From HarvardBuisness.org this week comes an analysis of the change in top military leadership which took place earlier this year in the Afghanistan theater. In April, DOD Secretary Robert Gates replaced General David McKiernan with General Stanley McChrystal. It was the first war-time replacement of a theater commander since President Truman fired General Douglas MacArthur in 1951.
The take away, according to the HB.org piece and an accompanying Washington Post report, is that evolving requirements of leadership now dictate that those in leadership positions have the ability to communicate effectively, in multiple dimensions, during continually occurring performance moments in the digital age.
The requirement to be able to perform at this level occurred almost overnight. Credit for making its necessity apparent in the occurring world of the denizens of high political-military culture has been given to General David Petraeus, the former Iraq theater commander. General Petraeus apparently excelled in this new form of super-performance, rendering former measures of senior leadership performance as no longer relevant. It seems that General McKiernan, the now-retired Afghanistan commander, simply hadn’t realize that the game had change, and continued operating in the manner that his 37-year military career had prepared him for. In short, a seasoned and highly respected leader was simply overtaken by events.
It seems there are reminders here for the art of accountable leadership in the world of commerce.
- Change is the only constant.
- ‘Constant’ occurs at a faster rate.
- Performance-oriented leaders must gauge newly occurring measures of performance, not the measures which were in effect when they accepted the job.
Villanova Executive MBA 
The relevant quote:
“Blame General Petraeus,” a senior Defense Department official said. “He redefined during his tour in Iraq what it means to be a commanding general. He broke the mold. The traditional responsibilities were not enough anymore. You had to be adroit at international politics. You had to be a skilled diplomat. You had to be savvy with the press, and you had to be a really sophisticated leader of a large organization. When you judge McKiernan by Petraeus’s standards, he looked old-school by comparison.”
The same standards could be said of business leaders in an increasingly globalized and interconnected world.
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