Managing Leadership^®

The U.S. Navy is perhaps the most technically-oriented service in the American military. Officers work their way up by developing and demonstrating comprehensive and immediate skills in the numerous individual systems that make ships responsive in combat. The focus here tends to be on technical competence – not necessarily on the sort of personal leadership ability that is emphasized more during an officer‘s development in the other services, especially the Army and the Marines.

This is a reflection of the circumstances of the varying units when in combat. When an Army or Marine unit is engaging an enemy force, often only the leadership environment assiduously and continuously cultivated up to that point, and given immediate and individual expression under that stress, can seem to be holding a unit together.

But aboard a Navy ship at war, there is no danger of anyone slipping away into the hills. Everyone knows that both their unit’s victory and their individual survival depend on the technical knowledge and ability of the one man issuing orders from the captain‘s chair on the bridge. And if you are ever aboard a ship that goes to general quarters, you will see that reality in breathtaking action – everything and everyone responds as one to their training, and to the skipper‘s command.

And yet, the Navy consistently seems to produce some of the most impressive individuals in terms of what is more traditionally understood as leadership that I’ve seen in the military. Out of that technical development pipeline come some truly remarkable ship’s captains. How does that happen? We’ll be touching on that general question over the next few days.

But here’s one Navy officer’s take on it: Captain D. Michael Abrashoff is the best-selling author of It’s Your Ship, which launched a busy speaking career for him on his retirement from the service. In this new book, It’s Our Ship, he undertakes to emphasize a point he feels he insufficiently addressed in his first book.

One of his purposes here is to point out how everyone in the unit must be engaged not only to advance the unit’s goals, but to intelligently and proactively integrate their own disparate disciplines in doing so. He does a fine job with this. In particular, he provides one of the best and most illuminating descriptions I’ve seen of an important executive threshold, the passing from specialist to generalist management.

There are a number of genuinely practical lessons for managers at all levels in this book, effectively illustrated with stories from the author’s experience as skipper of a powerful Navy warship, and amplified with vignettes from some of the civilian organizations he has worked with since his Navy days.

One thing the author makes no bones about, however, is his belief in the importance of individual leadership. Indeed, this book may have the densest population of the word “leader” and its derivatives that you will have encountered in some time.

In my view, this is a weakness. From “tales from the front lines” books like this I want to learn what you did, not how singular you are for having done it, or how electric an effect you had on your staff.

For example, members of the author’s crew don’t seem to be able to do anything while under his command, or to make something of themselves subsequently, without making him “proud” of them. This may seem like a minor blemish, but it mars the text repeatedly. It reveals a distinctly paternalistic and patronizing suggestion that these people’s accomplishments are essentially the product of the author’s leadership, as though their individual abilities and characters, while necessary prerequisites to their successes, were not sufficient ones. Only under his leadership were they able to find themselves and to blossom.

One major surprise for me arose from one of the author’s stated purposes for writing this book. He begins it with a remarkable admission concerning his career as skipper: “. . . I never did one thing to help another ship in the group in the two years I spent as [my ship's] commander.” In fact, he goes on, he practically gloated in besting his fellow ship captains.

He commendably acknowledges this as a shortcoming. It is one he dedicates the book, at least partially, to examining in order to help his readers avoid his mistake.

But when you turn over the last page of the book, you will find that this has not been done. There is a brief discussion of how he thinks he should have gone to his own boss and suggested how the latter ought to establish policy to incentivize the author and his fellow skippers to work better together – a remarkably presumptuous endeavor for a subordinate line – rather than a staff, say, an executive – officer to undertake.

But there is no discussion of professional networking and mutually beneficial collaboration that the skippers could have initiated on their own. This happens all the time in the military, despite the very real competition. Rather, after the introductory revelation of this heartfelt failure, we hear no more of it. Why is that?

This is a helpful book, but I do strongly caution the reader to tread skeptically and carefully through the purported lessons on leadership in this volume. Try to look past the peculiarly insistent glorification of the intensely self-referential leader that is woven throughout the text, to the many truly insightful stories about organizational goals advanced and staff development accomplished that are there, as well.

For those with no military experience, this is a genuinely eye-opening introduction to the world-class management challenges faced by one alert, proactive, and, in the end, highly effective US Navy officer. It will also offer many actionable ideas for civilian managers at all levels both for administering their organizations and developing their own careers. Pick up a copy. Just (as with everything you read) keep a good lookout as you navigate your way through it!

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Today’s tip: Speaking of mistaking the sizzle for the steak, please see this superb explanation of the vital differences between branding and advertising, by Cam Beck of ChaosScenario.

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