The central
theme of the first book that I wrote on leadership, Things
I Learned from My Grandmother About Leadership and Life, was that
principles of leadership are not necessarily learned in formal schools. I
stressed that most of the leadership training I received after joining the army
merely reinforced the principles taught to me by my grandmother, a woman with limited
formal education but tons of native wisdom. What I neglected to mention in that
book, though, is that life skills and effective leadership techniques can be
learned in many other places as well.
For example, in 1968, shortly before
beginning my first tour in Vietnam, I was sent to the US Army School of the
Americas in Panama to attend the Jungle Operations Course. The purpose of the
course was to prepare military personnel to operate and survive in jungle
environments similar to what many faced in Vietnam. I learned a lot during that
short three weeks, and as I look back on it, I realize that a lot of it had
nothing to do with just surviving in a jungle environment but how to be
successful wherever you are.
On the first day of the course, for
example, we were assembled in bleachers and given an introduction to the course
and the jungles surrounding the school. Then, several sergeants walked out
carrying an anaconda that had to be twenty feet long. They stopped in front of
the bleachers and the chief instructor began calling us out several at a time and
directing us to line up in front of the snake-holding sergeants. I grew up in
East Texas, a place with four different varieties of poisonous snakes and
dozens of non-toxic varieties, and I could tell this snake had recently eaten
or had been drugged. It appeared to be sound asleep. Not everyone in my class
was as observant. So, when we were lined up and asked to take the snake from
the sergeants, I complied. Some of my fellow classmates—soon to be
ex-classmates—refused. One even fainted. Needless to say, they were immediately
disenrolled from the course.
What was the lesson learned from that
incident? Be observant and think a situation through carefully before you react.
Logic told me that they wouldn’t do something deadly without having protective
measures in place. I could also see that the snake was inert and
non-responsive. I’d also read somewhere about anacondas and that they killed
their prey by wrapping around it and squeezing. Since it wasn’t trying to
squeeze the sergeants, I reasoned it was safe. Those who refused to touch it,
and the one who fainted, let their fear of snakes override reason. Another
lesson. Don’t let your emotions overrule your reason.
Later in the course, we were taken out for
a two-day exercise to test some of the survival skills we’d been taught up to
that point. One of the cautions the instructor emphasized was that when you
climbed into your hammock at night, you should wear your boots to enable you to
respond quickly in an emergency, but you should ensure that your laces were
securely tied so they wouldn’t come loose during the night and slide across
your leg. Why? Because there was a particularly poisonous snake that was prone
to getting into tents and hammocks and crawling under your pants legs to find a
warm place to sleep, and a loose, wandering bootlace might feel like a reptile
crawling on you.
One of our group ignored the instructions
and loosened his laces before retiring because he said trying to sleep with
laced-up boots was uncomfortable. Later than night, I was awakened by a shriek,
followed by the sound of boots hitting the soft jungle earth, the sound of
running, then another dull thud followed by screams of pain. When we were
finally able to get some flashlights on, one of our party was seen impaled on
the trunk of a spiny palm (I believe it’s called a needle palm) from head to
crotch. He was gingerly disengaged from the tree and transported to the post
hospital where they spent several hours pulling spines from his body. Luckily
none of them hit his eyes which could have blinded him. It did, however, result
in him having to drop out of training.
Lesson learned. Know the instructions or
SOP, and before you vary from them, make sure you’ve thought it through. Are
the risks of not following the instructions less than whatever benefit or
comfort you gain from ignoring them? If not, follow the rules.
The final lesson I learned at the jungle
school was that sometimes it is necessary to disobey the rules and ignore
the instructions. The final exercise of the course was a land navigation
exercise that began late one afternoon and was set to run through the night,
ending on the banks of the Chagres River where we would be transported back to
the fort to prepare for graduation later the next day. The entire course was
through thick jungle and we were told that anyone who felt unable to finish
could come out to the road that paralleled the course and they would be taken
back to the barracks. It wouldn’t keep them from graduating, but they would be
ineligible for award of the Jungle Expert patch which went to those who
excelled in all aspects of the course. At that point, my entire team was in the
running for the patch as we’d excelled in every aspect of training and were
considered one of the best teams in that particular session. We were a mixed
crew. There was me, a US Army captain and recent graduate of the Army’s Special
Forces School, two Naval Academy cadets, a Marine infantryman, and an Air Force
sergeant who was being assigned to one of their special operations units in
Vietnam.
We got off to a good start and were making
excellent time when it started raining. The ground underfoot turned slick and
as luck would have it, the Air Force sergeant, while serving as our point man,
slipped on the top of a rise and slid down hill until he was stopped by a small
tree that slammed into his crotch with enough force to cause that portion of
his anatomy to swell up and made it difficult for him to walk.
As team leader I was faced with a dilemma.
The sergeant, even though he wanted to try, couldn’t complete the exercise in
his condition, and was in need of medical attention. If I assigned someone to
escort him to the road to get help, I would take him and them out of the
running for the Jungle Expert patch. On the other hand, I could not in good
conscience allow him to continue to suffer or worse, endanger his health, so I
turned the team leadership over to one of the naval cadets, got the sergeant in
a fireman’s carry and hiked out to the road.
Typical of bureaucracies, of which the military
is a prime example, the vehicles that were supposed to be patrolling the road
to pick up stragglers or dropouts, weren’t there, so I had to hike to the river
where luckily I found a Panamanian fisherman and his son who were doing night
fishing and talked them into taking us across the river.
From the river I hiked to the post hospital
and turned the sergeant over to the doctors. Exhausted, I then went to the
barracks and went to sleep, convinced that I’d just shot my chances at that
coveted patch but not really caring.
To my surprise, at the graduation ceremony
that morning, when the patches were awarded, I was one of the first ones called
up and the sergeant, still recovering in the hospital, was also named as a
recipient. No one made a big deal of it despite everyone knowing that he and I
hadn’t completed the navigation course. The members of my team all patted me on
the back—they got their patches too, and that was that.
What was the lesson learned from this
incident? I learned that sometimes you have to choose between following the
rules and doing what’s right. The rule was if you quit you lose your chance at
that particular reward, but the right thing for a leader to do is take care of
his or her people.
Life’s like that. Everything you encounter
or experience is a learning opportunity if you’ll only open your mind to it.
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