New York Times prize-winning columnist Tom Friedman just wrote a piece in which he lamented the decline of American pluralism.* It’s a familiar refrain. To his credit, however, Friedman does something somewhat more novel. He singles out as a model of principled pluralism the American military. The American military, he writes, “is our last great carrier of pluralism at a time when more and more civilian politicians are opting for cheap tribalism.”
“Leadership matters,” Friedman adds, noting that good leadership in the military explains why “the ethic of pluralism and teamwork shown by many of our men and women in uniform reduces the tribal divisions within the armed forces.” Which raises this question: what accounts for so many good leaders among members of the military and so many bad leaders among our elected officials?
It happens this is precisely this question I addressed in my 2018 book, Professionalizing Leadership. Anyone interested in my argument can read the book. Here I will simply say that what I wrote then applies now:
Learning to lead in the American military is unlike learning to lead anywhere else in America. Learning to lead in the American military is better. Learning to lead in the American military is harder, broader, deeper, and richer. And it is longer. In the American military learning to lead lasts a lifetime.
Why other American institutions – including institutions of higher education – continue to refuse to take a page out of the military’s playbook, specifically as it pertains to leadership, remains a mystery to me. And a tragedy. It’s a crying shame that among civilians learning how to lead remains largely in the hands of amateurs while professionals, members of the U. S. military, are so close at hand.
————————————————–