July 1 – On This Day 159 Years Ago
Today is July 1st and is the beginning of what is hopefully, a celebratory and happy weekend for most Americans. However, on July 1st of 1863, our young country was locked in a bitter civil war. And on this day, 159 years ago, two large armies would collide near the small village of Gettysburg. And July 1st would mark the beginning of a deadly battle that would claim over 50,000 American casualties, more than any other battle in American history. Most historians would agree that The Battle of Gettsyburg was a defeat for General Robert E. Lee and the south and marked the beginning of the end of the American Civil War.
Seven years ago, on a warm July morning, as part of a Leadership Development Retreat, my oldest son and I stood on the exact spot where those two armies first clashed on July 1st 1863. And those two armies would slug it out for two more days. On the last day of our three day retreat, we walked the three-quarter mile slight incline on the same open field where Pickett’s Charge would occur on the final day of the battle. As we walked, one of our leaders explained the consequences and futility of that infamous charge.
During that walk, I learned that over half of the 12,500 soldiers who began their own walk over that same open field would become casualties as the Union artillery and rifle fire, from their elevated positions, would rip the Confederate lines that advanced up the hill. And even more deadly, shells and shrapnel from the right flank would mow down men like bowling pins. Union cannons on the right flank were perched on Little Round Top, a hill that General Lee’s army had failed to capture the previous day. And, I would learn more about Pickett’s Charge that chilled me to the bone.
After walking the terrain, it became obvious to our group that attacking the Union’s fortified position on the high ground in the middle of their lines was not the wisest strategy. Its futility was predicted by the charge’s commander, General James Longstreet, and it was arguably an avoidable mistake from which the Southern war effort never fully recovered — militarily or psychologically. So, why did General Robert E. Lee, considered by historians as one of the greatest military commanders that West Point ever produced, override General Longstreet’s objections and order the attack? The answer to that question had been debated by historians and psychologists for almost 160 years.
During our drive from Gettysburg back to Richmond, Virginia, I debriefed about the three-day experience with my son, who teaches English and History. We determined that the leadership lessons we both learned were relevant not only to corporate leaders, but also to educators, and even to couples. Why? Because great leadership is really about building and maintaining effective relationships. As Davis and I discussed the twelve leadership principles taught over the course of the three days, we agreed that Alignment, Healthy Argument , and Affirmation were the most important.
Alignment – In early June 1863, as General Robert E. Lee made the fateful decision to lead his Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River into Maryland and eventually into Pennsylvania – with the goal of destroying the Union Army of the Potomac – he did so, hoping that his strategy would create political chaos in the North and lead to an early end to the American Civil War. However, as he marched his army of approximately 75,000 men across the Potomac River into Maryland, he was without his number two commander, General “Stonewall” Jackson, who had been killed over a month earlier at the battle of Chancellorsville. So, the Battle of Gettysburg would be the first major battle in which Lee would operate with a new leadership structure and ultimately expose one of his flaws as a leader.
The Army of Northern Virginia was not alone in a recent leadership shakeup. The Union Army of the Potomac was emerging from an even bigger change. President Lincoln, who had grown increasingly frustrated with General Hooker’s lack of success against General Lee’s army, replaced Hooker on June 28th with a new commander, General George Meade. Therefore, although a contributing factor, the shakeup in the Confederate army’s leadership cannot be cited for some of the questionable actions that occurred during the battle.
Alignment may be the most fundamental and important of all leadership lessons because many dysfunctions within a group or in a relationship can be traced back to this simple but often-overlooked principle. One could argue that a lack of alignment may have been the biggest mistake made by General Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia during the Battle of Gettysburg. Proper Group Alignment occurs when the leader or executive team clearly identifies the objective(s) and core beliefs of the group. As the historic battle unfolded, the Union Army demonstrated better Group Alignment than the Confederate Army.
