order to his command ended with the stirring and now celebrated
phrase: "God favors the bold and strong of heart." Yet in the
afterglow of later years, the Nation read a character sketch of him
which included this: "He is so polite and so soft spoken that he is
continually disappointing the people whom he meets. They find him
lacking in the fire-eating traits they like to expect of all marines,
and they find it difficult to believe that such a mild-mannered man
could really have led and won the bloody fight." When another officer
spoke warmly of Vandegrift's coolness under fire, his "grace under
pressure," to quote Hemingway's phrase, he replied: "I shouldn't be
given any credit. I'm built that way."
The point is beautifully taken. Too often the man with great inner
strength holds in contempt those less well endowed by nature than
himself.
While there are no perfect men, there are those who become relatively
perfect leaders of men because something in their makeup brings out in
strength the highest virtues of all who follow them. That is the way
of human nature. Minor shortcomings do not impair the working loyalty,
or growth, of the follower who has found someone whose strengths he
deems worth emulating. On the other hand, to recognize merit, you must
yourself have it. _The act of recognizing the worthwhile traits in
another person is both the test and the making of character._ The man
who scorns all others, and thinks no one else worth following, parades
his own inferiority before the world. He puts his own character into
bankruptcy just as surely as does that other sad camp follower of whom
Thomas Carlyle wrote: "To recognize false merit, and crown it as true,
because a long tail runs after it, is the saddest operation under the
sun."
Sherman, Logan, Rawlins and the many others hitched their wagons to
Grant's star because they saw in him a man who had a way with other
men, and who commanded them not less by personal courage than by
patient work in their interest. Had Grant spent time brooding over his
civilian failures, he would have been stuck with a disorderly camp and
would never have gotten out of Illinois.
The nobility of the private life and influence of Gen. Robert E. Lee
and the grandeur of his military character are known to every American
school boy. His peerless gifts as a battle leader have won the tribute
of celebrated soldiers and historians throughout the English-speaking
world. Likewise, the deep religiosity of his great lieutenant,
Stonewall Jackson, the latter's fiery zeal and the almost evangelical
power with which he lifted the hearts of all men who followed him, are
hallmarks of character that are vividly remembered in whatever context
his name happens to be mentioned.
If we turn for a somewhat closer look at Grant it is because he, more
than any other American soldier, left us a full, clear narrative of
his own growth, and of the inner thoughts and doubts pertaining to
himself which attended his life experience. There was a great deal of
the average man in Grant. He was beset by human failings. He could not
look impressive. He had no sense of destiny. In his great hours, it
was sweat, rather than inspiration, dogged perseverance, rather than
the aura of power, which made the hour great.
Average though he was in many things, there was nothing average about
the strong way in which he took hold, applying massive common sense to
the complex problems of the field. That is why he is worth close
regard. His virtues as a military leader were of the simpler sort
which plain men may understand and hope to emulate. He was direct in
manner. He never intrigued. His speech was homely. He was
approachable. His mind never deviated from the object. Though a
stubborn man, he was always willing to listen to his subordinates. He
never adhered to a plan obstinately, but nothing could induce him to
forsake the idea behind the plan.
History has left us a clear view of how he attained to greatness in
leadership by holding steadfastly to a few main principles.
At Belmont, his first small action, he showed nothing to indicate that
he was competent as a tactician and strategist. But the closing scene
reveals him as the last man to leave the field of action, risking his
life to see that none of his men had been left behind.
At Fort Donelson, where he had initiated an amphibious campaign of
highly original daring, he was not on the battlefield when his army
was suddenly attacked. He arrived to find his right wing crushed and
his whole force on the verge of defeat. He blamed no one. Without more
than a passing second's hesitation, he said quietly to his chief
subordinates: "Gentlemen, the position on the right must be retaken."
Then he mounted his horse, and galloped along the line shouting to his
men: "Fill your cartridge cases quick; the enemy is trying to escape
and he must not be permitted to do so." Control and order were
immediately reestablished by his presence.
At Shiloh, the same thing happened, only this time it was worse; the
whole Union Army was on the verge of rout. Grant, hobbling on crutches
from a recent leg injury, met the mob of panic-stricken stragglers as
he left the boat at Pittsburgh Landing. Calling on them to turn back,
he mounted and rode toward the battle, shouting encouragement and
giving orders to all he met. Confidence flowed from him back into an
already beaten Army and in this way a field near lost was soon
regained.
The last and best picture of Grant is on the evening after he had
taken his first beating from General Lee in the campaign against
Richmond. He was newly with the Army of the Potomac. His predecessors,
after being whipped by Lee, had invariably retreated to safe distance.
