I was intrgiued by the signature block of one contributor. He stated something to effect that in combat a lieutenat with a map is dangerous. While somewhat humorous, this familiar form of stereotyping prompts me to ask what do you believe are the traits of a combat leader? I would start with a few of my own:

personal integrity
technical and tactical proficiency
terrain appreciation

I would be interested in your thoughts.
DJ

I would say one major trait would be decisiveness. Be right, or be wrong, but make a decision one way or the other. Indecisiveness kills.

Major Richard Winters........need I say more ?

Selfless-ness (sp.?).

You aren't just "in charge" of your troops; you are entrusted with their care and welfare.

This is a point many officers I've been in contact with over the years have sorely missed as they scrabble up the ladder of promotion on the backs of others.

GREETINGS ALL !!

First Off, let me apologize to anyone that I might have offended in the past with any of my comments, there was NO HARM INTENDED. I am truly sorry if my words were taken wrongly.

Being a former US Army veteran and having survived combat myself, I have had the honor of serving with some of the most distinguished units in the history of the US Army, and also with some of the finest individuals on the face of the Earth. There is no way that I could begin to name each individual person that has had a POSITIVE / NEGATIVE impact on my military service career.

There is a bond that exists between those who share the dangers and horrors of war together, and those individuals become a part of you FOREVER, in some ways it is stronger that the bond between a parent and child, or a husband and wife. When someone dies, a part of you dies with them. There is no solution to this, you have to build an emotional wall that lets you continue to maintain the "FIGHTING SPIRIT" and complete your mission. Once the critical time has passed, it is important to GRIEVE TOGETHER and DISCUSS THE LOSS, and acknowledge the lives and sacrifices made of those wounded or killed.

With this being said, I would like to offer MY EXAMPLES of what I think the TRAITS OF A COMBAT LEADER would be. I will try and keep this brief, but touch on what I have OBSERVED over the years and what I adopted and used throughout my career as an NCO.


EFFECTIVE COMBAT LEADERS:

- Integrity, Courage, ability to lead & inspire others

- Self Confident without being arrogant

- Solid decision making skills, but flexible during rapidly changing events

- GENUINE care, respect, concern, & admiration for subordinates

- Technically & tactfully proficient in your profession

- Willing to accept advice / insight from more experienced individuals


INEFFECTIVE COMBAT LEADERS:

- Lacking BASIC COMPETENCE in their job responsibilities

- Too focused on their individual careers, being SELF-SERVING, DISTANT, UNCARING, and having a CONDESCENDING attitude toward their subordinates

- Too quick to "TALK THE TALK" but not "WALK THE WALK", always giving Leadership "speeches"

- Always saying "YES" to superiors / missions / tactical movements WITHOUT PROPER CONSIDERATION for the current welfare, physical condition of their men or their ability to perform at the moment


This list is NO WAY complete, there are HUNDREDS of examples that could be used, these are just my own, personal observations. I have seen men pushed to the limits of both mental and physical collapse and then expected to perform in combat like machines. To this day, I continue follow a few simple, but effective traits I learned while in uniform.


THANKS AS USUAL ,


ABD

I would want a leader who would jump on top of that grenade that just landed at my feet. :-)

Anthony-- I certainly would like to know what you found admirable. He certainly comes across in print and film as a caring person, courageous and not afraid to put his neck on the line. What did you derive from your reading and film watching?
DJ

Yes, for those of use who are not familiar with the man, who is he, and why does he deserve your praise?

Cheers
Henk

I found him to be brave and willing to put himself on the line,also he recognized his place, later when he no longer led easy he allowed his subordinates to carry out their jobs i.e Spears in the attack on Foye,he recognized his obligation toward his men,leading them not taking from them,conversation with Welsh .he was sound in tactics executing a textbook attack to capture those guns shortly after D-Day.I am only a novice historian and not a military man myself but going by what i saw and read I believe I would serve under that type of man.

I might also add: Balls. Balls to speak up on behalf of one's troops. Balls to tell the troops bad news and motivate them to deal with it. Balls to tell the Old Man when he's wrong ... or just isn't seeing the whole picture. Balls to take responsibility when one screws up.

