9 ms·

Just wanted to provide a useful link on the topic of leadership. The US army publishes its doctrine for free and updates it somewhat regularly: https://talent.

• AndrewKemendo 10mo ago
  As a multiple time ground force commander both in Iraq and stateside for CI operations, I can firmly state that there is literally zero to be learned about leadership from corporate or political worlds. When I left the USG because it’s fundamentally corrupt, I went into private business thinking there were technical/business leaders that had pro-social incentives, and their heads screwed on. Man was I wrong. The US military has by far the best, all encompassing, most focused and persistently updating leadership development and it’s STILL absolutely garbage. There’s ZERO, and actually most likely negative, incentives to think about and apply ethics in business and politics, because at the end of the day the most ruthless will win in the long run.
  • lostlogin 10mo ago
    It sounds like you have been burnt, badly. There is surely a business out there that does fit your world view, though the pay and conditions might not. In my view, the need for growth at any cost is toxic and leads to all sorts of horrible behaviours.
    • AndrewKemendo 10mo ago
      There are no good organizations, only ones that aren’t completely corrupt yet. Consider that to start and maintain an organization takes significant capital and energy expenditures upfront, which means you need to fund them from somewhere and ask sources of funding are corrupted. Consider: there are no long lasting egalitarian, distributed power, grassroots organizations that can compete at a level of social influence that can overcome or resist the existing power structure. I’ve looked at every possible organization that could theoretically fit including; MSF a.k.a. doctors without borders, swords to plowshares, goodwill industries (who employ significant numbers of disabled people for sub min wages while the CEO makes 3M+), Mondragon etc… and they all have exactly the same fucked up incentives why? because there is no way to survive as a structure, if your org is made up of people who want to eat and don’t want to be a monk. unless your organization is the lead maximalist resource dominator you will be overrun by some organization with no ethics Ultimately it comes down to the fact that people have to trade physical and mental work for money to survive. So there is no alternative to do the “right thing” without also risking your own safety and stability in your chosen society. 99.99999% of people are completely unwilling to risk their life on behalf of any particular philosophy - if only because those people don’t feel strongly enough about any particular philosophy to actually put themselves on the line for it. So whoever has the most money, has the ability to get the most people to work for their goals. Unfortunately the people with all the money/power do not care about anything other than growing their own personal power
      • alwa 10mo ago
        I’d be curious what you identified as the shortcomings of e.g. MSF or Mondragon. I might throw semi-decentralized social ventures like the IFRC in the mix there too: that emblem alone sure carries an almost-talismanic degree of social weight, seemingly worldwide, I think in large part because they’re foresworn from swinging around their influence outside of their lane. And I mean… “don’t want to live like a monk” seems like a telling qualifier: the whole monastic lifestyle seems pretty widespread and enduring across cultures and through time… is the humbler mode of religious devotion an example of what you’re looking for? In any case you’ve clearly thought deeply and widely about this question—I’d be interested to read your thoughts if you end up collecting them somewhere!
        • AndrewKemendo 10mo ago
          I’m simply acknowledging that only a tiny fraction of any group will find themselves devoted to the group in the “monastic” way of self erasure
      • lostlogin 10mo ago
        > why? because there is no way to survive as a structure, if your org is made up of people who want to eat and don’t want to be a monk. The worse offenders in terms of corrupting power structures seem to be religious organisations, so being a monk is out too. That power eventually corrupts shouldn’t rule out an organisation, but if it does, start your own and keep it to one employee.