By clearly communicating intent and making sure everyone understands the rationale for a particular objective, leaders create a “well-aligned team.” Many leaders assume everyone is aware of the leader’s intent and that all team members understand the group’s objectives and, hence, everyone is aligned. However, unless leaders clearly and frequently communicate goals and get clear signals that everyone understands and agrees on those goals, group misalignment will result.
The responsibility for creating Group Alignment does not stop with the leader or with one partner. Almost every person within an organization or in any healthy relationship is both a leader and a follower. I would argue that all healthy marriages demonstrate this dynamic.
Sometimes subordinates or partners believe that by not assuming responsibility for clarifying objectives, they are “off the hook” because the leader or partner did not clearly communicate expectations. Therefore, you owe it to every person in the group or to your partner that you understand intent. This cannot be overemphasized. Creating Group or Partner Alignment is a two-way street.
Healthy Argument – Another leadership concept, that may be just as critical as Alignment, is the need to provide a healthy environment for conflict and disagreement. Without healthy conflict and disagreement, organizational alignment cannot occur. In fact, Patrick Lencioni’s five step approach to achieving team alignment includes healthy conflict. Lencioni says executive and partner disagreement can and will occur. Because individuals have personal histories and beliefs, different opinions are bound to arise. Not only is disagreement inevitable, it is also desirable.
As Peter Drucker, one of the pioneers of the study of organizational behavior, states:
“Decisions of the kind the executive has to make are not made well by acclamation. They are made well only if based on the clash of conflicting views…The first rule in decision-making is that one does not make a decision unless there is disagreement.”
So, why is healthy conflict essential to building truly functional teams and effective relationships?
First, it fosters the pursuit of truth.
Second, it seeks the best possible solution.
Third, it avoids interpersonal resentment.
And finally, it builds trust, which is essential to any healthy relationship, whether it be personal or professional.
In fact, on day two of our leadership retreat, we all agreed that the concepts we were learning to be effective corporate leaders were the same concepts that build successful marriages!
I would like to stop here and make a point that was discussed at length during our Gettysburg leadership retreat. Although it is okay, even desirable, to have different opinions on how an organization achieves its mission, it is not acceptable to fundamentally disagree on the principles and values of an organization and its missional objectives. You can differ on opinions, but you must agree on basic principles. And this is also true in marriage. If two partners differ too much on fundamental values and what is important in life, the marriage will suffer. Unfortunately, too many people do not talk about spirituality, their relationship with money, sex, parenthood expectations, vocational aspitarations, etc. before they get married. And this leads to problems down the road.
If two people do not agree on principles, disagreement cannot be fixed, and the organization or the people involved are better off if the two parties part ways. This was a painful lesson for me to learn during my own career. Unfortunately, I had to experience it twice to realize its significance.
My oldest son, the teacher, who participated in the Gettysburg Leadership Experience with me, shared copies of my original white paper with colleagues. A few months later, while golfing with my son and his boss, my son’s supervisor pulled me aside and thanked me for writing the paper. He said it helped him understand that some issues he was having with one of his subordinates were rooted in the employee not buying into the missional purpose of the school. Once he had this realization, he terminated the employee’s contract because he recognized the constant disagreement could not be fixed due to a fundamental disagreement on principles. And, he was confident in his decision, knowing it was the best thing for the organization and the employee.
When the Union Generals Meade and Hancock had different opinions on battlefield strategy, Meade brought other members of his staff into the discussion. With additional information, he ultimately followed Hancock’s strategy. Meade demonstrates how seeking additional input from others is a very effective tool in resolving executive disagreements. Lee, however, did not bring others into the discussion when he and Longstreet disagreed on battlefield strategy. In hindsight, we can argue that Meade made a better decision based on what eventually occurred. But even without hindsight, it’s clear that getting additional perspectives might have been helpful to Lee.
There may be several reasons why Lee did not expand his discussion with Longstreet to include others. One reason may have been that Lee was afraid of what he might hear. Although Longstreet tried to bring facts into the discussion, Lee disagreed with his facts. Therefore, the facts have to be facts that people can agree on.