More than 20 years ago (gawd, was it that long ago?) I gave a similar answer to an NCO promotion board when asked what was the most important leadership trait. "Balls" isn't in the manual (nor should it be), but "personal courage" is a pretty good synonym. (I've also known a few female NCOs and officers who definitely had a bucketful of ovaries.) Despite, or because of (?), my unconventional answer, I was recommended for promotion.




Or, in the words of Red Green, "If you can't be handsome, you should at least be handy." :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) Get out the duct tape ...

I think that AIRBORNEDAD hit it on the head. I also think that everyone else had good points.

The first two principles of Marine Corps leadership are:

1. Mission Accomplishment
2. Troop Welfare

Good officers ( Proficeint in all combat and job skills) think of the mission and then the men under their charge second.

Get the mission accomplished keep as many of your men alive in the process.

We certainly have some fine responses going here. I think it is worth noting that we tend to emulate those who have received some notariety. People often mention Grant, Custer, Lee, Patton, Eisenhower and Bradley as displaying characteristics which marked them as combat leaders. Each did his part and contribute to our appreciation of the qualities we find most admirable in a leader. I would recommend also reading about several World War II Allies leaders who may not be so well known. For example, Matthew B. Ridgway, Slim, Alexander, Hodge, Simpson and Terry Allen to name a few. Reading about people who failed may also be productive. My favorite in that category is Rommel. Can anyone add more names and references if you have them so we can better research the individual.
thanks
DJ

He was 1st Lt in E-Company of the 506th of the 101st Airbourne,He took over as commander on D-Day when the company commanders plane went down,he rose to the rank of Major by wars end.His story has been weel documented in the books and movies "Band of Brothers"

Anthony-- what about other leaders you have read about?
DJ

I would suggest Brig. General, later Major General Norman "Dutch" Cota. He was the assistant division general of the 29th Infantry division on June 6 1944. I don't have a specific reference book on him, but he is mentioned highly in several books I'm reading now. Apparently he felt the landings should have been made at night, to help save his mens lives. This shows a concern for his men, and the willingness to go against the higher ups. While others were telling there men that the landings would be "a piece of cake", Cota told his men, "The little discrepancies that we tried to correct [in the amphibious training center] are going to be magnified and are going to give way to incidents that you might at first view as chaotic. The air and naval bombardment and the artillery support are reassuring. But you're going to find confusion. The landing craft aren't going in on schedule and people are going to be landed in the wrong place. Some won't be landed at all. The enemy will [to some degree prevent] our gaining "lodgement." But we must improvise, carry on, not lose our heads. This also shows a good sense of realism. On D-Day he led by example, and proved a great motivator.

Two things about Cota. He was played, and IMHO opinion very well, by Robert Mitchum in the movie The Longest Day. It also seems he did NOT say the line that Mitchum has in the movie about, "There are only two kinds of people on this beach..." That was probably said by a 1st Infantry Division Colonel, George A Taylor.

Two of the books on the landings I'm currently reading are The Bedford Boys, which I'll be writing a mini review on, and The Fighting First. Also see this article on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Cota

Rodger-- certainly a distinguished Officer who goes onto command the 28th Division in the Hurtgen Forest then in the Battle of the Bulge. Remarkably, both Cota and Taylor made similar short speeches to the guys pinned down on Omaha Beach even though they were at different ends of the beach. They are very close in text. Balinkowski's book (Omaha Beach) has the exact statements. Cota's division commander in the 29th did not fair as well. Sometime after the war, MG Gerhardt. was demoted to Colonel for reasons thought to be a combination of the 29th Division's high casualty rate and his moral lapses (with women, thank God).
I think they finally allowed him to retire at his wartime rank, but I am not sure.
DJ

Napoleon said to an aide about a general proposed for a command, "I don't care how good a general he is, is he lucky?".

