A Passion for Leadership (13 page)

Little Stalins can do untold harm to an organization. I once thought they were primarily individuals appointed to their first supervisory position who, lacking training and experience, thought the best way to demonstrate their newfound authority over other men and women was by being tough on people. Only later did I discover that there are little Stalins at every level of every organization.

The trouble is that little Stalins are often hard for superiors to spot because they usually relate well to those up the bureaucratic and corporate ladder and are considered by their bosses to be polite, reasonable, and effective. There seems to be a direct correlation between the meanness of a little Stalin downward and his or her talent for sucking up to superiors—the “kiss up, kick down” syndrome. Given the dangerously corrosive effect such people can have within an organization, it is important to ferret them out and either move them to a nonsupervisory position where their individual skills might still be of value or, if necessary and possible, fire them.

A senior official who exhibits such behavior is especially problematic. If such a person is not the highest ranking in an organization, the only option—as at lower levels—is to get word to the top boss, often through a chief of staff or someone else close to the head honcho. I had this happen everyplace I worked. My chief of staff in each case would learn about abusive behavior at a lower level and either informed the little Stalin's boss about it (telling him to handle it), spoke to the individual directly, or, as a last resort, got me involved. If I had to talk to someone, I made it clear mine was a final warning: if there were a recurrence, the offender would be leaving permanently.

If the guilty party is the CEO, sad to say, the organization will just have to grin and bear it, waiting for the person to depart or for his ugly behavior to find its way into the media (hint, hint) and—with luck—force a change in behavior or resignation.

I pounded the desk just once in my career. It was in 1982 during my early days as deputy CIA director for analysis (the same position where I mistakenly began my tenure with the scorchingly critical speech). I called someone to my office to chew him out for some fairly egregious blunder. For dramatic effect, at one point I noisily slammed my hand down on my desk. I brusquely told the person to get out of my office immediately. I threw him out in haste mainly because I thought I had broken my hand. I hopped around the office holding my hand, alternately crying and laughing. Crying because my hand hurt so badly, laughing because I realized how ridiculous I looked and felt. Not only did I never pound my desk again, but I don't think I ever again raised my voice or threw someone out of my office. It was a lesson painfully learned.

A leader who treats his team members with respect and dignity can win the loyalty of subordinates literally for life. Throughout his entire career, George H. W. Bush was consistently kind to all those who worked with and for him. Most memorable were the countless little notes he would send to people who had gone out of their way for him, had received recognition of some sort for an accomplishment, had just done a good job, or had suffered some kind of personal tragedy or setback. He treated everyone—from White House groundskeepers to cabinet officers—the same way, asking about their families and their children (usually by name), asking how things were going for them generally, talking about the latest sports event of note. Virtually all who worked for him were considered part of a larger family, and no one ever forgot it.

An equally respectful boss was Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's national security adviser. At one point, I was traveling with him to Cairo in 1978 during the final stages of negotiating the Camp David peace accords between Israel and Egypt. When he met with the Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, I accompanied him as his note taker. I will never forget Brzezinski introducing me to Sadat not as his aide or staff assistant but as his “colleague.” It was a tiny gesture of respect, but one I remember vividly nearly forty years later. Zbig was a demanding boss but unfailingly polite to those who worked for him. I was lucky to work for several such bosses, including the national security adviser Brent Scowcroft and the DCI William Webster.

The gangster Al Capone allegedly once said, “You can get a lot more done with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone.” Still, never underestimate the power of a kind word. Treating subordinates properly always pays dividends—and others notice. It doesn't mean being a soft touch.

Leaders can—and, when necessary, must—level tough criticism at individuals, but due regard for their dignity requires doing it in private, not adding embarrassment and humiliation to the equation. Criticism, done privately, is far more likely to bring about constructive change. “Praise in public, criticize in private,” as the saying goes.

Even firing people can be done in a way that preserves that dignity—such as offering to let them resign. At A&M, when I fired vice presidents, in nearly every case I gave each a year or so to step down. I had the time to do that because, in academia, searches for replacements are long and drawn-out affairs—although jobs with special requirements often take a long time to fill in both the private and the public sectors. In my case, before acting at A&M, I had my chief of staff look into where the departing employee stood in terms of eligibility for retirement, potential loss of benefits, and so on; I needed to remove such employees, but I did not want to punish or hurt them. In one or two cases, I delayed acting for a few months to ensure there was no loss of retirement or other benefits. Leaders should never lose their humanity. And when I told those employees it was time to go, I said I would go along with any story they wanted to concoct; if they wanted to tell people they quit because they couldn't work for that son of a bitch Gates, I wouldn't contradict them.

At Defense, when I told senior officers they had to go, I let them resign. I also tried to be gracious in any public statements I made, pointing to their long record of public service. On at least two occasions, I spoke at the farewell or retirement ceremony for senior leaders—our top Afghan commander and the secretary of the air force—whom I had let go in a very public and abrupt way (given the urgency, I felt there was no alternative). Each was classy enough to invite me to attend his ceremony and I returned the gesture by paying tribute to his many real accomplishments without being patronizing or disingenuous. I think the two men appreciated it, although the friends and family present were probably of a different mind.

You can be the toughest, most demanding leader on the planet and still treat people with respect and dignity. Whether it's the lowest-level supervisory position or the very top job, a leader can and should treat people right. To quote President Harry Truman, “Always be nice to all the people who can't talk back to you. I can't stand a man or woman who bawls out underlings to satisfy an ego.”

To lead reform successfully, a leader must empower subordinates.

