sign in sign up
<<
Home , Frederick Kroesen, Lieutenant general, Matthew Ridgway, William Westmoreland

HBR.ORG October 2012 reprinT R1210G

What Ever Happened To Accountability? When leaders don’t fire underperforming executives, they send a bad message to the whole organization. Case in point: the U.S. by Thomas E. Ricks Photography: stephen webster Co p yright ©2012 H arvard Wh B usiness

T executives, they sendabadmessage to the whole Sc A o I on matters ofleadership. Take, his1967 forfrom example, thisadvice turned to the of his adopted nation for inspiration, especially ofhisadoptedturned tonation themilitary for inspiration, especially book hool Publishing Cor Army. That master of management teaching Peter Drucker often corporations, you could do worse than to study theUnited States distinction. Todistinction. letsuch amanstay the It others. isgrossly oncorrupts especially anyespecially manager—who consistently fails with to perform high f you’re looking for management lessons outside from the halls of It istheof to duty theremove executive ruthlessly anyone—and he isinadequate whether headmitsitto himself ornot. superior’s inadequacy of opportunities for achievement and recogni for achievement - inadequacyof opportunities superior’s tion. Above all, it is senseless cruelty to the manhimself. Abovetion. cruelty all,itissenseless Heknows that unfair to the whole organization. organization. When leaders don’t fire underperforming a The Effective Executive: It is grossly unfair to hissubordinates who are deprivedbytheir t Ev cc p oration. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ by Thomas E.Ricks o A C ll rightsreserved. ase in point: theU ase inpoint: e u r For ar nt Ha t icle reprin a bility pp .S. Army t s call800-988

e n

e -0886 or617-783-7500, orvisi ››

? O d ctober 2012 H arvard B usiness t hbr. R eview 2 org What ever happened to Accountability?

The first example Drucker cited of such wise sonal.” He was distant even with his in practice came not from the business world of the chief, President Franklin Roosevelt. He made a point 1960s but from the army of the 1940s. Its leader, Gen- of not laughing at the president’s jokes and was clear eral George C. Marshall, he wrote, “insisted that a In the spring that he preferred not to be addressed by his first be immediately relieved if found less of 1939, name. He didn’t visit Roosevelt’s home in Hyde Park, than outstanding.” New York, until the day of FDR’s funeral. Ironically, by the time Drucker was writing, the even before When Marshall is remembered nowadays, it is army had lost the practice of swift relief that Mar- becoming more often for his role in establishing the Marshall shall had enforced so vigorously. With regard to tal- Plan, which revived the economies of post–World ent management, it was already beginning to teach a chief of staff, War II Europe, than for his role in the preceding war. different kind of lesson—a cautionary tale. To study George C. Yet he was unwavering, even fierce, in doing what the change in the army across the two decades from needed to be done to win that war. He stands as an World War II to is to learn how a culture of Marshall extreme example of leading not by being charming high standards and accountability can deteriorate. had devised or charismatic but by setting standards. And to review the extended story of its past six de- Few overhauls are as sweeping as the one Mar- cades is to comprehend an even deeper moral: When a plan to shall oversaw: the creation of the American super- standards are not rigorously upheld and inadequate remove power military, the globe-spanning mechanized performance is allowed to endure in leadership force that we have come to take for granted over ranks, the effect is not only to rob an enterprise of scores of the past seven decades. On the day in 1939 that he some of its potential. It is to lose the standards them- officers he became chief of staff, the U.S. Army was a small, selves and let the most important capabilities of weak force of about 190,000 men—“not even a leadership succumb to atrophy. considered third-rate military power,” as he later wrote in an ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ official Pentagon report. Of the nine infantry divi- deadwood. sions the army had on paper, only three were at di- The Right People in the Right Jobs visional strength, while six were actually weak bri- n General Marshall’s day, perhaps it was easier gades. Six years later, when he stepped down, the to agree on a clear notion of what constituted army numbered almost 8 million and had Isuccess in the leadership of the armed forces. It 40 divisions in the European and another 21 may have been a more straightforward exercise to in the Pacific. consider whether one general was driving toward As transformational leaders tend to do, Marshall that goal more or less effectively than others. That began by focusing on people. He truly was ruthless may in fact be why a man as understated as Marshall, in getting the right people in the right jobs—and the reticent to the point of seeming almost colorless, wrong people out of them. When General was able to rise to the level he did. He was a classic Charles Bundel insisted that the army’s training transformational leader—an unlikely figure of quiet manuals could not all be updated in three or four resolve who can reinvigorate and redirect a com- months and instead would require 18, Marshall pany or an institution. Consider Marshall’s low-key twice asked him to reconsider that statement. demeanor on September 1, 1939, the day that World “It can’t be done,” Bundel repeated. War II began in Europe. That same day he formally “I’m sorry, then you are relieved,” Marshall replied. ascended to chief of staff of the army—a far more im- In the spring of 1939, even before becoming portant position then than it is now, partly because chief of staff, Marshall had devised a plan to remove it included the army air force. “Things look very dis- scores of officers he considered deadwood. By his turbing in the world this morning,” he commented estimate, he eliminated some 600 officers before drily in a note that day to George Patton’s wife. Even the entered the war, in December 1941. after the war, and his obvious success, he lived on a Another wave of firings came just after the attack on ot modest government salary and turned down lavish Pearl Harbor, with the top naval, army, and air com- p hil offers from publishers who wanted him to write his manders for the Pacific removed. A year later the p memoirs. commander of one of the first divisions to fight the Certainly George Marshall was not a political ani- Japanese was fired. So, too, was the senior tactical mal or a Washington courtier. One subordinate, Gen- commander of the first American divisions to fight llustration: Chris llustration: eral Albert Wedemeyer, called him “coolly imper- the Germans in Africa. I