Steve-- I have often heard the quote. So, who do you place in this "lucky" category?
DJ

One person I'd put in the "lucky" category would be Custer. From what little I know of his career prior to Little Big Horn, he seemed to be as lucky as anything. Seems to me he also relied on Custer's Luck.

Sitting Bull might dispute that Custer was lucky.

I think this is actually a far more profound question than it seems, because the most admirable traits in a commander change with time & society. For example, Wellington affected a contempt for his men ("that article" as he referred to them), but no-one would challenge his success as a commander. Of course in wars up to the 20th Century, before the advances in communications, the commander did share the dangers of battle with his men. If we go back far enough, physical strength becomes significant. But luck, good or bad, plays an important part in any kind of warfare, no matter what the period, or how efficient the commander. That personal courage isn't enough on it's own any more is proved by Sir Redvers Buller. Personally brave (he won the VC in the Zulu War), he was one of the least effective British commanders in the Boer War. Nor did courage avail a commander much in the hell of the Western Front in WW1. By contrast there must have been many commanders in Vietnam who did care about their men's welfare, & were technically competent, but had the misfortune to be fighting the wrong kind of war in the wrong place. Stepping back several hundred years, Henry V was fortunate that his French opponents chose to use such mindless tactics at Agincourt, although it could be argued that he might have known his enemy well enough to expect that they would behave in just such a manner. While it is encouraging to believe as a subordinate that your CO has your interests at heart, there will always come the time where a commander has to "bash on" & accept casualties. If we look at Robert E. Lee, he lost more men than the enemy in nearly every battle he fought, but he also won most of them. But he was fortunate in the dullards that the government in Washington chose to send against him. If you want an example of an effective regimental commander take Terence Otway. Tasked with the seizure of the Merville Battery before D-Day, he found on arrival that only 150 of his 450 men had arrived, with no heavy equipment; moreover, a planned glider assault in support failed, as did a bombing raid. His decision? To go ahead with the attack anyway, leading it himself. It was successful, @ the cost of half his men. Interviewed a few years ago, with two of his sergeants, he said "I wasn't into popularity contests, I had a job, & it had to be done". His men both affirmed that they would have to say if pressed, that they hated him. But conversely would follow him anywhere.

I gotta agree on Cota because he had the Balls (theres that word again :-) ) to face Omaha Beach along side of his men instead of waiting until the beach was clear (unlike Strayer in Carentan in BoB).

If I had to have any officer with me in combat it would be him.

Matt

Steve-- marvelous response. During my time, I worked for one of the most technically proficient Officer I ever knew. Yet, I know he could not lead flies to rancid meat let alone men into battle. Your response intrigues me. I am sitting here attempting to focus on how best to build on your points. Upon reflection, I selected your Ordway example. Having been to the Merville Battery area and leaving with a profound sense of awe over the accomplishment, I am led to ask for a definition of "popularity." He had to motivate those guys. Attacking with about a third of the original force some tough hombres behind several feet of concrete. What did he have going for him? We all want to be accepted to some degree by our peers, superiors and subordinates. The effective commander accomplishes his mission even at the risk of alienating his fellow man. Subordinates usually are ticked off,but quickly realize they accomplished the difficult (some the impossible) because someone put a boot in the rear motivational place. Different leadership styles abound. Patton, Bradley, Montgomery, Gavin, Ridgway had command styles that were all over the leadership map. The traits they shared in common were, in MHO, technical and tactical proficiecy along with a sense of focus and drive. I see in your response a concentration on how a person commands. What I focused on was what does that person need to possess to be effective. Motivating those who must face the fire of battle is the art form. Whereas after reading your response, I believe we concentrated on the science of leadership. Interesting. What do you think?
DJ

There is a good point a few of you have made.

You may hate the guy who's leading you but that doesn't make him any less of a leader.

In my time in the Marine Corps I served under several officers and SNCO's that I HATED! However, they WERE VERY good officers and leaders. I would certainly have followed them into the most hairy of circumstances and not thought twice about it.

Leadership is not a popularity contest as mentioned before, but simply "getting the job done".

I appreciate your views on popularity, but why did you follow these folks?
DJ