Doing What’s Right Earns You the Right to Lead

When U.S. Army General H. Norman Schwarzkopf was a colonel stationed in Vietnam, he commanded the First Battalion of the Sixth Infantry, a unit previously known as the “worst of the sixth” but which he turned around with strong leadership.

After he improved the battalion, it was reassigned to a place Schwarzkopf described as “a horrible, malignant place” called the Batangan Peninsula.

It was an area that had been fought over for thirty years and was covered with mines and booby traps, and was the site of numerous weekly casualties from those devices.

Schwarzkopf made the best of a bad situation.

He introduced procedures to greatly reduce casualties, and whenever a soldier was injured by a mine, he flew out to check on the man, evacuated him using his personal chopper, and talked to the other men to boost their morale.

On May, 28, 1970, a man was injured by a mine, and Schwarzkopf flew to where he lay.

While his helicopter was evacuating the soldier, another man stepped on a mine, severely injuring his leg.

The man thrashed around on the ground, screaming and wailing.

That’s when everyone realised the first mine hadn’t been a lone booby trap. They were in fact standing in the middle of a minefield.

Schwarzkopf believed the injured man could survive, and even keep his leg, but only if he stopped flailing around.

There was only one thing Schwarzkopf could do.

He had to go after the man and immobilize him.

In his autobiography - It Doesn’t Take A Hero, Schwarzkopf wrote;

“I started through the minefields, one slow step at a time, staring at the ground, looking for tell tale bumps or little prongs sticking up from the dirt. My knees were shaking so hard that each time I took a step, I had to grab my leg and steady it with both hands before I could take another. It seemed like a thousand years before I reached the kid.”

The 240 –pound Schwarzkopf, who had been a wrestler at West Point, then pinned the wounded man and calmed him down.

It saved the man’s life.

Eventually with the help of an engineer team, Schwarzkopf was able to get him and the others out of the minefield.

Later that night when Schwarzkopf was at the hospital, three black soldiers stopped him in a hallway and said;

“Colonel, we saw what you did for the brother out there. We’ll never forget that, and we’ll make sure that all the other brothers in the battalion know what you did.”

Until that moment, it hadn’t occurred to Schwarzkopf that the soldier he had saved was black.

The army had given Schwarzkopf the power to lead.

And his knowledge and skill had given him the ability to lead.

But his demonstrated character and courage under the most difficult of circumstances had earned him the right to lead.

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I submit to you that leaders will never be more or less than their soldier’s evaluation of them. This is the true efficiency report.

They won’t mind the heat if you sweat with them, and they won’t mind the cold if you shiver with them.

You see, you don’t accept the troops; they were there first. They accept you.

And when they do, you’ll know. They won’t beat drums, wave flags, or carry you off the drill field on their shoulders, but you’ ll know.

Leadership is an intangible thing.

Leadership is developed within yourselves, and you’ll get stronger as you go.

Whatever you do, you need courage.

Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you, you are wrong.

There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right.

To map out a course of action and follow it to the end requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs.

Peace has it’s victories, but it takes brave men to win them.

----- Ralph Waldo Emerson -----

Your talk talks and your walk talks

But your walk talks louder than your talk talks.