Legendary Vietnam War fighter pilot Robin Olds made an astute observation about how different leadership challenges call for different leaders. In his esteemed view, the military leader who excels in peacetime is not necessarily the leader who excels in wartime. In fact, he observed over a 30-year career in the Air Force that leaders who perform best when conflicts aren’t raging are usually not “worth a damn” during hostilities. The truism that distinct challenges require a particular brand of leader applies to almost every leadership domain.
Great post. Reminds me of a chapter titled “Peacetime CEO/Wartime CEO” in Ben Horowitz’s book “The Hard Thing About Hard Things”. The appendix of the book has a sample list of interview questions for a head of sales. One question “Did she run the process at her last company, or did she write the process?” reflects my experience with this concept. Peacetime CEO good with optimizing the way things are, Wartime knows when and how to change. I’ve seen the wrong type of leader for the challenge for the exact reasons noted - loyalty and reward for past success. The past success was optimizing an existing process but the challenge faced required change. Prior success turned out to be irrelevant to what was needed!
Great post. Reminds me of a chapter titled “Peacetime CEO/Wartime CEO” in Ben Horowitz’s book “The Hard Thing About Hard Things”. The appendix of the book has a sample list of interview questions for a head of sales. One question “Did she run the process at her last company, or did she write the process?” reflects my experience with this concept. Peacetime CEO good with optimizing the way things are, Wartime knows when and how to change. I’ve seen the wrong type of leader for the challenge for the exact reasons noted - loyalty and reward for past success. The past success was optimizing an existing process but the challenge faced required change. Prior success turned out to be irrelevant to what was needed!
Thanks for taking the time, Scott.