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This article was developed from a presentation given by the author to the Brigadier General Training Course at Fort Leavenworth in late November 2000. - Editor
"Great military ideas are actually extremely simple .... Greatness lies in the freedom of the intellect and spirit at moments of pressure and crisis, and in the willingness to take risks."
- Hans Delbruck
History and the Art of War, 1900(1)
"Battle is the ultimate to which the whole life's labor of an officer should be directed. He may live to the age of retirement without seeing battle; still he must always be getting ready for it exactly as if he knew the hour of the day it is to break upon him. And then, whenever it comes later or early, he must be willing to fight-he must fight."
- Major General C. F. Smith(2)
Successful senior leadership in any institution, including the military, depends on attributes that differ markedly from the skills needed in middle management. "Generalship" is perhaps the most important thing about military leaders, the aspect of our leadership which should make us uniquely valuable to our institution and to the nation. Duty as a general is different from what goes before. Flag officers are more visible; subordinates can defer and waffle because of one's rank and not necessarily stand on the quality of one's ideas. The elements of decisions made at the senior level are more abstract. One often receives conflicting guidance. One usually has less personal control over events. And in spite of all that, senior leaders are more fully accountable and more personally so for results than they were in their duties as more junior officers.
There seems to be no real conclusive body of thought on what makes a good general. So as a start point, study of the leadership attributes of generals, past and present, should be useful. Historians and commentators alike usually cite character as the essential ingredient of enlightened senior leadership, especially of military leaders. When one attempts to break character down into its essence, one finds it defined as a set of qualities, "the complex of accustomed mental and moral characteristics and habitual ethical traits marking a person." But what is the essence of the person that...