But this time as the defeated army took the road of retreat out of the
Wilderness, its columns got only as far as the Chancellorsville House
crossroad. There the soldiers saw a squat, bearded man, sitting
horseback, and drawing on a cigar. As the head of each regiment came
abreast him, he silently motioned it to take the right-hand fork--back
toward Lee's flank and deeper than ever into the Wilderness. That
night for the first time the Army sensed an electric change in the air
over Virginia. It had a man.
"I intend to fight it out on this line" is more revealing of the one
supreme quality which put the seal on all other of U. S. Grant's great
gifts for military leading than everything else that the historians
have written of him. He was the epitome of that spirit which moderns
call "seeing the show through." He was sensitive to a fault in his
early years, and carried to his tomb a dislike for military uniform,
caused by his being made the butt of ridicule the first time he ever
donned a soldier suit. As a junior lieutenant in the Mexican War, he
sensed no particular aptitude in himself. But he had participated in
every engagement possible to a member of his regiment, and had
executed every small duty to the hilt, with particular attention to
conserving the lives of his men. This was the school and the course
which later enabled him to march to Richmond, when men's lives had to
be spent for the good of the Nation. In more recent times, one of the
great statesmen and soldiers of the United States, Henry L. Stimson,
has added his witness to the value of this force in all enterprise: "I
know the withering effect of limited commitments and I know the
regenerative effect of full action." Though he was speaking
particularly of the larger affairs of war and nation policy, his words
apply with full weight to the personal life. The truth seen only
halfway is missed wholly; the thing done only halfway had best not be
attempted at all. Men can be fooled but they can't be fooled on this
score. They will know every time when the bolt falls short for lack of
a worthwhile effort. And when that happens, confidence in the leader
is corroded, even among those who themselves were unwilling to try.
There have been great and distinguished leaders in our military
services at all levels, who had no particular gifts for
administration, and little for organizing the detail of decisive
action either within battle or without. They excelled because of a
superior ability to utilize the brains and command the loyalty of
well-chosen subordinates. Their particular function was to judge the
mark according to their resources and audacity, and then to hold the
team steady until the mark was gained. So doing, they complemented the
power of the faithful lieutenants who might have put them in the shade
in any I. Q. test. Wrote Grant: "I never knew what to do with a paper
except put it in a side pocket or pass it to a clerk who understood it
better than I did." There was nothing unfair or irregular about this;
it was as it should be. All military achievement develops out of unity
of action. The laurel goes to the man whose powers can most surely be
directed toward the end purposes of organization. _The winning of
battles is the product of the winning of men._ That aptitude is not an
endowment of formal education, though the man who has led a football
team, a class, a fraternity or a debating society is the stronger for
the experience which he has gained. It is not uncustomary in those who
have excelled in scholarship to despise those who have excelled merely
in sympathetic understanding of the human race. But in the military
services, though there are niches for the pedant, character is at all
times at least as vital as intellect, and the main rewards go to him
who can make other men feel toughened as well as elevated.
_Quiet resolution._
_The hardihood to take risks._
_The will to take full responsibility for decision._
_The readiness to share its rewards with subordinates._
_An equal readiness to take the blame when things go adversely._
_The nerve to survive storm and disappointment and to face toward
each new day with the scoresheet wiped clean, neither dwelling on
one's successes nor accepting discouragement from one's failures._
In these things lie a great part of the essence of leadership, for
they are the constituents of that kind of moral courage which has
enabled one man to draw many others to him in any age.
It is good, also, to look the part, not only because of its effect on
others, but because from out of the effort made to _look it_, one may
in time come _to be it_. One of the kindliest and most penetrating
philosophers of our age, Abbe Ernest Dimnet, has assured us that this
is true. He says that by trying to look and act like a socially
distinguished person, one may in fact attain to the inner disposition
of a gentleman. That, almost needless to say, is the _real_ mark of
the officer who takes great pains about the manner of his dress and
address, for as Walt Whitman has said: "All changes of appearances
without a change in that which underlies appearance, are without
avail." All depends upon the spirit in which one makes the effort. By
his own account, U. S. Grant, as a West Point cadet, was more stirred
by the commanding appearance of General Winfield Scott than by any man
he had ever seen, including the President. He wrote that at that
moment there flashed across his mind the thought that some day he
would stand in Scott's place. Grant was unkempt of dress. His physical
endowments were such that he could never achieve the commanding air of
Scott, but he left us his witness that Scott's military bearing helped
kindle his own desire for command, even though he knew that he could
not be like Scott.
Much is said in favor of modesty as an asset in leadership. It is
remarked that the man who wishes to hold the respect of others will
mention himself not more frequently than a born aristocrat mentions
his ancestor. However, the point can be labored too hard. Some of the
ablest of the Nation's battlefield commanders have been anything but
shrinking violets; we have had now and then a hero who could boast
with such gusto that this very characteristic somehow endeared him to
his men. But that would be a dangerous tack for all save the most
exceptional individual. Instead of speaking of modesty as a charm that
will win all hearts, thereby risking that through excessive modesty a
man will become tiresome to others and rated as too timid for high
responsibility, it would be better to dwell upon the importance of
being natural, which means neither concealing nor making a vulgar
display of one's ideals and motives, but acting directly according to
their dictations.
