're command control. No, I'm trying to keep it from killing yourself. Exactly. Um, sure. So why is it that basic training, as I've heard about that a lot, it's such an important part of this whole military experience. Cause did you have to go, do you do basic training at the academy as well? Right?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, we do it. Uh, we, uh, we have a kind of a summer, which is, which is, um, I want to say pure hell yeah. And then, uh, but the whole first year at the academies is a year where you're being kind of broken down and, and uh, their tests, it's really a test to see who's going to have the character to, to later rise up and lead, you know? So yeah. And uh, Rick can speak to a, a bootcamp. It's a, it's a time where you're, where you're sifting through, uh, people and some people don't make it in the first few days. Uh, you know, you just, they're just gone. They just disappear right after uni.
Speaker 2:
I mean, I always knew that people didn't, you know, make it later, but it's that quick,
Speaker 3:
that quick. I remember I remember getting off the bus and this guy saying, okay, you Maggie to go line up over here. And I was looking around and I was just thinking, what did I get myself in? I'm like, dude, is this the biggest mistake of my life? Did I get myself into? But to at least point, yeah. You know, we start off the company, um, if I remember correctly, was 80, 85 people in when we graduated nine weeks later
Speaker 2:
with 62 really? See that reminds me of college because in college you go just traditional, you know, college. You, I remember my, I think my, I had a political science class. There must've been 300 people in that class. But you know, that change is quick. And so the sifting process, is that an important part? Developing leaders?
Speaker 3:
It is because not, not everybody, uh, is, is meant to be, well, I hate to say that, but everybody can lead to some level, but not everybody's meant to lead in a pressure situation and a situation where you're trying to bring together a diverse group of people to do something that they really, perhaps don't want to do. I mean that those qualities, uh, our, our, our different lives are at stake, right? When details are important. Yes. Your mistake, I, during the one of the Iraq wars, can't remember, I remember a report was done and said, uh, because these guys get no sleep, they get no rest. One of the great dangerous, when they don't get that sleep and rest is friendly fire, uh, casualties. And so will your baby. I think you're being very, very generous to say, you're not saying that everybody can't lead the people. Everybody you can lead lead lots of things. But leading under the pressure of life and death leading when you know, you've got people like my sister was in this hurricane recently and Michael and down in a, in Florida. And the first thing I thought is man helped to get the military down there cause her trees a fault cause you just know it. Military is going to go in and they're going to execute. Right. And people are gonna get say, but you're saying this is an elite level of leadership. Would that be fair? I, I think so. Yeah. I think it is an elite level of leadership. But, um, you know, I was thinking about the bootcamp experience, which you, which you asked about. And, and uh, clearly, um, there's a lot of stories about bootcamp and, and some are probably exaggerated like fishing stories but, but some of them are, are, are really true. I remember them, I remember some guy yelling at us, there was a lot of yelling in boot camp at close range. Oh really? If you don't want to wear glasses because they get kind of fogged up particles as I am laughing, it's too real. Cause you guys are, you know, but you know, he said, look, you know, turn, look at the guy to the left of you turn to look at the guy to the right of you. One of you's not going to be here. You know, that, uh, they, they, from the very beginning, they do want to break you down and break down your, uh, your just perhaps arrogance or, or, or anything that you think you're all that about. And the reason for that is not, uh, to psychologically mess you up. But the idea is that in bootcamp you learn that it's not about the individual. It's not about how short you are out tall you are, it's not even about your culture. I'm sorry. Okay. It's about the greater good of the team and of the, of the mission. And you have to set those things aside. You know, you may have been the fastest guy in high school, but, uh, you know, uh, how's it gonna help the team? And so that was a w at the end of the, uh, of the bootcamp time, you know, you'd have ceremonies and things and you see these guys that came in, you long haired and knuckleheaded and they're all lined up[inaudible] and they look sharp and they're proud because now they're a unit and they, and they all, they all remember each other forever, you know, um, because they've been built into something that's greater than just themselves. So that's bootcamp. Yeah. I mean, I think that's, that's the whole message. I mean, a lot of people don't know why they cut your hair. I saw the reason why really who will win. When I joined, it was Memorial Day weekend and we got there on a Friday. So we didn't get our haircut till Tuesday until they opened back up. And I saw you saw the guys who were a little more disrespectful, had a little bit more attitude, but that was the first step of stripping you down and making bring it down and break it down and molding you into a unit. Because once everybody went through it, had the Barbra laugh at them when they say, you know, how do you want it? And then they all laughing, they break out the sheep's years and everybody comes out of there with a different attitude. And that was the beginning of it. That's where it started.
