Leadership

[CL65 Captain]

My GF works at Washington University in STL (alumni relations) and one of their perks is free tuition, so she she takes a class a semester for fun. This semester she is taking a Leadership class. The homework was "name a great leader, and why."

My suggestion to her was Gene Kranz, the Flight Director in Houston for Apollo 13, because it was the most successful failure in human history.

Discuss. :biggrin:

 

[Miner]

How about Kelly Johnson of Lockheed? Either are 2 examples of very smart people who could manage and lead people. Throw in J Robert Oppenheimer and Jean Todt (pre FIA. Prez) and there are some good examples of management and leadership mixed together
Miner

 

[Lostbuckeye]

I would agree with Gene Krantz. Talk about a pressure situation with the eyes of the world watching. I couldn't imagine if they failed to come home. I like how he trusted his people to do their jobs and reigned them in only when they were on the verge losing focus. The stuff I read about him and his management style became part of my own management style. Plus the guys whose lives were on the line trusted his judgment even before it was tested on Apollo 13. I enjoy his interviews on various documentaries about the space program. I think he had nads as big as those who left the planet. I've always been impressed with George Washington. The more I read about him the more I admire what he accomplished.

 

[TURBO2GO]

She could also do something out of the ordinary and go with Muhatma Ghandi. A guy that with nothing but a cloth on his back brought down one of the most powerful countries in the world. He single handedly released India from years of british rule. Suggest that to her and see what she thinks...

 

[Tom239]

For a military leader and technologist, Hyman Rickover.

For an industrialist, Edwin Land. He took a pic of his young daughter
and she asked why she couldn't see the picture right away. Most people
would just say that's the way film works and forget about it; Land went for
a walk and worked out the technology of instant photography in his head--
except for, as he put it, "those few details that took from 1943 to 1973."

 

[DocL]

How about Jeff Bezos?

 

[NetViper]

How about turbo2go. His leadership has brought significantly lower prices to many prime members on group buys.

 

[Rope]

Erwin Rommel?

 

[Vega$ NSX]

Genghis Khan. Approximately 0.5% of the male population in the world carry his chromosome. I love it when you call me big poppa!

 

[Cap'n Carl]

Admiral Chester Nimitz. Here's how he got his way when he disagreed with his superiors:
His code breakers in Hawaii said the Japanese were going to attack Midway Island. So Nimitz wanted to keep his aircraft carriers Enterprise and Hornet near Midway.
Nimitz' superior, Admiral King, had his own code breakers and they said there would be no Japanese attack on Midway. King ordered Nimitz to send the carriers south, on a surprise raid of Japanese held islands, far from Midway. Nimitz follows orders, and sends the carriers away, under Rear Admiral Halsey. Had the mission gone as planned, this critical task force would have been too far away to help if Midway were attacked.
But the mission didn't go as planned. Nimitz sabotaged it.
Halsey was just getting into position when he gets a For Your Eyes Only message from Nimitz. It basically orders Halsey to let the Japanese spot him on the first day (and destroy the message). This is very counterproductive to the mission. Halsey can hardly believe what he's being told to do, but he makes sure the enemy sees him the next day. With local Japanese forces on the alert, the mission becomes too hazardous to continue. Admiral King can only agree; the carriers should abort the mission and return to Hawaii. They do so, and when the Japanese fleet arrives off Midway, as Nimitz expected, Enterprise & Hornet ​are waiting for them.

 

[Hasdrubal]

Eisenhower, managed to keep the various big ego personalities in the Allies from fighting each other (Montgomery, Patton, deGaulle) and without being an overbearing tyrant. Leading people is difficult, but leading men who are used to being in charge has to be an order of magnitude worse.

For me, it has to be George Washington. Cliche, perhaps, even when he was still alive he was called the father of his country. Though not the best general of the time, he held an army of independent minded colonists together against the superpower of the age. He refused to be named King after the war, and refused to stand for a third term as President. He pretty much defined the office of the Presidency, setting standards of behavior for generations of future leaders.

Read about the Newburgh Conspiracy, a possible uprising in the Continental Army over months without pay towards the end of the war. I won't bother pasting in the entire wikipedia entry, but Washington spoke to an assembly of officers and essentially shut the whole thing down. A memorable quote from this speech, where he had to put on glasses to read a letter from a member of Congress- "Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country." Many of his officers were moved to tears at this, and I'm not ashamed to say I was as well.

Probably too obvious for a school thing, though.

Edit- a different source than wiki says Washington's speech was not very well received, his men were still angry and still wanting to challenge Congress. It was apparently only the spectacles comment that reminded everyone of the very human nature of the man, and that he had suffered alongside them. That they had this much respect and even love for him seems like a sign of a great leader.

 

[Miner]

Let's pull this thread in a different direction; or perhaps not a different direction, but a different perspective. Do (or did) the leaders listed so far achive the goal using good practices, or through brute force (so to speak)?
For example, Genghis Khan did build an empire and is in an enormous amount of our DNA (1 out of every 200), but did he lead people and follow acceptable principles and practices of leadership? Rickover was a little anal, to say the least, locking people in a room, etc.

I have heard the saying "Leaders get the job done, managers get the job done right."

Perhaps this is part of the classes assignment.