      • plomme 10mo ago
        I would love to hear more about your definition of corruption and why it is inevitable. From what I can tell it is that an organization with “morals”, meaning some sort of code restricting their possible actions, will be out competed by an organization without “morals”, whatever that might be. I think it is compelling at face value, but I’m not sure I see a world of wolves out there. Maybe I’m naive. I want to argue that the rule of law is one moral system that applies to all organizations. Sure, some overstep and may gain some advantage due to that. But in principle and hopefully on average the result should be net negative. In democratic countries the laws are more or less directly the will of the people, about as egalitarian as we can get, no? Anyways, following the rule of laws should lead to “morally sound” corporations as defined by the people. Corporations can go further than what is legally required, too. That is often used in marketing. Finally i think the same principles apply wherever humans (or other species) compete. Humans on the whole are not entirely cruel barbarians, we try to care for individuals who are not able to care for themselves etc. Whether “true” altruism exists is another discussion, but it certainly looks like it. So if that’s how people act, why should corporations be more corrupt than the bodies that make them up and govern them?
  • sa46 10mo ago
    That's quite a strong claim. I disagree. Military leadership, like business leadership, is imperfect. Both vary based on individuals, the operating environment, and culture.
• positron26 10mo ago
  Because of the Ukraine conflict, the phrase "mission command" came to my attention. It's about C2 rather than leadership but another one of those gems we might filter out in our "Bay Area" (you're all terminally online Europeans / teenagers jk) bubble. The idea of mission command is pretty simple. If you see an incidental opportunity that will contribute to the big picture and pursuing it won't compromise the objective of your orders, take it. IIRC they call it something like "scoped initiative." If you see an incidental opportunity that you can't take because it would compromise your local objective, you escalate. Up the chain, in the larger scope, that incidental opportunity that would compromise the objective of the smaller unit may be addressable using some available resources of the bigger unit. It works by deduction and beautifully because you get the best of both individual initiative and large-scale coordination. It's an example where from-first-principle CS and pragmatic emergent systems resonate because it's near a morally true optimum. In the context of OP, knowing the objective of your larger 1-2 organization levels is all the transparency that is every necessary. Neurons aren't smart. Information flows in a network are smart. Don't trust people who start performing and asking for transparency because ninety-nine times out of ten, they can't do better with what they ask for but will make everyone else do worse by breaking the cohesion. And finally I read OP. It's a vapid feel-good long-form tweet that is nothing compared to the comment section.
  • cracki 10mo ago
    > ninety-nine times out of ten that gave me a chuckle
• adverbly 10mo ago
  > no-nonsense, no-fluff document > Links ~100 pages pdf > US army Yeah that checks out... I kid. Thanks for the share though!
• TheOccasionalWr 10mo ago
  I'm pretty sure software development of a website doesn't translate to a life and death situation that US army is dealing with. If anything it's why there is so many managers who think this works as if we are solving lives so they have to be strict and we all have to be strict and everyone needs to have their story points updated. The reason why most people went into software development is because they like building stuff so you have to inspire that - it's quite different to why people join US army. My 2 cents on the actual manager philosophy is that it depends on the organization and the personal and cultural differences of the team members, some people like leaders, some people like servants and some like equality. At the end of the day everyone has to be aware they do work for the business and why they do stuff. The manager has to make that aware and inspire people. Team topologies Shapeup Sooner Safer Happier I think those fit most companies.
• taurath 10mo ago
  Last published 2019. I think were it rewritten with the current leadership, the very first thing they'd remove would be this topic line: > Army professionals recognize the intrinsic dignity and worth of all people and treat them with respect Both in political and corporate (especially tech) leadership, this principle has proven to be convenient to say and equally convenient to be tossed aside with the slightest provocation - people are seen as consumers, workers, undesirables, or chattel, not as beings with dignity, that is only for people in privileged positions.
  • atoav 10mo ago
    Not only that, read the chapter on counterproductive leadership (toxic leadership). Try to tick the boxes for the current US president. Spoiler alert, he ticks all the boxes.
• ulnarkressty 10mo ago
  Is this really what they use to train commanding officers? It has all the hallmarks of a self-help book - vague advice coupled with some anecdotes - with a lot of bureaucratic fluff inbetween. How/why did the squad leader 'instinctively know' how to handle the reluctant machine gunner? Isn't that the opposite of training military personnel?