3 Harvard Business Review October 2012 For article reprints call 800-988-0886 or 617-783-7500, or visit hbr.org

Idea in Brief Business leaders often look to the Relief of command, commonplace in A great general, like a great CEO, armed forces for lessons in leadership. the World War II era, is now a rare provides a high-level strategic vision The U.S. Army teaches a big one about event. By failing to fire generals who of what to do as well as tactical guid- the need to uphold performance stan- perform without distinction, the army ance on how to do it. Leaders without dards in an organization’s uppermost seriously undermines accountability. that strength fail to appreciate the ranks. Unfortunately, it teaches that Even worse, its leadership capabilities distinction between winning battles seem to have eroded over time. and the more difficult work of winning lesson in the negative. wars—a problem that became evident in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Those removed were replaced by younger, more ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ vigorous officers, such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, who as late as 1940 was still a serving “Can’t Execute My Future as the executive officer of an infantry . Mar- Plans with Present Leaders” shall put the new men through a series of tests. At ust five years after World War II ended, as the each level those who faltered were shunted aside. army found itself fighting in Korea, it seemed First, each man had to be given command of a unit. J to have lost that adaptability. Twice in 1950 The next question was whether he would be allowed, the same force that had taken on the Nazis and the once the unit was trained, to take it overseas and Japanese empire was driven down the Korean pen- into combat. Then, once in the fight, a commander insula by poorly equipped peasant . First, in had a few months in which to succeed, be killed or the summer, it was harried south by North Korean wounded, or be replaced. Of the 155 officers allowed forces; then, in late autumn, it was surprised by the to command army divisions in combat in the war, 16 Chinese army. were relieved for cause. Yet Marshall’s policy of swift Lieutenant General , another relief had a forgiving aspect: The removals were not of Marshall’s protégés, was dispatched at the end of necessarily career-ending. Indeed, five of the re- 1950 to try to turn the war around. On his first morn- lieved were given other divi- ing in Korea, the hawkeyed Ridgway climbed into the sions to lead in combat later in the war. ’s compartment of a B-17 to fly over and It was a dynamic and hard-nosed system of per- study the rugged terrain of the peninsula. Later that sonnel management—and it worked. For an army, a day he visited the South Korean president. Next, and key marker of excellence is adaptability—grasping most important, he spent most of three days visiting a changing situation and making good decisions in his battlefield commanders. He was shocked to find response to it. Allies and enemies alike observed that the quality of leadership of American troops that the distinctive characteristic of the U.S. forces in was often as poor as their morale. Commanders had World War II was that given how much they had to not studied the ground on which they were fighting. learn, they did so very quickly. Bernard Lewis, later They had kept their troops on the roads instead of an influential historian of the Middle East, took away putting them up on ridges. And they had failed to co- from his time as an intelligence officer in the British ordinate with units on their flanks. “The troops were army two dominant impressions of the Americans. confused,” Ridgway wrote in Military Review in 1990. “One was that they were unteachable,” he wrote in “They had been badly handled tactically, logistically.” The Atlantic in 2007. But “what was really new and How is it that an officer known for its ex- original—and this is my second lasting impression— cellence could be infiltrated so quickly by medioc- was the speed with which they recognized [their] rity? The focus on one clear goal, and who was best mistakes, and devised and applied the means to cor- equipped to pursue it, was lost, and the criteria for rect them. This was beyond anything in our experi- leadership evaluation became muddied by other ence.” Similarly, Field Erwin Rommel, the considerations. One of the problems in Korea was most famous German general of the war, found it that the army was trying to give officers who had “astonishing…the speed with which the Americans been stuck in staff jobs in World War II a chance to adapted themselves.” command in combat, in part out of a sense of fairness,

