- Email: [email protected]
From the battlefield to the boardroom
Business Horizons (2008) 51, 79–83
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor
EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE
From the battlefield to the boardroom Catherine M. Dalton Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, 1309 East 10th Street, Bloomington, IN 47405-1701, USA
In this second of our two 50th anniversary special issues, I thought it would be appropriate to once again rely on history as a backdrop for my musings. In the last issue, I shared a bit about the history of Business Horizons. With this issue, I rely on an important era in American history as a mechanism for illustrating important lessons that we can take from the battlefield to the boardroom. Last summer, I had the privilege of participating in a leadership development experience based on the American Civil War battle at Gettysburg. My goals for this experience were multi-faceted. At the foundational level, however, was an a priori appreciation for the military roots of modern-day leadership approaches. Whether a practicing strategic leader, a scholar of strategic leadership, or otherwise, the leadership lessons gleaned from this pivotal Civil War battle continue to hold important implications for leader effectiveness nearly 150 years later. Strategic leaders may sometimes feel as if they must don their metaphorical armor as they face dayto-day leadership challenges. In an environment of shareholder activism, threat of legal action, and intense scrutiny by various regulatory bodies, the media, investors, and other interested stakeholders, it is understandable that strategic leaders would feel under constant attack. Analysis of military leaders, the challenges they have faced, how they dealt with these challenges, and those
E-mail address: [email protected]
strategic approaches which proved more or less effective holds valuable lessons for organizational leaders, whether captains of industry or captains in war. Study of military leadership is by no means novel. Historians have long studied the writings of military leaders, such as Sun Tzu, dating as far back as the 6th century BCE. General Tzu’s The Art of War is a seminal book on offensive and defensive military strategy that has been studied by military and nonmilitary strategic leaders alike. While there are numerous accomplished military strategists worthy of study, the American Civil War provides a number of dramatic examples of leader effectiveness, both in victory and in defeat. The Battle of Gettysburg, one of the pivotal battles of the war, yields numerous lessons that today’s strategic leaders can utilize, whether on the battlefield or in the boardroom.
A bit of background… The American Civil War is one of the most important conflicts in American history. To date, it remains the bloodiest war in which Americans have formally engaged. With most estimates placing the casualty count at 620,000, the Civil War losses exceed those of Americans in all other battles from the Revolutionary War through the Vietnam War. The Civil War commenced on April 12, 1861 when Confederates attacked the Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina. The war did not end until late spring of
0007-6813/$ - see front matter © 2007 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2007.10.002
80 1865. The Battle of Gettysburg was a concentrated engagement occurring over the course of three days in the middle of the war, July 1–3, 1863. While brief in duration, the Battle of Gettysburg is arguably one of the most pivotal battles in the American Civil War, resulting in over 160,000 combined Union and Confederate casualties. The Battle of Gettysburg juxtaposed the leadership of war-tested General Robert E. Lee (commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia) with that of Major General George G. Meade (commander of the Union Federal Army of the Potomac), who had been appointed to his post just over one week prior to the Battle of Gettysburg. The aims of the two commanding officers were as divergent as their war-time experiences. Gen. Lee felt strongly that he needed to make a definitive stance and defeat the Union Army in an effort to end the war. For him, retreat at Gettysburg was not an option. He wanted a full-scale strategic victory and would not settle for a tactical victory. By comparison, Maj. Gen. Meade had been charged by President Abraham Lincoln with the specific task of defending Baltimore, MD and Washington, DC from the advance of the Confederate Army. Gen. Lee was not to win the day; that honor went to Maj. Gen. Meade. On July 4, 1863 Gen. Lee, realizing that he no longer had the resources to continue the battle, withdrew to Virginia. The Battle of Gettysburg was a costly loss for Gen. Lee and the Confederacy. This victory, however, was not the decisive win that it could have been for Maj. Gen. Meade and the Union. What happened on those fateful days in Gettysburg, PA and what strategic leadership lessons can be gleaned from the battlefield?