This leads to another point. In several of the most celebrated
commentaries written by higher commanders on the nature of
generalship, the statement is made rather carelessly that to be
capable of great military leadership a man must be something of an
actor. If that were unqualifiedly true, then it would be a desirable
technique likewise in any junior officer that he too should learn how
to wear a false face, and play a part which cloaks his real self. The
hollowness of the idea is proved by the lives of such men as Robert E.
Lee, W. T. Sherman, George C. Marshall, Omar N. Bradley, Carl A.
Spaatz, William H. Simpson, Chester A. Nimitz, and W. S. Sims. As
commanders, they were all as natural as children, though some had
great natural reserve, and others were warmer and more outgiving. They
expressed themselves straightforwardly rather than by artful striving
for effect. There was no studied attempt to appear only in a certain
light. To use the common word for it, their people did not regard them
as "characters." This naturalness had much to do with their hold on
other men.
Such a result will always come. He who concentrates on the object at
hand has little need to worry about the impression he is making on
others. Even though they detect the chinks in the armor, they will
know that the armor will hold.
On the other hand, a sense of the dramatic values, coupled with the
intelligence to play upon them skillfully, is an invaluable quality in
any military leader. Though there was nothing of the "actor" in Grant,
he understood the value of pointing things up. _To put a bold or
inspiring emphasis where it belongs is not stagecraft, but an integral
part of the military fine art of communications._ System which is only
system is injurious to the mind and spirit of any normal person. One
can play a superior part well, and maintain prestige and dignity,
without being under the compulsion to think, speak and act in a
monotone. In fact, when any military commander becomes over-inhibited
along these lines because of the illusion that this is the way to
build a reputation for strength, he but doubles the necessity that his
subordinates will act at all times like human beings rather than
robots.
Coupled with self-control, recollection and thoughtfulness will carry
a man far. Men will warm toward a leader when they come to believe
that all the energy he stores up by living somewhat within himself is
at their service. But when they feel that this is not the case, and
that his reserve is simply the outward sign of a spiritual miserliness
and concentration on purely personal goals, no amount of restraint
will ever win their favor. This is as true of him who commands a whole
service as of the leader of a picket squad.
To speak of the importance of a sense of humor would be unavailing if
it were not that what cramps so many men isn't that they are by nature
humorless but that they are hesitant to exercise what humor they
possess. Within the military profession, it is as unwise as to let the
muscles go soft and to spare the mind the strain of original thinking.
Great humor has always been in the military tradition. The need of it
is nowhere more delicately expressed than in Kipling's lines:
My son was killed while laughing at some jest,
I would I knew
What it was, and it might serve me in a time
When jests are few.
Marcus Aurelius, Rome's soldier philosopher, spoke of his love for the
man who "could be humorous in an agreeable way." No reader of Grant's
_Memoirs_ (one of the few truly great autobiographies ever written by
a soldier) could fail to be impressed by his light touch. A delicate
sense of the incongruous seems to have pervaded him; he is at his
whimsical best when he sees himself in a ridiculous light. Lord
Kitchener, one of the grimmest warriors ever to serve the British
Empire, warmed to the man who made him the butt of a practical joke.
There is the unforgettable picture of Admiral Beatty at Jutland. The
_Indefatigable_ has disappeared beneath the waves. The _Queen Mary_
had exploded. The _Lion_ was in flames. Then word came that the
_Princess Royal_ was blown up. Said Beatty to his Flag Captain
"Chatfield, there seems to be something wrong with our ... ships
today. Turn two points nearer the enemy." Admiral Nimitz, surveying
the terrible landscape of the Kwajalein battlefield for the first
time, said gravely to his Staff: "It's the worst devastation I've ever
seen except for that last Texas picnic in Honolulu." There is a
characteristic anecdote of General Patton. He had just been worsted by
higher headquarters in an argument over strategy. So he sat talking to
his own Staff about it, his dog curled up beside him. Suddenly he said
to the animal: "The trouble with you, too, Willy, is that you don't
understand the big picture." General Eisenhower, probably more than
any other American commander, had the art of winning with his humor.
He would have qualified under Sydney Smith's definition: "The meaning
of an extraordinary man is that he is eight men in one man; that he
has as much wit as if he had no sense, and as much sense as if he had
no wit; that his conduct is as judicious as if he were the dullest of
human beings, and his imagination as brilliant as if he were
irretrievably ruined."
