Byron's Babbles

I was so impressed by Admiral William H. McRaven’s keynote yesterday morning at ExcelinEd’s National Summit on Education. He began by saying, “If you are not a person of character, you will struggle in leadership and will really struggle leading in a crisis.” With this comment he really grabbed my attention. I was also reminded of how Angela Duckworth had defined character the day before in her great keynote: “Character is all the things you habitually do, think, say, and feel that are good for others and good for you.” Having encountered leaders in my career that lacked character, all this really resonated with me. To me, character is the “walk” part of “walk the talk.” Character encapsulates how we act and what we do. Whereas, “talk” is the values part of “walk the talk.” Those leaders I mentioned earlier talked a big game of values, but then we never saw the actions, or character. We cannot just say we will do the right thing, we have to actually know what the right thing is and do the right thing. Character is all about our habits. Thus why Admiral McRaven said the leader without character would struggle, especially in a crisis when our character really shows.

“The truth will always, always, always, come out.” ~ Admiral William H. McRaven

Admiral McRaven also shared leadership lessons from his great book, Conquering Crisis: Ten Lessons To Learn Before You Need Them. He outlined five key leadership components:

1. Assess: we need procedures for getting facts and evaluating the quality of the information. We need a group of trusted advisors – what McRaven called a Council of Colonels. This is an advisory group that will speak the truth to power.
2. Report: I love what the Admiral said here: “Always tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Also he told us to, “Use truth and transparency to show you understand the problem.” This helps us to personify the crisis.
3. Contain: one point Admiral McRaven made here that really stood out to me here was to, “slow the pace of the crisis with one strong decisive move directed at the fastest-moving concern.” This involves us, as leaders taking control of the crisis and dictating the tempo.
4. Shape: we need to actively influence situations and control the narrative. The Admiral told us to, “weaponize the truth.” He urged us to, as leaders, mold the circumstances and perception of the crisis so our organizations come out stronger on the other side, rather than just surviving it.
5. Manage: This point said it all: “Reinforce your actions with a resource heavy approach to dictate the tempo and shape the outcome.” In other words, as I stated in the beginning paragraph of this post: “walk the talk”.

I love that in a conversation after his keynote with Jeb Bush, Admiral McRaven discussed the need for leaders to be humble and have the humility to listen and learn first. He discussed having a great team around him so he finish this sentence: “I need to understand…” I’ll conclude this post by saying that Admiral McRaven is one of America’s great and iconic leaders. His record shows him to be a man of character who has walked the talk and walked the walk.