The “eyes” have it Competitive intelligence, or having “eyes in the field,” is critically important in the modern organization. Strategic leaders invest substantial resources in scanning the competitive environment in order to assess both existing and potential threats, as well as opportunities that can be successfully exploited. Whole sections of US-based corporations’ annual filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission are devoted to sharing with investors the nature and scope of competitive challenges faced by the corporation. Entire staffs are routinely assigned to the collection, analysis, and compilation of competitive intelligence. One of the notable failures of the Confederate Army is attributed to a breakdown in competitive intelligence. Gen. Lee found himself essentially
EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE blinded by Brigadier General J.E.B. Stuart, his cavalry commander and “intelligence officer.” In modern parlance, Brig. Gen. Stuart’s position would be equivalent to an organization’s Chief Intelligence Officer. The central job of the cavalry officer was to gather field intelligence. To this point in the war, Brig. Gen. Stuart had performed this role exceptionally well for Gen. Lee. In fact, his performance was considered so exemplary by Gen. Lee that the commander relied nearly exclusively on Brig. Gen. Stuart for battlefield intelligence. On this particular occasion, however, Brig. Gen. Stuart failed to adequately track the movement of the Union Army, leaving Gen. Lee without eyes in the field. So egregious was Brig. Gen. Stuart’s behavior that his peers accused him of being out “joy riding” rather than attending to his responsibilities. Because Gen. Lee had come to rely so heavily on Brig. Gen. Stuart, he failed to develop a broader network of intelligence. Even when presented with accounts suggesting that the Union was close at hand, Gen. Lee failed to credit the information. He simply could not bring himself to believe that his trusted source of intelligence would leave him “blind” and open to attack. Gen. Lee was so certain of his singular source of competitive intelligence that as late as the day prior to the battle, he rejected eyewitness accounts of Union troop movement. While Gen. Lee was positioning his troops, Brigadier General John Buford of the Union Army arrived at Gettysburg with two advance cavalry brigades. Consistent with the role of cavalry, his primary mission was to gather information on the movement of the Confederate Army. Upon discovering the Confederate Army and noting that it was without its “eyes” (i.e., the cavalry), Brig. Gen. Buford positioned his men and sent word to his commanding officers, Maj. Gen. Meade and General John F. Reynolds, that reinforcements were needed immediately. Gen. Reynolds was approximately 10 miles away and would soon arrive to assist.
Mission impossible Making effective use of the intelligence his men had gathered, Brig. Gen. Buford positioned his two brigades of 2500 soldiers along the crest of Seminary Ridge such that they were on high ground, an advantageous vantage point from which to meet the approaching 7500 Confederate troops supported by five artillery batteries under the leadership of Major General Henry Heth. Brig. Gen. Buford believed that this positioning would enable him to meet his charge to protect against Confederate access to Baltimore
EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE and Washington, DC, at least until reinforcements arrived. No one instructed Brig. Gen. Buford to hold the high ground along Seminary Ridge, but he instinctively understood the criticality of his position for protecting the roads to Baltimore and Washington, and for ultimately saving Union lives by preventing Maj. Gen. Meade from eventually having to fight uphill. Brig. Gen. Buford’s behavior in this context brilliantly emphasizes the importance of everyone in the leadership ranks understanding and appreciating the overall mission. We can compare this to Gen. Lee’s officers, some of whom apparently did not fully appreciate their leader’s strategic intent, leading to a loss of advantage on the basis of sheer force alone. This is well illustrated in the fight for Cemetery Hill, which occurred on the first day of the battle. In effort to delay any advance of the Confederate Army, a Union division was placed on Cemetery Hill. By late afternoon on July 1st, the Union Army was being pushed back through Gettysburg toward Cemetery Hill. Earlier in the day, recognizing the strategic importance of the location, Gen. Lee had ordered Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell to attack Cemetery Hill and seize the high ground “if practicable.” Prior to the Battle at Gettysburg, Gen. Lee had come to rely on Lieutenant General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson as his right-hand man. Lt. Gen. Jackson died two months before the Battle at Gettysburg, as a result of injuries sustained from friendly fire at the Battle at Chancellorsville (VA). These two battle-tested officers had an unspoken understanding between them such that Lt. Gen. Jackson understood not only what Gen. Lee said, but also what he meant. To his detriment, Gen. Lee did not appreciate that this level of comprehension was not shared by all who served him. Thus, when he ordered Lt. Gen. Ewell to take Cemetery Hill “if practicable,” Lt. Gen. Jackson would have understood this to be an order to see that the hill was taken; Lt. Gen. Ewell did not share this understanding. His interpretation was perhaps more literal. Given the Union artillery atop Cemetery Hill and seeing the Union Army in retreat, he deemed it unwise to attack. Even in the face of urging by Major General Jubal Early and Major General Robert E. Rodes to attack the hill, Lt. Gen. Ewell hesitated in his decision making. This provided the Union Army an opportunity to entrench along Cemetery Ridge and bring in reinforcements. By the time that Gen. Lee was made aware of this apparent misunderstanding in his orders, the opportunity to launch a successful attack had passed. Had Lt. Gen. Ewell fully understood Gen. Lee’s
81 intent and acted upon it, the outcome of the battle, even the war, may have been dramatically different. Whereas Brig. Gen. Buford clearly appreciated the Union Army’s overall mission and how he could contribute to it, Lt. Gen. Ewell obviously did not share Gen. Lee’s understanding of the importance of Cemetery Hill in Gen. Lee’s overall plan.
Fungible resources Another issue that strategic leaders have struggled with for time immemorial is how to make the most effective use of scarce resources. Whether those resources are tangible or intangible, financial, physical, human, knowledge, or otherwise, there are multiple models and frameworks built on the concept of leveraging resources for competitive advantage. Perhaps nowhere are resources more critically at issue than on the battlefield, where supply lines and logistics present sometimes insurmountable difficulties for strategic leaders to overcome. Here, too, Brig. Gen. Buford demonstrated leadership acumen. Organizational leaders today often talk of employees as their most valuable assets. Brig. Gen. Buford internalized this and developed his most valuable resource into one that was fungible and deployed to great strategic success. Brig. Gen. Buford was a front-runner in crossfunctional training. Rather than coach his men purely in the skills necessary to be effective cavalry soldiers, he trained them also to fight effectively as dismounted infantry soldiers. As a result, his troops possessed flexible skills that could be altered to fit specific battlefield conditions. Moreover, he merged the flexibility of his “workforce” with the technological advantage of having seven-shot breech-loading rifles, as compared to the Confederates’ muzzle-loading single-shot muskets. The employ of his men in infantry-type battle tactics confused the Confederates into believing that they faced a far larger force than the men in Brig. Gen. Buford’s two cavalry brigades. Importantly, while the Union force was outnumbered by a factor of 3:1, this ratio is deceiving. As a result of Brig. Gen. Buford’s tactics, his fighting force was effectively reduced by 25% to approximately 1800 men. One in four of his cavalry soldiers were assigned to hold the horses while the other three soldiers fought. The unique use of manpower, combined with the technological superiority of weaponry employed, allowed Brig. Gen. Buford and his cavalry to stall the advance of the Confederate Army. This proved strategically critical
82 for allowing Maj. Gen. Meade to move and position his army, thus denying Gen. Lee a clear victory on the first day of the battle.
Hubris unleashed Another leadership challenge obtains when leaders exhibit hubris. Hubris causes leaders to reject contradictory opinions or information in favor of their own. Hubristic leaders are not robust to criticism and believe those in opposition operate from a position of ignorance. Their arrogance often leads to negative, even tragic, consequences for their followers. Gen. Lee’s battlefield successes leading up to Gettysburg contributed to a growing belief that he and his army were invincible. As a result, when Lt. Gen. Jackson’s replacement, Lieutenant General James Longstreet, suggested an alteration to Gen. Lee’s day-two battle plan, Gen. Lee rejected Lt. Gen. Longstreet’s plan as being too short-sighted, with the potential to at best result in a tactical win. Gen. Lee would settle for nothing less than a fullscale strategic win. With an abundance of confidence and virtually no reliable intelligence, Gen. Lee ordered Lt. Gen. Longstreet to lead an attack up Emmitsburg Road. Whereas Lt. Gen. Ewell was apparently unclear as to Gen. Lee’s intent regarding Cemetery Hill, Lt. Gen. Longstreet was abundantly clear on this count when ordered to lead the attack up Emmitsburg Road. Despite his own misgivings and the apprehension of his commanders, who questioned the orders three times in short succession, Lt. Gen. Longstreet executed Gen. Lee’s wishes. Lt. Gen. Longstreet’s commanders had encountered Union troops in an unexpected location, the Peach Orchard, prompting them to question their orders on the basis of this new information. With each request Lt. Gen. Longstreet responded in writing, stating that Gen. Lee’s orders were not subject to change. He recognized that no amount of persuasion or new information would convince Gen. Lee that his strategy was flawed. Even in the face of significant losses, as many as 9000 on each side the second day of the battle alone, Gen. Lee held to his conviction of the invincibility of his army and refused to believe that he and the Confederate forces would not be the ultimate victors at Gettysburg. Consistent with a hubristic leader, on the third day of the battle, Gen. Lee refused once more to listen to advice from his direct reports. He believed that abandoning his strategy in order to achieve a strategic, rather than a tactical, victory would demoralize the troops and
EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE prolong the war. So great was Gen. Lee’s bravado at this point that, despite having told Lt. Gen. Longstreet that he relied on his commanders to tell him the truth no matter how much he might disagree, he failed to respect their differing opinions or be persuaded by their arguments.