Seth Godin, a wonderful thought leader and philosopher and my favorite blogger, posted a key insight on this subject in his blog. He says,
“The key question is, ‘Is there something I can prove or demonstrate that would make you stop believing in your position (sic)?’ If the honest answer is no, then we are not having an argument, are we?”
Before investing time trying to resolve a disagreement, make sure that you are not arguing against a belief system. Unfortunately, one of the main reasons most of us cannot have honest political discourse is because we have bought into a belief system that blinds us to factual evidence.
General Lee focused only on the facts that supported his viewpoint. This is known as “confirmation bias.” A corollary to confirmation bias is “willful ignorance,” which occurs when we ignore the facts that do not support our viewpoint. Confirmation bias and willful ignorance usually show up as a pair. We ignore the facts that do not support our viewpoint and cling to the facts that do support our viewpoint. This is very common among people and organizations that are experiencing enormous stress because of rapid change. All of us have been guilty of this, especially when we feel very strongly about something.
This is a good time to mention three tools that are useful to resolving differences of opinion. The first is to focus on facts instead of emotion. As many of us know, people often make decisions based on intuition and emotion instead of facts. I will admit that controlling my emotions when I disagree with someone may be my biggest challenge. And it blinds me to logic and facts.
This concept was made especially clear to me when I read the book, A Righteous Mind, by Jonathan Haidt. The author is a moral psychologist who does a wonderful job of explaining why people believe what they believe and how they make decisions. We may think we use logic and reason, when in fact we make decisions based on our emotions and intuition. Haidt uses the following metaphor to make his point. Think of your mind consisting of an elephant with a rider on top, with the rider as the logical component of your mind and the elephant as the emotional or intuitive component. Guess where the elephant goes? Wherever it wants. The rider is there to justify why the elephant is going in a certain direction. So, focusing on facts instead of emotion is yet another way to help resolve executive disagreement.
Active listening is another powerful tool available to resolve disagreement, and I encourage you to learn more about this process. I learned how to actively listen during a three-month seminar that I attended at my church. I believe this practice is one of the most helpful tools ever developed to create healthy disagreement.
A pillar of active listening, and one of its most effective techniques, is “mirroring.” Mirroring is the act of restating in your words what you think the other person is trying to communicate. This is key to clear communication, and you will be shocked by how many times the message you thought you heard is not what the person intended. A game many of us played as children illustrates this point beautifully. You sit in a circle. You relay a message to the person next to you, who tells the person next to them the same thing, until the message comes back full circle to you. What you hear when the message comes back to you is rarely the same message you told the first person. However, if people had been allowed to mirror back to each messenger what they thought they heard, it would be corrected before it went to the next person, increasing the likelihood that your original message would return to you intact.
I now use this technique in my daily life. I almost always repeat back to the person what I thought I heard, especially if I have any doubt whatsoever what the person meant by the question or statement. By using this technique, many disagreements are cleared up because the issue was a miscommunication instead of a disagreement. And even if real disagreement is present, by articulating the other person’s position in your own words, you begin to develop some emotional ownership in how that position is framed. Further, by showing that you are actively listening instead of waiting for the other person to finish talking so that you can advocate your own position, you start to develop trust. And as leadership guru Patrick Lencioni states in two of his best-selling books, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and The Advantage, the first step in building a highly effective and functional team is building trust.
Creating common ground is the final tool available to building an environment where healthy disagreement can flourish. To create common ground, both parties agree to go back to the place where they agree and start from there. From that point of agreement, it is usually easier to build consensus than to try to move from perspectives that could be far apart. This process has a way of narrowing the gap of disagreement to the point where the gap can be bridged with a slight compromise. Going back to common ground or to the common goal also creates psychological alignment with more willingness to listen and compromise.
