A Passion for Leadership (22 page)

There is an old military saying that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. That is true in reforming institutions as well. Sometimes, a plan turns out to be unworkable for any number of reasons, from impracticality to a lack of resources or the technology necessary for implementation. Sometimes, the opposition is just too strong. When it comes to implementation of a leader's reform agenda, she needs to stay focused on her agenda or vision but flexible about how she achieves it—and sometimes either admit defeat or be satisfied with half a loaf (and come back for more later). I had to do this all the time.

One of the reforms I wanted to put in place as DCI was to move away from providing intelligence to policy makers once a day (first thing in the morning) on paper. I would tell my staff we were delivering intelligence to President George H. W. Bush the same way it had been delivered to George Washington: we wrote it down on a piece of paper, put a person in a vehicle (we
had
gotten past using horses), and carried the document by hand to the recipient. I wanted to do all this electronically, sending the information in real time to a computer on the policy maker's desk and updating it constantly throughout the day—and enabling the user to ask questions of us electronically. This effort in 1992 failed partly because of technological challenges in those days and partly because a number of our “customers” were uncomfortable receiving information in this newfangled way. This was one reform that died on the vine—then.

Another reform I pursued was to change how the intelligence community managed our photographic intelligence assets. During the first Gulf War, there were many problems in getting reconnaissance photographs to field commanders and units in the fight. Over a period of decades, we had solved this problem in signals intelligence by giving the National Security Agency the authority to standardize transmission systems and coordinate all levels of collection, from a tactical military unit in the field to space satellites. We had no comparable organization on the photographic side, and I intended to fix that. My idea was to create a single agency—comparable to the NSA—that could coordinate all our imaging assets (a soldier with a camera, a Beechcraft airplane, satellites) and have the authority to make sure those images could be shared with the smallest units in combat. The initiative was bitterly resisted by the CIA, which wanted to maintain its independent institutional capability for photointerpretation. I wanted to integrate it into this larger, multiagency organization. I could override the CIA's objections to the new agency but not those of Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Colin Powell. Both were deeply skeptical of creating a big new agency that put together nearly all civilian and military imaging assets, including the Defense Mapping Agency (highly dependent on satellite photography). I settled for half a loaf, creating the Central Imaging Office, which coordinated our photographic assets and needs of users but lacked the authority for standardization and coordination the NSA had on the signals side. My concept eventually won out, however, and the agency I tried to create in 1992 was ultimately established four years later. It is now known by the inelegant title “National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency,” and its mission covers virtually everything I intended in 1992 and more.

At all three institutions I led, I told folks that between where we stood and achieving our goals was a swamp. Sometimes, you slog your way across the swamp, dealing with alligators and snakes and such. And sometimes, it's best just to walk around the swamp; it might take longer, but you eventually reach your destination without the teeth marks on your ass. The key is to keep moving forward. The smart reformer knows when to plunge into the swamp and when to take the roundabout route.

One key aspect of successfully reforming institutions, public or private, is taking the work seriously but not yourself. A leader needs to set the example of that principle.

Never underestimate the extraordinary power of humor. Of the eight presidents I worked for, two had no discernible sense of humor: Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter. You can draw your own conclusions from that. I suspect many Americans would be surprised how much laughter there is in the White House Situation Room, even during the most tense moments. I have always believed that humor is the way sane people cope with intense pressures, with decisions involving life and death. Often, it will be just a wisecrack, a pun, or a muttered aside that provokes laughter. It may seem inappropriate, but it is in fact a useful tool.

At the end of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, we heard that Admiral William McRaven had a six-foot-tall SEAL lie down next to bin Laden's body at our base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, to see if it was indeed six feet tall, another effort to confirm the terrorist's identity. President Obama quipped, “McRaven can crash a $60 million helicopter but can't afford a tape measure?”

George H. W. Bush had a great sense of humor. He liked jokes, including practical ones. On his birthday, we would go out and get him risqué cards and sign the names of foreign leaders to them, and we would all roar with laughter. He created the Scowcroft Award, named for his national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, an award that he gleefully presented to the U.S. official who most ostentatiously fell asleep in a meeting with the president of the United States. He carefully weighed the length of the nap, depth (snoring always won extra points), and quality of recovery—did you quietly regain consciousness and ease back into the conversation or come awake with a jolt that knocked over coffee? During long meetings with foreign leaders, he would carry the conversation for the first hour but then looked to the rest of us to relieve him of that chore for the duration. He would actually score us on our contribution—the amount of time we each used up. I once received high marks on time consumed but earned the comment “although you were boring as hell.”

I highly prized irreverence among my colleagues, partly because I am irreverent myself. A leader should never underestimate the benefits of self-deprecating humor; making jokes or humorous observations about himself can be a powerful tonic to his team. Henry Kissinger was probably the most talented person I worked for in this regard. In all three of the institutions I led, little was off-limits, from comments about my white hair to my ridiculously unhealthy eating habits and boring suits and ties.

Almost everything about Congress was good for a laugh, and the same was true about the antics of the Texas legislature when I was at A&M. Along with the serious stuff at the CIA, we were always getting intelligence reports about the nonpublic activities of foreign leaders, some of which were hilarious.