In the trenches Effective strategic leaders also appreciate the importance of developing and populating throughout the organization leaders who are able to think in the field and adapt to changing circumstances. Strategic leaders are charged with the unique responsibility of setting the strategic direction of the enterprise and ensuring that those responsible for implementing that strategy are capable and ready to meet any challenge that might arise in achieving the strategic mission. Because those at the top of the organization cannot – and should not – be all places at all times, depth of leadership is essential to organizational success. The Battle of Gettysburg provides two interrelated examples of leaders who understood the importance of the overall strategic objective of the battle, and who were able to adapt in the face of changing circumstances that threatened the achievement of that objective. One such example is that of Brigadier General Gouverneur Warren, one of the more underappreciated emergent leaders at the battle. Brig. Gen. Warren was stationed at the crest of Little Round Top on July 2nd, a strategic position important to maintaining the Federal stronghold on Cemetery Ridge. From this vantage point, Brig. Gen. Warren discerned that should Little Round Top be overrun by the Confederate Army, the Federal Army would find itself outflanked and potentially fully surrounded. Given the strategic importance of Little Round Top to the overall battle plan, Brig. Gen. Warren encouraged the 30 or so men on the hill to remain and wave their flags in effort to dupe the Confederates into believing that Little Round Top was occupied. He also fired a single shot into the woods across from Emmitsburg Road, which lay to the west of Little Round Top, causing the 18,000-strong Confederate troops to reveal their concentrated position. Brig. Gen. Warren’s actions enabled him to gather critically needed field intelligence and provided him the time necessary to redirect a brigade to help defend Little Round Top. Another important leader during the battle was Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. Based on Brig. Gen. Warren’s intelligence, Col. Chamberlain’s unit, the 20th Maine, was positioned on Little Round Top. Of the approximately 350 men he was
EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE charged with leading, 120 were assigned to him three days earlier, on June 29th, as mutineer prisoners from a disbanded regiment of Maine soldiers. Col. Chamberlain was given the unenviable task of holding the line on Little Round Top, no matter what he and his men faced. Had he not been successful in persuading all but six of the prisoners to willingly join his regiment in battle, he would have been unlikely to achieve his mission on July 2nd. Through an impassioned speech delivered to the prisoners, Col. Chamberlain effected a transition from prisoners to soldiers, recognizing their grievances and encouraging them to join his unit for the purpose of fighting for each other. He understood that the greatest motivation in the midst of battle was the person who stood to one’s left or right, not an ideology that may or may not have resonated with a given individual. Such was Col. Chamberlain’s understanding of his men, their capabilities, and the importance of their mission that even when his unit ran out of ammunition, he did not abandon his orders. Rather, he instructed his men to fix bayonets and personally led the charge. Against all odds, his decisive action significantly contributed to a Confederate retreat on Little Round Top. Had less capable leaders been positioned on Little Round Top, the outcome of the Battle of Gettysburg may have been quite different. Brig. Gen. Warren and Col. Chamberlain faced extraordinarily challenging circumstances. Yet, both emerged as leaders who understood the mission, the resources with which they had to work, and the importance of making that vital connection with
83 those who were tasked with helping them fulfill the mission.
A decisive battle Ultimately, the Battle of Gettysburg yielded numerous examples of effective and ineffective leadership. I have credited only a few. The leadership failures and successes were nothing if not consequential. The decisions made and actions undertaken led to the loss of thousands of lives and, sadly, did not result in the immediate conclusion of the war. Thousands more lives were yet to be lost in the remaining two years of the war. Despite previous successes and being much beloved, Gen. Lee, by his own measure, failed to achieve his mission at Gettysburg. While Maj. Gen. Meade succeeded in his mission to protect Washington, DC and Baltimore from incursion by the Confederate Army, he failed to capitalize on his advantage to definitively defeat Gen. Lee’s army, believing the losses suffered by his forces were enough. Thus, Gen. Lee retreated relatively unmolested by the Union Army. While the decisions required of today’s executives and directors are thankfully seldom as consequential as those faced by military leaders in battlefield conditions, the lessons gleaned from theaters of operation such as Gettysburg provide valuable instruction for modern-day leadership. Internalizing these lessons and improving our own leader effectiveness is perhaps one small way in which we may honor battlefield leaders and those they have led.
