One of the most memorable experiences in my career was walking into a room full of more than 100 mid-career U.S. military officers (mostly captains and majors) on November 8th, 2006 and announcing that Donald Rumsfeld had resigned. They instantly broke out into a standing ovation. Still, I believe we can learn as much from failed leaders as from successful ones. I enjoyed watching Robert McNamara's discussions in "The Fog of War" and I enjoyed reading the profile of Rumsfeld in Sunday's Post Magazine. His efforts at "transformation" greatly undermined the actual operations he was charged with running. His replacement, Robert Gates, has focused much more on the wars and left the "transformation" to others. In Godfather parlance, Rumsfeld simply wasn't a wartime consigliere.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment