As amateur historians, my family has been visiting civil war
battlefields for decades. Nothing says family fun like thousands of reenactors
in three layers of wool replica uniforms shooting replica civil war muskets at
each other between cannon fire, right? My youngest was four when he saw his
first reenactment at Olustee Battlefield State Park (yes, there were actually
civil war battles as far south as Florida) and a passion for history was
ensured for at least one more generation.
The battle of Gettysburg is definitely our favorite point of
study in civil war history, rich with lessons in leadership from both Union and
Confederate Commanders. One of the most commonly named heroes of
Gettysburg is Col. Joshua L. Chamberlain
who, against overwhelming odds, led the 20th Maine to victory on
Little Round Top on day two – the turning point of the battle and ultimately
the war. Many modern-day business gurus have written about and drawn parallels from
Chamberlain’s military success to contemporary leadership practices and, I’ll
confess, Chamberlain has always been a personal favorite.
But just to prove that old dogs can learn new tricks, I may just have a new favorite point of study
and model for modern-day leadership: General George Meade. Of course, as the commander of the Army of
the Potomac at Gettysburg, Meade was responsible for leading Union the victory
at Gettysburg, and his name and military successes were no secret. Yet, here
was a man who was Lincoln’s secondchoice for the job, a man who would be handed the leadership of the Army of the
Potomac just three days before an unplanned encounter that became a the
three-day battle which would be commonly characterized as the turning point of
the civil war, yet Lincoln considered Meade a failure after Gettysburg. What I found interesting was that several of
Meade’s command decisions, which were criticized by some as “weak”, were not
only the very things that enabled him to succeed where others had failed in
beating Lee, but are also the antecedents of today’s principles of Management
by Style( MBS ), Collaborative Leadership and Situational Leadership.
Management by Style
(MBS)
Last year Dr. Kevin Weddle, Director of War and Military
Strategy at the US Army War College, presented a lecture The Gettysburg Strategic
Leadership Brief to the USAWC class of 2012. I listened to Weddle describe
the path that shaped this man who would lead the Union to Victory at
Gettysburg. Referring to how he was with his men, Weddle described Meade as
“much like Patton… he knows which ones needed a kick in the pants and which
ones needed an arm around the shoulder.” This is a great characterization of
Management by Style. Good managers know that, what motivates one employee is
not necessarily going to be the same for another employee. Everyone (including
the manager) has a unique personality type. The different hard-wiring and life
experiences we each bring to a situation influences how we respond to the
people, actions and demands in our environment. Knowing those nuances about
each of your employees gives you a great advantage in bringing out the top
performance of the individuals on your team. A great way to learn how to
recognize those differences and the distinctive needs of different type of
personalities is through the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). To get a good overview of the MBTI and its
applications to management and leadership, check out NRPA’s Supervisors Management
School in November. Using the MBTI can help elevate you past the Golden Rule
(treat others the way you’d like to be treated) up to the Platinum Rule: treat
others the way they’d like to be
treated.
Collaborative
Leadership
General Robert E. Lee was known for being a strong and aggressive
leader. Far from collaborative, Lee had always had a strong “number two” who
was his main collaborator and sole sounding board on military strategy. Up until
Gettysburg, that number two was Stonewall Jackson. But Lee and Stonewall were
so single-minded that Lee never really had to clarify what he meant or what he
wanted when he issued orders. Jackson was already on the same page with him.
Unfortunately for Lee, Jackson was mortally wounded at Chancellorsville and
Gettysburg would be Lee’s first engagement without his trusted partner and
confidant. This is where Meade’s Collaborative Leadership style gave him a
distinct advantage over Lee. Although Meade was criticized at the time for
gathering his “senior team” (his Corp commanders) at the end of Day 1 to
determine the standing of each commander’s troops, take stock of the movements,
losses and intelligence each had to report, this collaborative approach to
determine what the next day’s battle strategy should be was exactly what this
moment in time required to secure the victory. While Meade would demonstrate
this collaborative leadership style throughout his career, I don’t know that he
would have had much of a choice, having only been on the job three days and
showing up to the party a little late. If Lee had taken this collaborative
approach, recognizing that Jackson’s death and absence left him far more
exposed than he might have expected, he may have obtained better intelligence
and made better decisions (and there may never have been a Pickett’s Charge to haunt
him through history). A collaborative Leadership style, while it may have been
viewed as weak and insecure compared to Lee’s commanding independent leadership
style, it built the confidence of Meade’s new team and helped gain buy-in going
into the next day’s battle and ultimate victory over Lee.
Situational
Leadership
The natural leadership extension of Management by Style is
Situational Leadership. A departure from the process-driven, one-size fits-all
style of leadership that penetrated corporate culture through the growth of an
industrial economy in the last century, Situational Leadership is now gaining
popularity. Why? Because it’s effective. Much for the same reasons that MBS is
effective in helping individuals achieve maximum results, having the ability to
read a situation and recognize that, while it may look the same on the surface,
a number of circumstantial factors make it dissimilar enough that applying a
previously successful tactic or solution to this seemingly similar situation
may not result in the same success. Meade’s Situational Leadership skills play out
after the day-three victory at Gettysburg. Against President Lincoln’s strong urging
to “follow up and attack General Lee as soon as possible before he can cross
the river,” Meade pursued Lee’s army enough to “drive the invaders from our
soil” but knew the situation was not as Lincoln perceived it, just because the numbers
reported to him might indicate a decisive victory was possible. After all the battle’s
losses, Meade may have had still had 20,000 more men than Lee, but Meade had
lost 11 of the Corp commanders he had when the battle began. Seven days into
his command, three-quarters of his new senior team was brand new again. He knew
he would need to learn the personalities and styles of these new commanders as
individuals before he could lead them as a team in a successful attack (and
would need them to do that with confidence soon enough). Meade also knew better
than to press a poor position on the move. This was not the high ground he had
at Gettysburg. This situation required a
different approach than the last time he had these same odds and Meade knew
different action was required. Of course, that decision practically penned his
pick-slip, but his career survived, if not thrived, under the leadership of
General Ulysses S. Grant.
A Successful Demotion
Despite Meade’s victory at Gettysburg and several other
successful engagements, Lincoln’s bitter disappointment with Meade’s caution in
pursuing Lee’s troops to “crush” them as they retreated from Gettysburg
eventually led Lincoln’s decision to create a position between himself and
Meade that elevated Grant to the rank of lieutenant general and named him
general-in-chief of the Armies of the United States. Essentially he went from
being Meade’s peer to being his immediate boss. Though Meade didn’t actually
lose rank or title, he recognized the potential volatility of the situation
offered to resign. Grant saw this as such an honorable and humble move, he
asked Meade to stay on. Over time, the two would prove to be a strong pairing.
Grant was as determined and relentless as Lee was to take the fight to the
opponent and win, no matter the cost. Balanced with Meade’s cautious, strategic
analysis their styles complemented each other well and resulted in success.
That’s not to say they got along, but Meade had a healthy respect for the
situation and the man who was now his boss and, while he may confront and
disagree with Grant in private, Meade was known for showing the appropriate
respect and support for Grant’s decisions, presenting unification in front of the
troops.
I think Denis McLaughlin said it best in his article Is There a Best Theory of Leadership?
“Over the last hundred years or so,
there have been many advances in our understanding of the theory of leadership.
In many ways I believe when we moved into the industrial age around the 1900’s
there was much that seemed to be forgotten from the thousands of years of
leadership lessons in the family, on the farm, and in past civilizations that
had to be re-learned. “
While there are certainly some great emerging leadership experts
today, identifying new trends in leadership and management techniques, perhaps
we need not look much further than our American history books to find the tried
and true practices reemerging as “new” and “innovative” styles of leading our
corporate troops to business victory.