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor
EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE
From the battlefield to the boardroom Catherine M. Dalton Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, 1309 East 10th Street, Bloomington, IN 47405-1701, USA
In this second of our two 50th anniversary special issues, I thought it would be appropriate to once again rely on history as a backdrop for my musings. In the last issue, I shared a bit about the history of Business Horizons. With this issue, I rely on an important era in American history as a mechanism for illustrating important lessons that we can take from the battlefield to the boardroom. Last summer, I had the privilege of participating in a leadership development experience based on the American Civil War battle at Gettysburg. My goals for this experience were multi-faceted. At the foundational level, however, was an a priori appreciation for the military roots of modern-day leadership approaches. Whether a practicing strategic leader, a scholar of strategic leadership, or otherwise, the leadership lessons gleaned from this pivotal Civil War battle continue to hold important implications for leader effectiveness nearly 150 years later. Strategic leaders may sometimes feel as if they must don their metaphorical armor as they face dayto-day leadership challenges. In an environment of shareholder activism, threat of legal action, and intense scrutiny by various regulatory bodies, the media, investors, and other interested stakeholders, it is understandable that strategic leaders would feel under constant attack. Analysis of military leaders, the challenges they have faced, how they dealt with these challenges, and those
E-mail address: [email protected]
strategic approaches which proved more or less effective holds valuable lessons for organizational leaders, whether captains of industry or captains in war. Study of military leadership is by no means novel. Historians have long studied the writings of military leaders, such as Sun Tzu, dating as far back as the 6th century BCE. General Tzu’s The Art of War is a seminal book on offensive and defensive military strategy that has been studied by military and nonmilitary strategic leaders alike. While there are numerous accomplished military strategists worthy of study, the American Civil War provides a number of dramatic examples of leader effectiveness, both in victory and in defeat. The Battle of Gettysburg, one of the pivotal battles of the war, yields numerous lessons that today’s strategic leaders can utilize, whether on the battlefield or in the boardroom.
A bit of background… The American Civil War is one of the most important conflicts in American history. To date, it remains the bloodiest war in which Americans have formally engaged. With most estimates placing the casualty count at 620,000, the Civil War losses exceed those of Americans in all other battles from the Revolutionary War through the Vietnam War. The Civil War commenced on April 12, 1861 when Confederates attacked the Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina. The war did not end until late spring of
0007-6813/$ - see front matter © 2007 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2007.10.002
80 1865. The Battle of Gettysburg was a concentrated engagement occurring over the course of three days in the middle of the war, July 1–3, 1863. While brief in duration, the Battle of Gettysburg is arguably one of the most pivotal battles in the American Civil War, resulting in over 160,000 combined Union and Confederate casualties. The Battle of Gettysburg juxtaposed the leadership of war-tested General Robert E. Lee (commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia) with that of Major General George G. Meade (commander of the Union Federal Army of the Potomac), who had been appointed to his post just over one week prior to the Battle of Gettysburg. The aims of the two commanding officers were as divergent as their war-time experiences. Gen. Lee felt strongly that he needed to make a definitive stance and defeat the Union Army in an effort to end the war. For him, retreat at Gettysburg was not an option. He wanted a full-scale strategic victory and would not settle for a tactical victory. By comparison, Maj. Gen. Meade had been charged by President Abraham Lincoln with the specific task of defending Baltimore, MD and Washington, DC from the advance of the Confederate Army. Gen. Lee was not to win the day; that honor went to Maj. Gen. Meade. On July 4, 1863 Gen. Lee, realizing that he no longer had the resources to continue the battle, withdrew to Virginia. The Battle of Gettysburg was a costly loss for Gen. Lee and the Confederacy. This victory, however, was not the decisive win that it could have been for Maj. Gen. Meade and the Union. What happened on those fateful days in Gettysburg, PA and what strategic leadership lessons can be gleaned from the battlefield?
