Tuesday, June 24, 2014

The high cost of compromise

When Navy leaders compromise, or look the other way when compromise of values, standards or principles occurs, it's the equivalent of the Captain drilling holes in the bottom of his ship.  Even the most basic forms of compromise can derail a command from fulfilling its mission.  Navy leaders are ultimately accountable for seemingly minor breaches, as almost all failures in a command can be traced back to those who lead.

4 comments:

Captain Steve said...

If you've lost integrity, you've lost everything.

Anonymous said...

This post is nonsense. Very often principles conflict. For example, as a nation, we strongly believe in individual freedom. We also strongly believe in creating a secure nation and secure local communities. Often, otherwise incompatible principles can each be followed to a certain degree. The USA's current political environment of extreme partisanship seems to be a result, in large measure, of people following your suggestion that refusal to compromise principles is inherently good.

LT Bob said...

Anon @ 3:29 PM

It's nonsense for you to suggest that this post is nonsense. Principles often do conflict.

This post is oriented toward the naval officer. One should give serious thought to compromising one's principles, lest they run the danger of weakening that fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for their system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning.

What is nonsense? Written words that have no meaning or make no sense. This post doesn't fall into that category. It made great sense to me.

Anonymous said...

It seems that "principled leadership" is outre, while "political leadership" is en vogue. Political leadership, or leadership by policy, searches for blanket statements of policy or regulation ... typically from higher ... to liberate the leader from a) having to make a decision, and b) suffering any career altering consequences as a result. Policy driven leadership neither challenges nor develops principle in those with the title of "leader." Compromise of policy or regulation, otherwise known as exception, is frowned upon in political leadership, although most likely healthy and should be considered more frequently as the policies may be flawed due to inherent myopia. But if the policies are flawed, we are driven back to principles to decide, act and lead ... so only the courageous dare question policy from the high ground of principle. The rest just compromise principle, and hold true to the policy.