Suggested books for Company Level Leaders
All,
I am taking up one of the facilitator slots over at Company Command for their professional reading program. The program helps Platoon Leaders and Company Commanders develop professional reading programs. It even pays for the books they select to use! The point is to help improve some or all of the following items - leadership performance, teamwork, task management, morale, general military knowledge, history, leadership tips, and tricks, and OIF/OEF understanding.
To that end, I'd like to poll the council for the following:
1) The best military leadership/management/teambuilding book you know of (ex Lead On!, Small Unit Leadership: A Commonsense Approach, Taking the Guidon, Three Meter Zone)
2) The best civilian leadership/management/teambuilding book you would recommend. (ex. Good to Great, Made to Stick, Winning)
3) The best single book on Iraq you would recommend for company level leaders.
4) The best single book on Afghanistan you would recommend for company level leaders.
5) Any other book that doesn't fit in the categories above that should be a "must read"
Please also include the "why".
Again, this is a high payoff list for Company Commanders and their Platoon Leaders, Platoon Sergeants, and Squad Leaders.. Clausewitz is probably not going to make the cut. Think direct, practical, and good for group discussion. Looking forward to the input!
John Marshall, the walker ....
Marshall's military career, captain and deputy judge advocate on GW's staff, is well-known enough; but this little snippet came as a surprise:
Quote:
Physically, he was gifted. Evidence of this physical prowess became obvious during the war years. As he traveled from the battle sites of the Revolution around Philadelphia, to his home in Richmond, VA, it was customary for him to walk the 250 miles, usually taking three weeks for the journey.8 As a competitor in camp contests, Smith says, Marshall was outstanding: “He excelled as a runner and according to numerous accounts he was the only man in the Continental Army who could high jump over six feet — a remarkable achievement in any era.”9 Standing six-feet-three-inches tall, he could have been, according to Marshall house docent E.L. Butterworth, an Olympic athlete in two sports.10
8 Smith, p. 68. [Jean Edward Smith, John Marshall — Definer of a Nation, New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1996]
9 Smith, p. 74.
10 E.L. Butterworth, in a tour lecture at the Marshall home, June 28, 2002.
Walking was probably a good way to decompress.
2 cents and a plug - daggers out
My two cents:
-I have to disagree with Schmedlap's suggestion of "The Arab Mind." Even with his caveat, I still think that the book is garbage for several reasons. The book is old, stereotypical, poorly supported, and biased. Yes, there are a lot of instances where people live up to Patai's stereotypes, but it throws people on the wrong track in trying to figure the Arabs out. Instead of Patai's virtual craniology approach, talking about swaddling, breastfeeding, etc, based on very old anthropological research of villages that have changed drastically since the 20s, we should be teaching military leaders to look for more concrete reasons to understand current behaviors. Why? Because if I can link the behaviors to concrete reasons, you can better figure out how to affect them. In its stead, I'd suggest Nydell's "Understanding Arabs" which covers a lot of the same ground with much more reasonable support for the conclusions. Furthermore, I'd challenge you to find many Lts who would actually get all the way through "The Arab Mind." It is a long and painful read, even if you buy into it completely. I wrote an article for the Jan 2006 Marine Corps Gazette that goes into more details on this topic if anyone is interested ("Cultural Education and the Reading Program").
-Afghanistan: I liked Rashid's "Descent into Chaos." It does a good job, I thought, of putting recent events in Afghanistan into a broader regional context that shows the complexity of the interests there, especially WRT Pakistan. I am not as well read on Afghanistan as the Arab world, though, so I may be missing a lot here.
-"The Goal": The book makes valid points, but I'd skim through it to find them. There is a lot of extraneous stuff in it. Naval aviation has based an effort to lean 6 sigma its ops on the Goldratt Institutes philosophies, so my CO had key officers in the squadron read it. (Goldratt is the author of "The Goal")
-For non-military leadership, anyone have comments on "The Powers to Lead" by Nye? I started reading it and it seemed decent, but didn't get far as I had to shift to some other projects.
-And for the Iraq suggestion: Here's the plug, so break out the daggers. I wrote a book, "Iraq in Transition: The Legacy of Dictatorship and the Prospect for Democracy" when I found that there was nothing out there as a single source read on what I thought I wanted to know about Iraq. In it, I tried to boil down all of the best sources on Iraq (with extensive citations) and cover what I thought was important for military officers, policymakers, etc, to know about the country's recent history and current events there. Someone recommended Hashim's book, which is a very useful source and was cited in my book. He also endorsed my book, which covers up to the beginning of 2009. There's only been one independent review of my book so far, as it is pretty new, but you can take a look at it on Amazon and decide for yourself. It may not be perfect for company grade, as it doesn't get into local specifics as much as national politics, but it does cover a lot of ground generally about Shi'a politcs, Sunni tribes, Sadr, the constitution, etc.
(Added by moderator) Link to book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Iraq-Transitio.../dp/1597973009
That'll get me every time.
Better the pictures, better the book...:D