There is hardly a soldier, marine, or bluejacket who has been long in
battle but can tell some tale of an experience under fire when the
pressure became almost unbearable, and then was suddenly relieved
because somebody made a wisecrack or pulled something that was good
for a laugh. At Bastogne the American headquarters was being shelled
out of its position in the Belgian Barracks. The Commanding General
called in his Chief Signal Officer and asked when it would be
convenient to move. Said Lt. Col. Sid Davis, "Right now, while I've
got one line left and you can still give the order." When the garrison
was surrounded, and higher headquarters requested a description of the
situation, the young G-3 of the operation, Col. H. W. O. Kinnard,
radioed: "Think of a doughnut: we're the hole."
Who hasn't heard of the top kick who got his men forward by yelling:
"Come on you ----! Do you want to live forever?" Both the Army and the
Marine Corps claim him for their own, and it is possible that he was
twins.
If the American fighting man did not have an instinctive feeling for
the moral value of that kind of thing, the story would be long since
buried, for it is as ancient as the other tale which ends: "That was
no lady; that was my wife."
CHAPTER TEN
MAINSPRINGS OF LEADERSHIP
To what has been said, just a few things should be added so that the
problem of generating greater powers of leadership within the officer
corps may be seen in its true light.
The counselor says: "Be forthright! Be articulate! Be confident! Be
positive! Possess a commanding appearance!" The young man replies:
"All very good, so far as it goes. I will, if I can. But tell me, how
do I get that way?" He sees rightly enough the main point, that these
things are but derivatives of other inner qualities which must be
possessed, if the leader is to travel the decisive mile between
wavering capacity and resolute performance.
So the need is to get down to a few governing principles. Finding
them, we may be able to resolve finally any argument as to whether
leadership is a God-given power, or may be bestowed through earnest
military teaching.
Two great American commanders have spoken their thoughts on this
subject. The weight of their comment is enhanced by the conspicuous
success of both men in the field of moral leading.
Said Admiral Forrest P. Sherman, Chief of Naval Operations: "I concur
that we _can_ take average good men and, by proper training, develop
in them the essential initiative, confidence, and magnetism which are
necessary in leadership. I believe that these qualities are present in
the average man to a degree that he can be made a good leader if his
native qualities are properly developed; whether or not he becomes a
_great_ leader depends upon whether or not he possesses that _extra_
initiative, magnetism, moral courage, and force which makes the
difference between the average man and the above-average man."
Said Gen. C. B. Cates, Commandant of the Marine Corps: "Leadership is
intangible, hard to measure and difficult to describe. Its qualities
would seem to stem from many factors. But certainly they must include
a measure of inherent ability to control and direct, _self-confidence
based on expert knowledge_, initiative, loyalty, pride, _and a sense
of responsibility_. Inherent ability obviously cannot be instilled,
but that which is latent or dormant can be developed. Other
ingredients can be acquired. They are not easily taught or easily
learned. _But leaders can be and are made._ The average good man in
our service is and must be considered a potential leader."
There are common denominators in these two quotations which clearly
point in one main direction. When we accent the importance of extra
initiative, expert knowledge and a sense of responsibility, we are
saying in other words that out of unusual application to duty comes
the power to lead others in the doing of it.
The matter is as simple and as profound as that, and if we will
consider for but a moment, we will see why it could hardly be
otherwise.
No normal young man is likely to recognize in himself the qualities
which will persuade others to follow him. On the other hand, any man
who can carry out orders in a cheerful spirit, complete this work step
by step, use imagination in improving it, and then when the job is
done, can face toward his next duty with anticipation, need have no
reason to doubt his own capacity for leadership.
The psychologists assure us that there is a sound scientific basis for
what enlightened military trainers have long held to be true--that the
first-class follower and the leader are one and the same. They say
that this is literally true, and that their tests prove it so.
But it does not follow that every man can be taught to lead. In the
majority of men, success or failure is caused more by mental attitude
than by mental capacity. Many are unwilling to face the ordeal of
thinking for themselves and of accepting responsibility for others.
But the man determined to excel at his own work has already climbed
the first rung of the ladder; in that process he perforce learns to
think for himself while setting an example to those who are around
him. Out of application to work comes capacity for original and
creative progress. The personality characteristics, emotional balance,
etc., which give him excellence in those things which he does with his
own brain and hand will enable him to command the respect, and in
turn, the service of other men.
To this extent, certainly leadership can be learned! It is a matter of
mastering simple techniques which will give more effective expression
to the character and natural talents of the individual.
Said one of this Nation's great political leaders: "There is no more
valuable subordinate than the man to whom you can give a piece of work
and then forget it, in the confident expectation that the next time it
is brought to your attention it will come in the form of a report that
the thing has been done. When this self-reliant quality is joined to
executive power, loyalty and common sense, the result is a man whom
you can trust."
Yes, indeed, and that is as it should be. For while no man can be sure
of the possibilities of his influence over other men, every man knows
by his own conscience when he is putting forth his best effort, and
when he is slacking.