These comments are just loaded with insight - you should write a post based on each line. To begin with, your reference to the difficulty of defining leadership I think is important, particularly when contrasted with the flood of people who nevertheless pontificate with ill-founded authority on it.

That CPOs are key elements of the leadership environment in the US Navy is a hint at what is really going on, I think, and at why overly self-referential leadership is so often particularly exposed for what it is in the military, where leadership exists so widely, just waiting to be allowed to work, rather than, oddly enough, forced to merely fall in line. There, obviously, is plenty of that, just as outside the military, but I think it can be less clear than many of us think to know how or when to call that one thing (leadership) or the other (followership).

My favorite line in your remarks: “But that by itself does not guarantee they could perform better than those who have competed to get there.”

There is an awful lot there.

Thanks so much for this provocative collection of ideas on this topic!

That’s good - it did take real leadership to develop the USMC leadership system, didn’t it? Leadership that was able to hang in through the mistakes, knowing that they were showing the way - even essential paving stones for the way - forward. That’s good.

I wonder if paternalistic leadership is characteristic of essentially technical or system-oriented cultures, to the extent that it exists as an individual phenomenon there? That’s a good question. I will say that I am still amazed at some of the really quality commanders I’ve seen emerge in the Navy, right where they’re needed.

I think there may be lessons in that, as well - in the command inattention to the subject that perhaps allows some real quality to surface. That’s worth thinking about some more.

As always, thought-provoking observations. Thanks Cam!

This is one of my pet peeves, too. It’s as if to say that people who are not in leadership roles with real authority cannot demonstrate leadership skills on par with any general officer.

They can. But their circumstances partially dictate how they can use those skills. Sometimes the best leader is one who can through example show how others should faithfully follow. This misconception is a real shortcoming in the popular view of leadership.

As you know, one of the key characteristics of the Marine Corps is its ability to develop small-unit leaders. Marines do not perform their jobs without failure, but the system is organized so that the younger can learn from the more experienced. They learn, they adapt, and in the process, they become better leaders.

To be clear, let’s acknowledge the leadership it took to create a system that effectively facilitates the development of such leaders from the ground up.

The top-down approach you described not only is annoying because it’s fundamentally wrong, but it’s a missed opportunity. A lot of quality individuals serve in the Navy. Who knows what kind of leaders they could have turned out to be (in the military or in civilian life) if only the “leaders” above them didn’t look at them as if they were children who couldn’t be trusted?