The “eyes” have it Competitive intelligence, or having “eyes in the field,” is critically important in the modern organization. Strategic leaders invest substantial resources in scanning the competitive environment in order to assess both existing and potential threats, as well as opportunities that can be successfully exploited. Whole sections of US-based corporations’ annual filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission are devoted to sharing with investors the nature and scope of competitive challenges faced by the corporation. Entire staffs are routinely assigned to the collection, analysis, and compilation of competitive intelligence. One of the notable failures of the Confederate Army is attributed to a breakdown in competitive intelligence. Gen. Lee found himself essentially
EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE blinded by Brigadier General J.E.B. Stuart, his cavalry commander and “intelligence officer.” In modern parlance, Brig. Gen. Stuart’s position would be equivalent to an organization’s Chief Intelligence Officer. The central job of the cavalry officer was to gather field intelligence. To this point in the war, Brig. Gen. Stuart had performed this role exceptionally well for Gen. Lee. In fact, his performance was considered so exemplary by Gen. Lee that the commander relied nearly exclusively on Brig. Gen. Stuart for battlefield intelligence. On this particular occasion, however, Brig. Gen. Stuart failed to adequately track the movement of the Union Army, leaving Gen. Lee without eyes in the field. So egregious was Brig. Gen. Stuart’s behavior that his peers accused him of being out “joy riding” rather than attending to his responsibilities. Because Gen. Lee had come to rely so heavily on Brig. Gen. Stuart, he failed to develop a broader network of intelligence. Even when presented with accounts suggesting that the Union was close at hand, Gen. Lee failed to credit the information. He simply could not bring himself to believe that his trusted source of intelligence would leave him “blind” and open to attack. Gen. Lee was so certain of his singular source of competitive intelligence that as late as the day prior to the battle, he rejected eyewitness accounts of Union troop movement. While Gen. Lee was positioning his troops, Brigadier General John Buford of the Union Army arrived at Gettysburg with two advance cavalry brigades. Consistent with the role of cavalry, his primary mission was to gather information on the movement of the Confederate Army. Upon discovering the Confederate Army and noting that it was without its “eyes” (i.e., the cavalry), Brig. Gen. Buford positioned his men and sent word to his commanding officers, Maj. Gen. Meade and General John F. Reynolds, that reinforcements were needed immediately. Gen. Reynolds was approximately 10 miles away and would soon arrive to assist.
Mission impossible Making effective use of the intelligence his men had gathered, Brig. Gen. Buford positioned his two brigades of 2500 soldiers along the crest of Seminary Ridge such that they were on high ground, an advantageous vantage point from which to meet the approaching 7500 Confederate troops supported by five artillery batteries under the leadership of Major General Henry Heth. Brig. Gen. Buford believed that this positioning would enable him to meet his charge to protect against Confederate access to Baltimore
EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE and Washington, DC, at least until reinforcements arrived. No one instructed Brig. Gen. Buford to hold the high ground along Seminary Ridge, but he instinctively understood the criticality of his position for protecting the roads to Baltimore and Washington, and for ultimately saving Union lives by preventing Maj. Gen. Meade from eventually having to fight uphill. Brig. Gen. Buford’s behavior in this context brilliantly emphasizes the importance of everyone in the leadership ranks understanding and appreciating the overall mission. We can compare this to Gen. Lee’s officers, some of whom apparently did not fully appreciate their leader’s strategic intent, leading to a loss of advantage on the basis of sheer force alone. This is well illustrated in the fight for Cemetery Hill, which occurred on the first day of the battle. In effort to delay any advance of the Confederate Army, a Union division was placed on Cemetery Hill. By late afternoon on July 1st, the Union Army was being pushed back through Gettysburg toward Cemetery Hill. Earlier in the day, recognizing the strategic importance of the location, Gen. Lee had ordered Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell to attack Cemetery Hill and seize the high ground “if practicable.” Prior to the Battle at Gettysburg, Gen. Lee had come to rely on Lieutenant General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson as his right-hand man. Lt. Gen. Jackson died two months before the Battle at Gettysburg, as a result of injuries sustained from friendly fire at the Battle at Chancellorsville (VA). These two battle-tested officers had an unspoken understanding between them such that Lt. Gen. Jackson understood not only what Gen. Lee said, but also what he meant. To his detriment, Gen. Lee did not appreciate that this level of comprehension was not shared by all who served him. Thus, when he ordered Lt. Gen. Ewell to take Cemetery Hill “if practicable,” Lt. Gen. Jackson would have understood this to be an order to see that the hill was taken; Lt. Gen. Ewell did not share this understanding. His interpretation was perhaps more literal. Given the Union artillery atop Cemetery Hill and seeing the Union Army in retreat, he deemed it unwise to attack. Even in the face of urging by Major General Jubal Early and Major General Robert E. Rodes to attack the hill, Lt. Gen. Ewell hesitated in his decision making. This provided the Union Army an opportunity to entrench along Cemetery Ridge and bring in reinforcements. By the time that Gen. Lee was made aware of this apparent misunderstanding in his orders, the opportunity to launch a successful attack had passed. Had Lt. Gen. Ewell fully understood Gen. Lee’s
81 intent and acted upon it, the outcome of the battle, even the war, may have been dramatically different. Whereas Brig. Gen. Buford clearly appreciated the Union Army’s overall mission and how he could contribute to it, Lt. Gen. Ewell obviously did not share Gen. Lee’s understanding of the importance of Cemetery Hill in Gen. Lee’s overall plan.