Whether the changes a leader wants to make are sweeping, minor, or something in between, she cannot achieve them alone. She needs to trust those on the team below her who should have been involved from the outset in establishing goals and the plans to achieve them. A leader must be willing to delegate to them the authority to carry out plans. One person simply cannot effectively oversee implementation of significant change that affects multiple parts of an organization. It doesn't matter whether it's a government bureaucracy or a business.

At each affected layer of the organization, there needs to be a leader committed to the overall agenda, a leader who has the authority not only to implement but also to adjust or adapt plans as needed. Generals develop strategy; they don't hover over captains and lieutenants to see if they are doing their jobs on the front lines. There is a reason for the military chain of command: everyone knows his or her job but, within the realm of their specific responsibilities, can make tactical adjustments to achieve success. The same principle applies to bureaucracies, public and private.

In each of the large institutions in which I led change, I depended heavily on the officials who reported to me to carry out my directions. Once I made a decision, I counted on the CIA's deputy directors and the heads of other intelligence agencies, the deans and vice presidents at A&M, and the military leaders and senior civilians at Defense for implementation. I expected them—along with task force chairs and those heading other entities—to report on their progress to me on a regular basis. Equally important, I expected to be informed when someone ran into problems or obstructions to getting the job done so, as necessary, I could clear the blockage. I rarely had a problem when someone leading an effort or project proposed adjustments or changed a plan to make it work better. But the employees in each of those three very different organizations all knew that those leading the change efforts had my confidence and my backing and that I would support their actions and decisions.

While I was president of A&M, an explosion caused by a gas leak in an on-campus graduate student apartment killed one person and gravely burned several others. Both the provost and I were traveling. The vice-provost and my chief of staff convened a meeting of relevant officials to address the situation, during which they learned that exhausted A&M maintenance officials were inspecting only some of the other units in that complex for additional gas leaks. My chief of staff felt empowered to direct that every apartment be inspected even if it required contracting for external professionals from all over the state—regardless of the cost. He knew that was the action I would have taken, and he took it himself knowing I would support his decision. Any leader wants his subordinates to be able to act on their own if necessary.

That kind of empowerment is equally important in the private sector, as I saw time and again as a corporate board member. A CEO cannot successfully lead a company except as the head of a team.

Another benefit of empowerment is that a leader ends up with a broad cadre of senior career professionals committed to implementing the change agenda. While they are not necessarily “disciples,” they do tend to believe in what a leader is trying to do. And in my experience, they will often support much of the reform agenda after the leader who initiated it leaves.

As I sought to persuade the army not to return to its pre-9/11 conventional warfare model subsequent to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but to sustain a broad range of capabilities—based on lessons recently learned at great cost—for diverse kinds of conflict, I knew that appointing one reform-minded senior general wouldn't be enough: the institutional army could outlast and overwhelm one person. So I advanced more than half a dozen senior army generals (Martin Dempsey, Ray Odierno, David Rodriguez, Pete Chiarelli, and Lloyd Austin, among others) who I believed shared my point of view to positions where I knew they would dominate the army for perhaps a decade or more. I also supported the secretary of the army when he brought General David Petraeus back from Iraq to chair a selection board for new brigadier generals. I wanted to make sure the colonels who had distinguished themselves commanding troops in unconventional combat would be put in a position to shape their service in the future. Too often, the “Big Army” establishment used promotions to keep perceived iconoclasts from getting into a position where they could shake things up.

A leader empowering subordinates who believe in the desired agenda is going a long way toward ensuring reforms will endure after she is gone. Empowering subordinates also helps them develop their own leadership and decision-making styles, thereby advancing their careers and providing the institution with a strong bench of capable future senior leaders. Everybody wins.

As I told the graduating midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy in 2011, leadership includes “the ability to stand in the shadow and let others receive attention and accolades. A leader is able to make decisions but then delegate and trust others to make things happen. This doesn't mean turning your back after a decision and hoping for the best. It does mean trusting people at the same time you hold them accountable. The bottom line: a self-confident leader doesn't cast such a large shadow that no one else can grow.”

A successful leader—and reformer—never misses an opportunity to give credit to those working for him as a group and as individuals. He also is willing to let excellent employees move on when they are offered new opportunities or a chance to ascend the ladder.

Too many bosses, when congratulated by higher-ups for some accomplishment, are content to take all the credit for themselves. The real leader will give credit to those who did the hard work that made success possible. Every time I praised a commander in the field in Iraq and Afghanistan, he would immediately tell me—and everyone else—that it was all the doing of his soldiers or marines. No one likes a glory hog.

A good leader helps create opportunities for the members of his team. It is hard to let go of a superior performer; it is nearly always a genuine loss to the organization. But I know of too many instances where a boss has refused to let someone go (by weighing in with higher-ups, arguing that the loss would imperil overall performance) or has even actively sabotaged a move up by someone he wanted to keep. When I was first invited to join the NSC staff in 1974 on loan from the CIA, one of my senior bosses at the agency told me flat out there probably would not be a job for me when I wanted to return. Too many aspiring people at every level have had the experience of “leaders” putting obstacles in their career way forward.

After my personal experience at the CIA, I tried to be supportive of superb subordinates who had a chance to move up or on to better positions. As secretary of defense, I hated to lose my old friend and colleague Jim Clapper as undersecretary of defense for intelligence, but when President Obama asked him to become director of national intelligence, I knew it would be a step up for Jim and that it was the right move also for the country. Truth to tell, I even proposed Jim's name to the president. I relied heavily on all of my senior military assistants and, in every case, would have liked to keep them longer. But I would not stand in their way.