"Standards of Excellence"

[Pete]

If I could modify my previous post in this thread (Post 20) I would, but I can't. Therefore this clarification of what I mean to say.

Most of the successful leaders in the U.S. armed forces are a combination of being showboats and down-and-dirty people who get things done. It's not quite as binary as my previous message implied. It's sort of a spectrum between the two extremes, and most men and women who wear the green suit fall somewhere in the middle between those two poles.

Many of the leadership essays and textbooks say there is an element of showmanship about leadership. It's a matter of projecting self-confidence and charisma in front of others. It could be when you're addressing your company or battery or it could be while you're giving a briefing in the Pentagon.

Then there is the nuts-and-bolts stuff of being a soldier -- leadership, weapons, tactics, and solving practical problems. You've got to know your stuff, and if you don't the others will know it.

For better or for worse I've known good officers who are a combination of these two types of soldier. On one hand they can be inspiring leaders who get things done in the field or office, but on the other they are military politicians who suck up and brown-nose to their superiors.

In 1994 as a contractor I worked for a young major like that who is now an O-6. He got the operational job done when we were overseas, but some of the PowerPoint briefings he gave about the excellence of the things he was doing were flagrantly dishonest.

It seems to me that many people in the Army think they have to play the politics and appearance-versus-reality game even when they are competent soldiers who know their trade. I suspect that during the last 20 years this syndrome has infected the senior NCO corps as well.

In things like this it's hard to sort out who are the heroes and who are the villains. Nuances and shades of gray.