October 2012 Harvard Business Review 4 What ever happened to Accountability?

and in part to help season the officer corps in case of Marshall on Leadership: a war with the Soviet Union. Ridgway acted decisively. Discovering that the The Requirements army’s headquarters in Korea was some 180 miles south of the front lines, he ordered it moved closer to the fighting. He also decided to remove several of his cholars disagree over whether At first glance this list might seem General George C. Marshall senior commanders. “Can’t execute my future plans unexceptional, even Boy Scout–ish. actually maintained a “little Yet it merits closer examination. with present leaders,” he informed the army chief of S black book” of promising young Heeding a lesson he learned in staff in a note. Over the following three months he officers to keep in mind for future , Marshall placed a promotions. Some say that is just an would relieve one corps commander, five of his six premium on vigor, implicitly exclud- army myth. No such booklet or list ing the older officer from promotion, division commanders, and 14 of his 19 regimental has ever been found; neither have especially the “château general” commanders. Ridgway shortly succeeded in turning any documents indicating that it who rarely left the comforts of existed. around the war; it was an episode of transformational his headquarters to fight in the Yet Marshall did have a very clear trenches with his troops. Marshall leadership that would be better known had it not oc- sense of the qualities he looked for instead valued the man who wanted curred in a small, unpopular conflict on the other side when promoting officers.H is ideas to be in the middle of things. about what made a good leader of the earth. Marshall emphasized character had a big impact on who became a over intellect in his list. He did so Yet Ridgway could not uphold the Marshall sys- general in World War II—and on how consciously, tailoring his template tem of managing generals as thoroughly as he wished. the army thought about generalship to fit the particular circumstances Relieving high-ranking officers of their commands for decades afterward. In a letter of the United States. The quiet he wrote in November 1920, not pessimist might be effective in did not sit as well in a controversial “police action” as long after he became aide-de-camp other , he argued, but it had in World War II, in part because of the politics to General John Pershing, chief of not in a democratic nation that, of the war. Ridgway’s first firing of a general set off staff of the army, Marshall listed the protected by the world’s two great qualities of successful leaders, in oceans, tended always to pursue alarms at the Pentagon. Soon a senior general was the following order: a “policy of unpreparedness” for cabling him that “what has the appearance of whole- 1. “good common sense” war. Given that tendency, which sale relief of senior commanders…may well result in 2. “have studied your profession” inevitably meant leading ill-trained 3. “physically strong” and poorly equipped units into congressional investigation.” Ridgway was ordered 4. “cheerful and optimistic” demoralizing battles, he decided to back off a bit and to disguise the moves he made as 5. “display marked energy” that the American military needed part of a normal rotation process. 6. “extreme loyalty” the “optimistic and resourceful type, 7. “determined” quick to estimate, with relentless No one could know it at the time, but this episode determination, and who possessed would prove to be the death knell for relieving battle- in addition a fund of sound common field generals in the U.S. Army—and the beginning of a precipitous decline in accountability. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ A Plunge into Institutional Self-Interest tion of the Pentagon budget was 23%, exactly half the f the focus on choosing leaders who could win air force’s share. wars was compromised by political considerations Scrambling to justify its existence, the army came I in the , it was thoroughly subverted up with a new role for itself. If the air force and the in the Vietnam era. After Korea the army as an institu- navy were focusing on atomic war, at the high end of tion was adrift. Some seriously questioned whether the conflict spectrum, the army would move to the ground forces even had a role to play in the era of low end, the area historically occupied by the Marine nuclear weapons, which were revolutionizing the air Corps. General Maxwell Taylor, the army’s chief of force and the navy. The air force was rapidly expand- staff during the second half of the 1950s, began a new ing. Shortly after the it fielded its first emphasis on “brushfire wars.” To prepare for engage- genuinely intercontinental bomber, the B-52. It was ment in such small conflicts, he established a “special also moving smartly into space with the first wave of warfare school” at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. reconnaissance satellites. The navy introduced the President Eisenhower had vigorously resisted first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, becoming involved in clashes on the remote edges and then developed an intermediate-range nuclear- of the communist world, insisting in 1956 that “we tipped missile, the Polaris. By 1959 the army’s alloca- would not…deploy and tie down our forces around

