A few years ago, I read a book by a Vietnam military leader called Colonel David Hackworth. His writings on turning around a struggling unit contain inspiring leadership lessons about being a values-first leader. Following on last week’s Sunday Story about the Values-based Leadership Cycle, this week we’re going to be telling you about Colonel Hackworth, whose leadership really shows this cycle coming alive - if you want to do a deeper dive, pick up a copy of his excellent book, Steel my Soldiers Hearts.What follows is actually an excerpt from “Leading in a Time of New Intelligence: Part One”, so if you like it, check out this link to get the whole thing.
Human Beings are incredibly capable, and we can actually perform well and even thrive in disruptive, unsafe, and unpredictable situations - but we need good leadership. A great example of this is soldiers in combat; Colonel David Hackworth took command of an infantry battalion in Vietnam in 1969. This battalion was considered one of the worst of the worst - low morale, poor performance, and generally low functioning. And who could blame them - the experience for any soldier in combat is awful. Surrounded by violence, death, and discomfort, no one would blame a human for having low morale or not wanting to be in combat; these soldiers in particular were having a tough time, often expressing their anti-war and fatalistic attitudes via graffiti on their helmets, disobeying orders, and generally not being effective soldiers. This crisis ultimately resulted in an incredibly high casualty rate - a real life or death example of the impact of poor leadership.
Colonel Hackworth had to turn things around. He valued discipline, leading by example, and instilling a sense of pride and camaraderie in his soldiers, but above all else he valued the welfare of his people. His values were clear from day one - for discipline, no more graffiti on the helmets. His solders were forced to turn their helmet liners inside out, sacrificing the camouflage and giving them a distinct (but consistent) tan-brown colour that was different from the typical olive drab of an American GI. For leading by example, he put himself alongside his soldiers, sharing their conditions, going on patrol, and engaging in the same risks he was asking them to take. To instil a sense of pride, he bestowed upon them the well-deserved nickname of “The Hard Chargers” after a particularly tough engagement, empowered his NCOs to lead, and flattened his battalion by encouraging communication and feedback from all ranks - and most importantly he listened to that communication. And for welfare of his people, the best example of this was when he noticed that the REMFs - a military acronym for senior officers who are never on the front in the mix, and spend all their time in relative comfort well behind the enemy lines - were equipped with the fancy new nylon jungle boots on a visit to his unit, whereas his troops were struggling with rotten leather and the health implications that come with constantly wet feet. Upon noticing that these senior leaders (who outranked Hackworth) had better boots, he shamed/convinced/cajoled them into removing their boots on the spot and trading for the rotten leather of his men.
His values were right up front. He made them clear to his men, and his men learned that they could count on “Hack” to look after them. Because they knew his values, they could reasonable predict what decisions and perspectives he was likely to have in a given situation. Because he was consistent in leading from those values, he created a feedback loop that proved his soldier’s predictions correct, which further enhanced that sense of trust. And as mentioned in our paper, Leading in a Time of New Intelligence, according to Robert E. Quinn's "The Fear of Change", humans crave predictability and trust, and tend to respond well to change when they have that predictability and trust; Colonel Hackworth, with his approach to leading consistently from his values, created a combat unit that thrived in one of the most disruptive climates one can imagine.
And he was wildly successful. Before too long, the Viet Cong leadership had assigned special bounties on the “brown helmets”. As a combat unit, they were way too effective (according to their enemies) which in an odd way is confirmation that Colonel Hackworth was doing a great job - representing an incredible shift in his unit from languish to thriving.
If it worked for the 4/39th and Colonel Hackworth in Vietnam, it can work for you in your office too. Values-based leadership isn’t an option in 2024 - it’s the way forward for a better workplace, better lives, and a better world.
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