Speaker 2:
Now it's interesting, you know, when I was in high school or not high school, I'm sorry, when I was in like an elementary school, the draft was still in effect. And uh, I'm a bit older than some of our listeners. And um, I remember that scared me to death, you know, cause I was like, oh my God. Cause the Vietnam War was going on and I was like draft, it wasn't the draft. This scared me. It was the fact that when you went to Vietnam, you, you had a high level chance of dying. And I was just petrified. At eight, nine I go to bed praying at night going, Oh God, you know, I wouldn't even, I don't even know if I believed in God. I just was like, I don't know where else to go with Mike fear. I was just told afraid of dying back then. Um, but I remember when it turned all volunteer. And I think that one of the, and I'm not four against strap, that wasn't a comment on that. I'm saying, I think what's incredible is that you have people walking in saying, I want to do this. And I, and I think, I think what people out there can learn, whether they're in, in a business, they're in a, a for profit nonprofit business, uh, they want to go into academia. They want to build a great program for physicist is that at some point you gotta get people to say, number one, I want to do this. And then number two, I realized I have to be shaped to do this. So my dad was drafted in the army and it shaped him and say what you want? But it shaped him. And I think there are very few things in life that shape, and one of the things I think you guys can show are teaching us now is that if you want to build an elite organization, there's no question that United States military is one of, if not the most elite organization in the world, you're going to have to have standards and you're going to have to have a way to, people come in and people are going to have to accept that. When I come into a great organization, it's not about me. This takes place in sports, a championship team right down the street at Stanford. I think they have a set of standards for their athletics and they win that, that, that cup almost every year for the most sports that have won the most championships because they have a set of standards. Can you get into Stanford? Probably not. So right there, your sifted, can you play sports at Stanford? Not if you can't get in. And so I think I'm just saying that for people out there who may go on military is too intense. No, I think the military is in a historic organization that says, here's how you do it. If you really want to make great men and great leaders, great women and great leaders, you're going to have to be able to establish a process which says if you want in and you want to buy in, there's a process to doing it and it starts at the bottom. So I think that's cool.
Speaker 3:
Well, and, and here's what I think is that um, yeah, this, this process can, it really can be translated to business. It can be translated a nonprofit. And I think there are certain crucial things that can be learned and duplicated. For example, um, one of the key things to, uh, have in a great organization is you have to have a clear true north. You have to have a clear mission and everyone needs to be, uh, needs to understand that mission and needs to be reiterated. And it may be on a visibility boards and it may be something that's, that that's a, a colloquialism and it may be and as a part of your logo or whatever. But I mean, it was clear to me, uh, in the military that, that this was not going to be about me. It was going to be about protecting, uh, our, our, our freedoms. It's going to be about, uh, keeping my family safe. It was going to be about something bigger than me and at 17, you know, you don't think much beyond me. I did. So that, that was a hard lesson to, to, to really learn. But, but if you have that, if you have that mission and it's clearly understood and it's articulated and, and you understand that, um, you know, my guys, my first job I was division officer of, of, of mechanics and there they were the nuclear mechanic, machinist mates. And so they, uh, op they a fixed pumps and pipes and air compressors and things like that. And uh, you know, when that guy was in the middle of the night fixing a pump, it was important that he knew that if that pump didn't get fixed, then the reactor couldn't start up through actor couldn't start up then the ship couldn't leave, leave the, uh, the, the, the port, the ship couldn't lead the port. It couldn't join the battlegroup, which was going to, uh, you know, uh, carry a detachment of marines to be able to land somewhere. I mean, so, and those marines, we're going to keep us safe. So that guy fixing the pump in the middle of the night, extraordinary needs to understand that he's not just fixing a pump. He's, he is saving the war. You know, he's keeping his bet is because country safe. So that
Speaker 2:
understanding of the mission for everybody was, it can be duplicated I think in any organization that is incredible. You know what? This is gonna be the first segment and we're going to come back to you with part two. This segment really, I think Leanne Rick did a great job of helping us understand that there's a leadership philosophy in the military that we can all learn from servant leadership and how that time in the service shaped them. And I just will never forget the idea and the job of a leader is remove the obstacles from the people they lead so they can become and do what they need to do and isn't. Lee finished up on that story, making sure that everybody doing any job knows their value. We'll be back next week or in a couple of days when you see our second podcast on why the military, it has an extraordinary capability. Develop leaders and what we can learn from it.