5 Harvard Business Review October 2012 For article reprints call 800-988-0886 or 617-783-7500, or visit hbr.org

in Vietnam. These men were not just survivors; they were winners who had risen quickly in World War II to become, while still in their twenties and early thir- ties, commanders of and . In an army of millions, they had been star performers, He wanted generals he once said. “But often, or most standing astride the globe at the end of the war. Yet it frequently, the very dashing action was not clear that they were the right men to lead the who would fight, but exposes you to a very fatal result if it is not successful. And you hazard army in Vietnam. not men who would everything in that way.” This generation of officers was led by Taylor, who He trusted even less the outlier, command recklessly. had commanded the during the individualist, the eccentric, and ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ the dreamer. He wanted steady, level- World War II. Though retired, he was named military headed team players who were both adviser (a new and unusual post) to President Ken- competent and cooperative. nedy and then, in 1962, recalled to active duty to be American commanders in World sense, which operated to prevent War II were a new breed compared chairman of the . Taylor would gross errors due to rapidity of deci- with those of World War I. In the prove to be almost the opposite of Marshall. Where sion and action.” second war they were adept at the latter had kept his distance from the White House, The opposite sort of leader, the coordinating the efforts of the man prone to looking at the nega- infantry, artillery, armor, and aviation Taylor made it his base of power. Marshall had in- tive side, must be excised promptly, branches, especially in breaking sisted on candor and had given it to the president. Marshall believed. The units led by through enemy lines and then exploit- Taylor, by contrast, had a tendency toward men- these “calamity howlers,” he wrote ing that penetration. As Germany’s with evident distaste, were “quickly Gerd von Rundstedt put dacity. He played on distrust between generals and infected with the same spirit and it after being captured in 1945, “We marginalized the members of the Joint Chiefs. He grew ineffective unless a more suit- cannot understand the difference in also encouraged the selection of notably stupid men able commander was given charge.” your leadership in the last war and Marshall’s list is significant for in this. We could understand it if you to command the war in Vietnam—first Paul Harkins, what it omits. He was ambivalent had produced one superior corps and then . about the brawler and the dashing commander, but now we find all of Thus the Marshall system of generalship saw its cavalryman. He wanted generals who your corps commanders good and of would fight, but not men who would equal superiority.” collapse in Vietnam. Honesty and accountability command recklessly or discredit the were replaced by deceit and command indiscipline. military with their personal behavior. A force that in World War II had been lauded for “You can sometimes win a great victory by a very dashing action,” its adaptability proved agonizingly slow to recog- nize the nature of the war in which it was engaged. When fighting among the people, the army should have used firepower far more discriminatingly and should have considered it a last resort rather than a default mode. And where relief of command had once been seen as a sign that the system was work- the periphery in small wars.” But his successor, John ing as designed, in Vietnam it became seen as a chal- F. Kennedy, was intrigued by General Taylor’s ideas lenge to the system itself. Almost no generals were and brought Taylor into the White House, where fired in Vietnam. Had Peter Drucker been able to peer one of his first assignments was to consider how to into the process, he might have observed that it was handle the deteriorating situation in . “grossly unfair to the whole organization.” If ever there was a case for doing adequate research The loss of relief may have been the key to other before entering a new and strange market, Vietnam problems. When real success goes unrewarded and was it—especially because little if any evidence ex- failure to take initiative goes unpunished, the en- isted that the army would be able to adapt to its mark- tire incentive system for risk taking is undercut. As edly different requirements. It is not overstating the Wade Markel, an officer, a student of military his- case to say that America’s doomed venture there tory, and now a senior political scientist at the RAND grew in part out of the army’s search for a mission in Corporation, has put it, an army that had once been the mid-1950s. eager to exploit opportunity now worked instead It is extraordinary to think that the same men we to avoid error. Most firefights were initiated by the lionize as part of “the Greatest Generation” we de- enemy, who was rarely pursued. “Pursuit became a monize—and rightly so—for their part in the debacle forgotten art,” Lieutenant General (Ret.) Dave Rich-

