Musings, leadership tidbits and quotes posted by a retired Navy Captain (really just a high performing 2nd Class Petty Officer) who hung up his uniform a bit too early. He still wears his Navy service on his sleeve. He needs to get over that. "ADVANCE WARNING - NO ORIGINAL THOUGHT!" A "self-appointed" lead EVANGELIST for the "cryptologic community". Keeping CRYPTOLOGY alive-one day and Sailor at a time. 2015 is 80th Anniversary of the Naval Security Group.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
The supreme quality is missing in a few of our senior officers
The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible.
Leadership is very similar to designing a weapon system. A series of trade-offs have to be made as you refine the requirements to get what you can both build and afford in a timely process. The very first thing to go in our current leadership requirement is integrity. One simply does not promote, in peacetime, officers who will not toe the party line. You see it everyday now with the abortion known as the Littoral Combat Ship. That was a crime and every admiral and NAVSEA employee was complicit in it. People wince at Fat dude raking off a couple of million $ and don't notice that we spent well over 3 BILLION $ for a ship that 5 years after commissioning cannot get underway?
You can see the same lack of integrity in every single thing about the military that makes you scratch your head and wonder, "where the hell did they get that stupid idea?"
All of a sudden we needed a whole new AFRICOM to look after our military affairs in Africa?
We really built an F22 with a totally unreliable O2 system that doesn't even warn the pilot when it fails and still haven't fixed it?
We put the entire navy and marine corps on one common backbone making all of it as vulnerable as the weakest link and that's OK because Snowden made off with 200,000 TS documents from what is supposedly a very tight little subset of the same network?
We have decided that we can tolerate stupid and ignorant but not fat people?
I suppose that a lot of the people I think had integrity were abrasive but that didn't make them wrong. We just don't promote abrasive people however smart and honest and ethical they are. We prefer the ones that won't kick over the rice bowls. And no, this is no paean of endorsement for promoting abrasive idiots however smart they are but there has to be some way to ground the flights of fancy that have consumed so much of the integrity of our leadership that we simply don't believe a word they say on any subject.
Brevity has never been one of my strong points, but you have taken all the words that I could use to express myself in your post. And I certainly agree with your many points.
HMS, agree mostly - with one specific observation to "We have decided that we can tolerate stupid and ignorant but not fat people" - I believe we tolerate, incentivize and embrace all three - to our detriment, stupid, ignorant and fat - and that's no way for a Navy to go thru life. Regrettably, we're going to fully experience the cost to the Navy from the leadership we have so carefully groomed and selected. This will become a national tragedy when its all over.
I think it is appropriate to say "The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionabable integrity."
ReplyDeleteThe meaning is more significant than the replacement of a single letter.
Yes, and we are going to see this maxim realized again and again in connection with and further unpacking of the "Glenn Defense Marine Asia" scandal.
ReplyDeleteJim,
ReplyDeleteWell put. Thanks.
Leadership is very similar to designing a weapon system. A series of trade-offs have to be made as you refine the requirements to get what you can both build and afford in a timely process. The very first thing to go in our current leadership requirement is integrity. One simply does not promote, in peacetime, officers who will not toe the party line. You see it everyday now with the abortion known as the Littoral Combat Ship. That was a crime and every admiral and NAVSEA employee was complicit in it. People wince at Fat dude raking off a couple of million $ and don't notice that we spent well over 3 BILLION $ for a ship that 5 years after commissioning cannot get underway?
ReplyDeleteYou can see the same lack of integrity in every single thing about the military that makes you scratch your head and wonder, "where the hell did they get that stupid idea?"
All of a sudden we needed a whole new AFRICOM to look after our military affairs in Africa?
We really built an F22 with a totally unreliable O2 system that doesn't even warn the pilot when it fails and still haven't fixed it?
We put the entire navy and marine corps on one common backbone making all of it as vulnerable as the weakest link and that's OK because Snowden made off with 200,000 TS documents from what is supposedly a very tight little subset of the same network?
We have decided that we can tolerate stupid and ignorant but not fat people?
I suppose that a lot of the people I think had integrity were abrasive but that didn't make them wrong. We just don't promote abrasive people however smart and honest and ethical they are. We prefer the ones that won't kick over the rice bowls. And no, this is no paean of endorsement for promoting abrasive idiots however smart they are but there has to be some way to ground the flights of fancy that have consumed so much of the integrity of our leadership that we simply don't believe a word they say on any subject.
HMS Defiant,
ReplyDeleteBrevity has never been one of my strong points, but you have taken all the words that I could use to express myself in your post. And I certainly agree with your many points.
Very Respectfully,
Navyman834
HMS, agree mostly - with one specific observation to "We have decided that we can tolerate stupid and ignorant but not fat people" - I believe we tolerate, incentivize and embrace all three - to our detriment, stupid, ignorant and fat - and that's no way for a Navy to go thru life. Regrettably, we're going to fully experience the cost to the Navy from the leadership we have so carefully groomed and selected. This will become a national tragedy when its all over.
ReplyDelete