Fungible resources Another issue that strategic leaders have struggled with for time immemorial is how to make the most effective use of scarce resources. Whether those resources are tangible or intangible, financial, physical, human, knowledge, or otherwise, there are multiple models and frameworks built on the concept of leveraging resources for competitive advantage. Perhaps nowhere are resources more critically at issue than on the battlefield, where supply lines and logistics present sometimes insurmountable difficulties for strategic leaders to overcome. Here, too, Brig. Gen. Buford demonstrated leadership acumen. Organizational leaders today often talk of employees as their most valuable assets. Brig. Gen. Buford internalized this and developed his most valuable resource into one that was fungible and deployed to great strategic success. Brig. Gen. Buford was a front-runner in crossfunctional training. Rather than coach his men purely in the skills necessary to be effective cavalry soldiers, he trained them also to fight effectively as dismounted infantry soldiers. As a result, his troops possessed flexible skills that could be altered to fit specific battlefield conditions. Moreover, he merged the flexibility of his “workforce” with the technological advantage of having seven-shot breech-loading rifles, as compared to the Confederates’ muzzle-loading single-shot muskets. The employ of his men in infantry-type battle tactics confused the Confederates into believing that they faced a far larger force than the men in Brig. Gen. Buford’s two cavalry brigades. Importantly, while the Union force was outnumbered by a factor of 3:1, this ratio is deceiving. As a result of Brig. Gen. Buford’s tactics, his fighting force was effectively reduced by 25% to approximately 1800 men. One in four of his cavalry soldiers were assigned to hold the horses while the other three soldiers fought. The unique use of manpower, combined with the technological superiority of weaponry employed, allowed Brig. Gen. Buford and his cavalry to stall the advance of the Confederate Army. This proved strategically critical
82 for allowing Maj. Gen. Meade to move and position his army, thus denying Gen. Lee a clear victory on the first day of the battle.
Hubris unleashed Another leadership challenge obtains when leaders exhibit hubris. Hubris causes leaders to reject contradictory opinions or information in favor of their own. Hubristic leaders are not robust to criticism and believe those in opposition operate from a position of ignorance. Their arrogance often leads to negative, even tragic, consequences for their followers. Gen. Lee’s battlefield successes leading up to Gettysburg contributed to a growing belief that he and his army were invincible. As a result, when Lt. Gen. Jackson’s replacement, Lieutenant General James Longstreet, suggested an alteration to Gen. Lee’s day-two battle plan, Gen. Lee rejected Lt. Gen. Longstreet’s plan as being too short-sighted, with the potential to at best result in a tactical win. Gen. Lee would settle for nothing less than a fullscale strategic win. With an abundance of confidence and virtually no reliable intelligence, Gen. Lee ordered Lt. Gen. Longstreet to lead an attack up Emmitsburg Road. Whereas Lt. Gen. Ewell was apparently unclear as to Gen. Lee’s intent regarding Cemetery Hill, Lt. Gen. Longstreet was abundantly clear on this count when ordered to lead the attack up Emmitsburg Road. Despite his own misgivings and the apprehension of his commanders, who questioned the orders three times in short succession, Lt. Gen. Longstreet executed Gen. Lee’s wishes. Lt. Gen. Longstreet’s commanders had encountered Union troops in an unexpected location, the Peach Orchard, prompting them to question their orders on the basis of this new information. With each request Lt. Gen. Longstreet responded in writing, stating that Gen. Lee’s orders were not subject to change. He recognized that no amount of persuasion or new information would convince Gen. Lee that his strategy was flawed. Even in the face of significant losses, as many as 9000 on each side the second day of the battle alone, Gen. Lee held to his conviction of the invincibility of his army and refused to believe that he and the Confederate forces would not be the ultimate victors at Gettysburg. Consistent with a hubristic leader, on the third day of the battle, Gen. Lee refused once more to listen to advice from his direct reports. He believed that abandoning his strategy in order to achieve a strategic, rather than a tactical, victory would demoralize the troops and
EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE prolong the war. So great was Gen. Lee’s bravado at this point that, despite having told Lt. Gen. Longstreet that he relied on his commanders to tell him the truth no matter how much he might disagree, he failed to respect their differing opinions or be persuaded by their arguments.
