Generally Speaking by Claudia J. Kennedy

Author:Claudia J. Kennedy [KENNEDY, CLAUDIA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO008000
ISBN: 9780446555326
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2008-12-21T05:00:00+00:00

Thinking back on the time that I weighed my own small decision after discovering the plagiarizing, I consider the most important leadership attributes I look for in my peers and seniors. Integrity and honesty are at the top of the list. The military is not like the private sector, where office politics too often becomes an ongoing intramural tournament in which deception and cheating may be considered acceptable. We in the military simply have to trust each other to tell the truth. For example, when an Infantry captain acknowledges an order to move his company to a ridge to protect the exposed flank of a battalion's advance, the battalion commander has to take the captain at his word that he has completed the movement. We are not in the habit of checking up on each other in the Army because we are taught as career soldiers to act honorably. Our bonds of trust are mutual.

But if this ideal situation prevails in the Army of the twenty-first century, the moral and ethical hangover of Vietnam was still a lingering problem in late 1970s. I had to decide where my loyalties lay, to the ethical compromises that had fostered the My Lai cover-up or to a future Army that had regained its moral and ethical grounding under leaders such as William Peers and Max Thurman. To me, it would be impossible to respect senior leaders whom I could not trust: By definition, a leader was a person of character who earned the loyalty and respect of all.

Certainly we've all worked for people who dominated their subordinates through rigid means of control, often playing one group off the other by unprofessional means and cultivating favorites. But such leaders never earn respect or loyalty because we can't trust them. They cheat and lie out of expedience. At their core is an ethical vacuum. When we see them employ these tactics on someone else, it's obvious that we might be the next to suffer. We obey their orders out of necessity, but they will never inspire us to excel.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.