The best corporate leaders have a good sense of humor and encourage it in others. Years ago, I was on the board of directors of a holding company that owned a kitchen appliance business. Executives would regularly demonstrate new products for this older, all-male board, including at one meeting a new model of “salad shooter” for making tossed salad. I quipped that asking that board—none too familiar with what went on in a kitchen—to evaluate such a device was like asking a teetotaler to judge the quality of a whiskey. I joined the board of a company that owned Massey Ferguson tractors and was told of a board visit to a factory before my time where the CEO mischievously organized a plowing contest to see which urbane board member could plow the straightest furrow. The results weren't pretty, but there had been a lot of laughs. These business executives and others I observed knew how to use humor to build a team.

Doris Kearns Goodwin writes about the value and importance of humor in her wonderful book about Abraham Lincoln,
Team of Rivals:

Modern psychiatry regards humor as probably the most mature and healthy means of adapting to melancholy. “Humor, like hope, permits one to focus upon and to bear what is too terrible to be borne,” writes George Vaillant. “Humor can be marvelously therapeutic,” adds another observer. “It can deflate without destroying; it can instruct while it entertains; it saves us from our pretensions; and it provides an outlet for feeling that expressed another way would be corrosive.”

My experience in public life affirms every word of that passage.

Don't overstay your welcome.

When you have accomplished your mission of reform, or taken it as far as you likely can, go home. Don't let power and position—or being spoiled by the corporate airplane—go to your head. As the old saying goes, “The cemeteries are full of indispensable men.”

One of the toughest decisions in life is knowing when to dance off the stage. We have all seen political and business leaders who stayed too long. Some get so enamored of the power, perks, and privileges they just can't bear to give them up. Or they don't want to give their critics inside and outside the organization the satisfaction. And so they remain in place, a growing liability to the very institution they might have ably led for a long time. I have always thought the sweet spot was to leave at a point when people would say “I wish he weren't leaving so soon” as opposed to “How the hell do we get rid of this guy?”

The toughest decision on whether to leave is when circumstances begin to sour, trending in a direction that makes you uncomfortable, or when you disagree with important decisions by those in charge. It is the dilemma many senior public servants have faced: Do I leave as a matter of principle and because I am increasingly at odds with the initiatives, or do I continue to soldier on, hoping I can mitigate the consequences for my organization (and perhaps my country or state) by staying? It is a question every individual must answer for himself or herself. An important part of the decision for a leader at any level is to look inward and be honest with herself whether she is staying for noble or ignoble purposes.

Unlike in a parliamentary system like Great Britain's, there is not a tradition in American politics, particularly at the national level, of senior officials resigning because of a disagreement over policy or to take responsibility for a failure. Indeed, the only time in my career I can remember a cabinet official resigning over a matter of principle was when Secretary of State Cyrus Vance did so in April 1980 because he so deeply disagreed with President Carter's decision to attempt the rescue of our embassy hostages in Iran. There have presumably been others at lower levels, but even they are exceptionally rare. Probably too rare at all levels.

Only slightly less tough for any leader than leaving over policy differences is being honest with herself whether she has done all she can do to reform or change an institution—to tell herself, as she probably has told subordinates she was firing, that she doesn't have the energy or ideas or whatever else is required to take the organization to the next level of excellence, that she's made her contribution, and it's time to go.

It is sad to see someone cling to power and position interminably. Secretary of State Dean Acheson once said that “to leave a position of great responsibility and authority is to die a little.” Just before President Obama announced that I would retire as secretary of defense in 2011, he was quite explicit in telling me he would have welcomed my remaining in the job. A number of friends and acquaintances asked how I could walk away from such a powerful position. But I knew it was time. At four and a half years, I had served longer in the job than all but four of my predecessors—two of whom had to resign in disgrace and one of whom was indicted. It was not a historical record I wished to emulate. I was exhausted, and I felt pretty sure the period ahead was not going to be either pleasant or easy. Unlike Acheson, I decided to leave so I could “live a little.”

What I have written here on the personal qualities I think are necessary to successfully lead reform of institutions—of bureaucracies public and private—is obviously highly subjective; some attributes are self-evident, others controversial. But, as a package, they constitute a set of values and characteristics that, I believe, stand the test of time.

In his short book
Churchill,
Paul Johnson describes what he considers the personal qualities that made Winston Churchill such a great leader:

The first lesson is: always aim high….He did not always meet his elevated targets, but by aiming high he always achieved something worthwhile.

Lesson number two is: there is no substitute for hard work….The balance he maintained between flat-out work and creative and restorative leisure is worth studying by anyone holding a top position. But he never evaded hard work itself: taking important and dangerous decisions, the hardest form of work there is….

Third, and in its way most important, Churchill never allowed mistakes, disaster—personal or national—accidents, illnesses, unpopularity, and criticism to get him down….He had courage, the most important of all virtues, and its companion, fortitude….In a sense his whole career was an exercise in how courage can be displayed, reinforced, guarded and doled out carefully, heightened and concentrated, conveyed to others. Those uncertain of their courage can look to Churchill for reassurance and inspiration.

Fourth, Churchill wasted an extraordinarily small amount of his time and emotional energy on the meannesses of life: recrimination, shifting the blame onto others, malice, revenge seeking, dirty tricks, spreading rumors, harboring grudges, waging vendettas….There is nothing more draining and exhausting than hatred. And malice is bad for the judgment.

Finally, the absence of hatred left plenty of room for joy in Churchill's life….He showed the people a love of jokes, and was to them a source of many. No great leader was ever laughed at, or with, more than Churchill.

Churchill has always been my greatest personal hero. His qualities, captured above, are those every leader in every institution should aspire to emulate. And every politician, too.