In the trenches Effective strategic leaders also appreciate the importance of developing and populating throughout the organization leaders who are able to think in the field and adapt to changing circumstances. Strategic leaders are charged with the unique responsibility of setting the strategic direction of the enterprise and ensuring that those responsible for implementing that strategy are capable and ready to meet any challenge that might arise in achieving the strategic mission. Because those at the top of the organization cannot – and should not – be all places at all times, depth of leadership is essential to organizational success. The Battle of Gettysburg provides two interrelated examples of leaders who understood the importance of the overall strategic objective of the battle, and who were able to adapt in the face of changing circumstances that threatened the achievement of that objective. One such example is that of Brigadier General Gouverneur Warren, one of the more underappreciated emergent leaders at the battle. Brig. Gen. Warren was stationed at the crest of Little Round Top on July 2nd, a strategic position important to maintaining the Federal stronghold on Cemetery Ridge. From this vantage point, Brig. Gen. Warren discerned that should Little Round Top be overrun by the Confederate Army, the Federal Army would find itself outflanked and potentially fully surrounded. Given the strategic importance of Little Round Top to the overall battle plan, Brig. Gen. Warren encouraged the 30 or so men on the hill to remain and wave their flags in effort to dupe the Confederates into believing that Little Round Top was occupied. He also fired a single shot into the woods across from Emmitsburg Road, which lay to the west of Little Round Top, causing the 18,000-strong Confederate troops to reveal their concentrated position. Brig. Gen. Warren’s actions enabled him to gather critically needed field intelligence and provided him the time necessary to redirect a brigade to help defend Little Round Top. Another important leader during the battle was Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. Based on Brig. Gen. Warren’s intelligence, Col. Chamberlain’s unit, the 20th Maine, was positioned on Little Round Top. Of the approximately 350 men he was
EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE charged with leading, 120 were assigned to him three days earlier, on June 29th, as mutineer prisoners from a disbanded regiment of Maine soldiers. Col. Chamberlain was given the unenviable task of holding the line on Little Round Top, no matter what he and his men faced. Had he not been successful in persuading all but six of the prisoners to willingly join his regiment in battle, he would have been unlikely to achieve his mission on July 2nd. Through an impassioned speech delivered to the prisoners, Col. Chamberlain effected a transition from prisoners to soldiers, recognizing their grievances and encouraging them to join his unit for the purpose of fighting for each other. He understood that the greatest motivation in the midst of battle was the person who stood to one’s left or right, not an ideology that may or may not have resonated with a given individual. Such was Col. Chamberlain’s understanding of his men, their capabilities, and the importance of their mission that even when his unit ran out of ammunition, he did not abandon his orders. Rather, he instructed his men to fix bayonets and personally led the charge. Against all odds, his decisive action significantly contributed to a Confederate retreat on Little Round Top. Had less capable leaders been positioned on Little Round Top, the outcome of the Battle of Gettysburg may have been quite different. Brig. Gen. Warren and Col. Chamberlain faced extraordinarily challenging circumstances. Yet, both emerged as leaders who understood the mission, the resources with which they had to work, and the importance of making that vital connection with
83 those who were tasked with helping them fulfill the mission.
A decisive battle Ultimately, the Battle of Gettysburg yielded numerous examples of effective and ineffective leadership. I have credited only a few. The leadership failures and successes were nothing if not consequential. The decisions made and actions undertaken led to the loss of thousands of lives and, sadly, did not result in the immediate conclusion of the war. Thousands more lives were yet to be lost in the remaining two years of the war. Despite previous successes and being much beloved, Gen. Lee, by his own measure, failed to achieve his mission at Gettysburg. While Maj. Gen. Meade succeeded in his mission to protect Washington, DC and Baltimore from incursion by the Confederate Army, he failed to capitalize on his advantage to definitively defeat Gen. Lee’s army, believing the losses suffered by his forces were enough. Thus, Gen. Lee retreated relatively unmolested by the Union Army. While the decisions required of today’s executives and directors are thankfully seldom as consequential as those faced by military leaders in battlefield conditions, the lessons gleaned from theaters of operation such as Gettysburg provide valuable instruction for modern-day leadership. Internalizing these lessons and improving our own leader effectiveness is perhaps one small way in which we may honor battlefield leaders and those they have led.