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.