Want to talk Leadership, want to talk Humility/Empathy, want to talk Vision. Better yet why talk at all; why not just let U.S. General Norman Schwarzkopf (1934-2012) who served as the commander of the United States Central Command leading all coalition forces in the Gulf War speak for himself. I watched this 1991 interview today and had no intention watching it in full but that’s exactly what I ended up doing because it was so interesting and I was sure it would allow to come out of it with some idea/view and it most certainly did. Beyond the exceptional personality traits of late General Norman Schwarzkopf – and may he RIP – here is what I came out with or the point of focus that I felt strongly this interview highlighted;
It seems to me that a big part of where we are today in terms of increasingly complex challenges we face are due in no small part to poor leadership; and by Leadership I do not mean the ability to get things done but rather the ability to fully comprehend through a vast amount of experience of what really needs to be done and precisely how to go about achieving it with the least damage/delay possible; this is what Politics should be about but sadly it isn’t. The reason for this is quite simple; the geniuses we have chosen to lead us are into public service for the wrong reasons and lack the basic skills for the job; in other words our own selection process is flawed because it has been deliberately distorted by politics. Visualise if you will personalities like Donald Trump or the beta version of him in the form of Boris Johnson vis-a-vis someone like General Schwarzkopf; does that give you a sense of awe or perhaps to be more accurate a sense of “Ouch”!
This is certainly a subject one can write plenty about but I’d rather you read less content and just watch this interview hoping that you also come out of it with your own take on this casual interview; by the way this is only part 2 of the interview and I’ll add a link below to the full version of the interview.
Take care have a nice weekend 🙂