October 2012 Harvard Business Review 6 What ever happened to Accountability?

ard Palmer observed in Summons of the Trumpet, the Operating under extreme time pressure, because best operational history of the . “No the statute of limitations would soon apply to many sizable communist force was ever hounded to its lair lesser crimes, Peers and his staff conducted more and wiped out.” than 400 interviews. Peers was an old friend of Perhaps just as damaging, when inadequate Koster’s, yet he found the division commander’s tes- leaders are allowed to remain in command, their timony “almost unbelievable” and was shocked by superiors must look for other ways to accomplish the web of lies he uncovered. “Efforts were made at what needs to be done. In Vietnam close supervi- every level of command from to division to sion—what today we call “micromanagement”—be- withhold and suppress information,” he concluded. came commonplace in the army. It is no coincidence The thoroughness of the deceit made Peers wonder that one of the enduring images of that conflict is of what had happened to the values of the army he small-unit leaders looking up to see their , had served all his adult life: Dozens of officers knew , and even division commanders hovering that something awful had happened at My Lai, yet it over them in helicopters. General , was an enlisted who finally had the courage who fought in that war as well as in World War II and to blow the whistle. Peers’s official report named 30 Korea, wrote in Army magazine in 2010, “In Vietnam, soldiers, including two generals and three , many low-level commanders were subject to a hor- who appeared to have committed offenses in the net’s nest of helicopters carrying higher commanders cover-up, which included the wholesale destruction calling for information, offering advice, and gener- of documents. He concluded that Koster was guilty ally interfering with what leaders and of conspiracy, making false statements, and derelic- leaders and company commanders were trying to do.” The generals tion of duty. This not only undercut combat effectiveness but also Yet the army’s leaders shied away from acting denied small-unit leaders the opportunity to grow by of the decisively on those shocking findings. Lieutenant making decisions under pressure. Vietnam era General Jonathan , who was selected to de- Once accountability had been compromised by cide the disposition of the case against Koster, chose the deflection of focus onto what was good for the had ceased not to court-martial the general and instead gave army, it was a short step to a corrosive focus on what to behave him the minimum punishment possible: demotion was good for present company. This is an important to and a letter of reprimand. Koster, but rarely noted lesson of the My Lai incident. To- like stewards who had brought perhaps more disrepute on the day people recall the massacre on March 16, 1968, of of their army than any general since Benedict Arnold, was al- some 400 Vietnamese peasants, 120 of them children lowed to remain in the service, wearing the uniform aged five or less, as the horrific result of a rogue pla- profession he had disgraced, until January 1, 1973. Peers told toon’s being led by a dim-witted lieutenant. What is and were West­moreland that he considered this “a travesty of forgotten is that the army’s subsequent investiga- justice.” tions—which, to its credit, were exhaustive—found more like If My Lai was the modern low point of army con- that the chain of command up to the division com- keepers of a duct, the generous treatment of the leaders involved mander, General Samuel Koster, was involved in it was the nadir of the army’s leadership culture. either in the atrocity or in its cover-up. Battalion com- guild, taking The contrast with George Marshall’s insistence on manders hovered overhead as the operation was car- care of their strict accountability and his sense of responsibility ried out, and the brigade commander, Colonel Oran to the American people could not be starker. Anyone Henderson, later filed a report falsely stating that 120 own. looking into the army would have found its ranks Vietcong soldiers had been killed at My Lai. riven by racial tension, drug use, and indiscipline. Its The cover-up lasted more than a year and was bro- relationship with its civilian overseers, and indeed ken only when a former enlisted soldier began report- with the American people, was in tatters. “The Army ing to civilian officials what he had heard about the was really on the edge of falling apart,” remembers murders and rapes that took place that day. General Barry McCaffrey, who stayed in the service despite Westmoreland, by then kicked upstairs to be army its troubles and rose to become a four-star general. chief of staff, rose to the occasion and insisted on a And no wonder: The generals of the Vietnam era had thorough inquiry. He appointed Lieutenant General ceased to behave like stewards of their profession William Peers, a World War II veteran who had led the and were more like keepers of a guild, taking care of 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam, to investigate. their own.

