Admiral William H. McRaven - The Wisdom of the Bullfrog: Leadership Made Simple (But Not Easy)

Standing at the entrance to the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training facility is a six-foot-tall, half-man, half-fish, reptilian monster with bulging black eyes and webbed hands and feet. His gills flaring outward and a long three-pronged trident in one hand, he has a sign around his neck that says SO YOU WANT TO BE A FROGMAN! This Creature from the Black Lagoon challenges every student who walks across the quarterdeck and onto the asphalt Grinderthe Grinder, where for the next six months you will endure hundreds of hours of calisthenics, endless harassment by battle-hardened warriors, and physical and mental pain the likes of which you have never encountered. Add to this challenge hours of bone-chilling ocean swims, miles and miles of soft-sand runs, brutal obstacle courses, and the all-consuming Hell Week.

Thirty-four years after I started BUD/S training, I would be anointed as the Bull Frogthe longest-serving frogman and Navy SEAL on active duty. In almost four decades of service, I learned a lot about what it took to be a frogman and to lead frogmen. But I was also honored to lead countless others: Green Berets, Rangers, Air Force pilots, and Special Tactics operators; Marine Raiders, infantrymen, ship and submarine officers, intelligence and law enforcement professionals, civil servants, doctors, researchers, technicians, students and faculty. From midshipman to four-star admiral to chancellor of the University of Texas System, each day, each week, each month, each year, each decade would bring new leadership lessons. Some lessons came easy, others brought great pain, but all lessons were of value. All lessons would serve me well in dealing with the challenges that life presented.

But leadership, no matter whether you are a midshipman or an admiral, is never easy. Even those who seem to carry the burden of leadership with ease often struggle. Carl von Clausewitz, the great nineteenth-century general who wrote the consummate book On War, once said that everything in war is simple, but the simple things are difficult. In 2009, on a return trip to Afghanistan, I was reading a foreign policy magazine. There were two articles in the magazine written by a couple of East Coast academics. The professors explained how the U.S. military just didnt understand the best way to win the war in Afghanistan. They wrote, rather condescendingly, that if the military would only build roads, they could connect the villages to the districts. Then with more roads they could connect the districts to the provinces and finally the provinces to the capital. Building all these roads would allow the Afghans to prosper and be strong enough to defeat the Taliban. All the military had to do was build roads. Well, no kidding! Why didnt we think of that ? Well, we did think of that! Its just that when people are shooting at you and trying to blow you upits hard to build roads. And that, dear reader, is the nature of leadership as well. Everything in leadership is simple, its just that the simplest things are difficult. It would be simple to say, Be men and women of great integrity or Lead from the front or Take care of your troops, but it is difficult to do. Why ? Because we are humans and each of us has our foibles, our weaknesses, and our shortfalls that can affect how we lead. But as difficult as leadership is, it is not complicated.

In its simplest form, leadership is accomplishing a task with the people and resources you have while maintaining the integrity of your institution. A good leader knows both how to inspire the men and women that work for them and how to manage the people and resources necessary to complete the task. But leadership is not just about getting the job done. It is also about maintaining or advancing the reputation of your institution. How many times have we read about a university athletic program that was excelling in athletics but was caught in a cheating scandal along the way ? Or a financial institution that made its stockholders a lot of money but eventually collapsed because they violated the law ? If as a leader you fail the institution you are leading, then you have failedperiod. Once again, leadership is difficult, but not complicated. To do it right doesnt require a sophisticated chart, a calculus formula, or a complex algorithm, but it does require some guidance.

So, how do we make the difficult nature of leadership simple ? Well, for thousands of years militaries have relied on mottoes, creeds, parables, and stories to inspire, to motivate, and to guide leaders and followers alike. These sayings serve to reinforce certain behaviors. They also provide a memory prompt, a Pavlovian response, and an inspirational surge that helps direct individual actions in the midst of uncertainty.

Serving in the military, I relied heavily on these sayings to guide my actions. Whenever I had a difficult decision to make, I would ask myself, Can you stand before the long green table ? Since WWII, the conference tables used in military boardrooms had been constructed of long, narrow pieces of furniture covered in green felt. Whenever a formal proceeding took place that required multiple officers to adjudicate an issue, the officers would gather around the table. The point of the saying was simple. If you couldnt make a good case to the officers sitting around the long green table, then you should reconsider your actions. Every time I was about to make an important decision, I asked myself, Can I stand before the long green table and be satisfied that I took all the right actions ? It is one of the most fundamental questions a leader must ask themselvesand the old saying helped me remember what steps to take.