7 Harvard Business Review October 2012 ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ than a general who loses a war,” Paul Yingling charged in the Armed Forces Journal The Lingering Cost of Mediocrity in 2007. True, top generals have been removed. In hen the process by which leaders earn Vietnam, Harkins and Westmoreland were pushed and keep their positions loses its integ- out. In Iraq, General George Casey was yanked from W rity, the loss extends far beyond poor out- command before he expected to leave. And in Af- comes achieved locally. Across the system the ability ghanistan, President Obama fired both General Da- to do the top-end work of leadership begins to atro- vid McKiernan and General Stanley McChrystal. Yet phy. Leadership requires high-level strategic thinking these exceptions simply prove the rule. The only about what to do as well as tactical guidance on how ousters that occurred were decided on by civilians to do it. The army’s failure to rigorously uphold stan- who had grown impatient with the conduct of the dards left its senior leadership with shortcomings in wars. Within the army’s organization, generals com- strategic thinking that became evident in the deserts manding divisions were not fired. And taking man- of Iraq and Afghanistan. agement action to replace only the top general in a In the 1970s and 1980s the army was given a war is hardly a winning approach. sweeping overhaul. It shifted from conscription to ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ recruitment to fill its ranks. It underwent a revolu- tion in training and weaponry. It revamped its doc- Fire Away trine on how to fight. Less noticed at the time, and he history related here has clear implications still largely unrecognized, was that this overhaul for business as well as military leadership. occurred at only one level. Focused on teaching the T The personnel equivalent of Gresham’s Law force better tactics to get its job done, army leaders is that bad leaders drive out good ones, and medioc- gave short shrift to strategic thinking. They didn’t rity can quickly become institutionalized. To regain recognize the distinction between winning battles its strengths in adaptability and increase its combat and the more difficult task of winning wars. effectiveness, the army must restore accountability. In Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. troops fought their All its generals should face rigorous review. Those battles magnificently. They were well trained, well whose initiative takes us closer to a shared vision of equipped, and part of cohesive units—one reason success should be promoted. Those who prove un- the relatively small army did not fall apart under equal to this high challenge should be moved out of the strain of fighting those two lengthy wars. Yet the the way (though perhaps given another chance when new body had an old head. The troops were led by circumstances change) so that others might succeed. generals who surprisingly often seemed ill equipped In the military, where incompetence gets people for the tasks at hand, especially the difficult but es- killed, inadequate leaders should not linger in place. sential job of turning victories on the ground into Excellent talent management is vital to any orga- strategic progress. Four times—in 1989 in Panama, nization. As business leaders look to the U.S. military in 1991 and 2003 in Iraq, and in 2001 in Afghani- for lessons, they will find many positive ones. The stan—army generals led swift and successful attacks army knows how to produce a well-trained, highly against enemy forces without a notion of what to do motivated, and extremely diverse workforce. But the day after their initial triumph. In fact, they be- business should also heed the negative lesson the lieved that it was not their job to consider that ques- military teaches about leadership and strategy. tion. As Lieutenant Colonel Suzanne Nielsen wrote When the mission of an enterprise is clear and in a 2010 assessment for the Army War College, “The placed front and center, the relative performance Army attained tactical and operational excellence of leaders can be assessed objectively. The decision but failed to develop leaders well-suited to helping on whether an individual deserves high rank can be, political leaders attain strategic success.” Effectively, in Drucker’s term, ruthless—but yet the opposite of the army had confused leadership of a battalion (the cruel. HBR Reprint R1210G first level at which a commander has a staff) with generalship. Thomas E. Ricks has written five books about the In Iraq and Afghanistan, as in Vietnam, the failure American military, including Fiasco and The Gamble, both about the war in Iraq. His most recent book is The to hold generals accountable continued. “A Generals: American Military Command from World War II who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences to Today (Penguin Press, 2012).

October 2012 Harvard Business Review 8