In addition to identifying tools to help build healthy conflict and disagreement, it is also important to identify emotional barriers to healthy conflict. Those barriers include guilt, resentment, the desire to be accepted or liked, discomfort, the need to be right, fear, the need to be in control, conflict intolerance and conflict avoidance. Robert E. Lee exemplified the last two. In a recent biography of Robert E. Lee, entitled Clouds of Glory, Michael Korda states,
He (Lee) kept the firmest possible reign on his temper, he avoided personal confrontations of every kind, and he disliked arguments. These characteristics, normally thought of as virtues, became in fact Robert E. Lee’s Achilles’ heel, the one weak point in his otherwise admirable personality, and a dangerous flaw for a commander, perhaps even a flaw that would, in the end, prove fatal…
When I ask leadership experts “What is the number one cause of failed leadership?”, most reply, “A lack of self-awareness.” So, the first place you have to start to create healthy conflict is to identify your own tendencies.
Affirmation – The third and final pillar to effective leadership and building effective relationships is affirming those around you. A fundamental question for all leaders is how do we encourage and develop future leaders. And in a marriage, how to we affirm and help our partner develop more fully as a person. Based on his book The Road Less Travelled, Scott Peck would even define this act as Love.
One thing that COVID-19 has done is to expose the weaknesses in many leaders and organizations. I was speaking with a CEO who admitted that her middle managers are much weaker as leaders than she had thought. The challenges of COVID-19 made it apparent that many were not prepared to make difficult decisions.
In studying the Battle of Gettysburg, it was clear that some officers were more comfortable making critical decisions during this intense battle than others. For example, two corps commanders under Lee, General Richard Ewell and General A. P. Hill, were indecisive during the battle, while Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, a Union officer who had been a rhetoric professor at Bowdoin College before the war, was very comfortable making decisions during the heat of the battle. All three officers had been recently promoted. Why was Chamberlain ready for his new role, and yet, Hill and Ewell were not?
Neither Ewell nor Hill had been properly prepared or coached to lead a corps. As their leader, General Jackson had developed followers, and as we learned, Ewell was not ready to make independent decisions. The primary job of every leader is to develop other leaders. To develop leaders, you need to delegate authority, not tasks.
Colonel Chamberlain, on the other hand, became one of the most decorated officers within the Union Army and was personally selected by General Ulysses S. Grant to accept the surrender of Lee’s army at Appomattox, Virginia. So, why was he such an exceptional leader?
As Chamberlain’s superior officer, Colonel Adelbert Ames saw potential in the young lieutenant colonel and began teaching him how to command. In fact, during the Battle of Fredericksburg, where Chamberlain received the first of six wounds he would incur during the war, Ames gave Chamberlain an opportunity to lead. Eventually, when Ames was promoted, Chamberlain was in turn promoted to command the 20th Maine Regiment just a few weeks before the Battle of Gettysburg.
Unknown to Chamberlain or the Union Army at the time, Chamberlain would make a series of decisions during the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg that arguably saved the entire Union Army from disaster. With 358 soldiers and 28 officers, he successfully defended the entire left flank of the Union Army from a series of attacks by a much larger enemy force. Known as The Battle at Little Round Top, the 20th Maine Infantry Regiment, commanded by Colonel Chamberlain, would defend an important knoll, culminating in a dramatic downhill bayonet charge. The battle at Little Round Top subsequently became one of the most well-known actions at Gettysburg, and of the entire war. In summary, Chamberlain was prepared for this moment in history by his previous commander, representing one of the best examples of Affirmation and Leadership Development.
It can be threatening to leaders and even partners in a relationship when their subordinates or partners begin making independent decisions that are sometimes superior to the decisions they would have made. It’s common to develop reactionary tendencies when feeling threatened. Organizations should anticipate reactionary tendencies from leaders and ensure that current leaders do not feel threatened when they have a natural leader working under them.
A word on what to look for when searching for possible future leaders. First, like Chamberlain, they should be continuous learners with intellectual curiosity. They should not be afraid to ask questions. Second, they should be good at building relationships, not only with those above but especially with those who are expected to follow. Chamberlain also had passion for what he was fighting for, and he was able to transfer that passion to others. Finally, he led by example.
As our leadership retreat group stood on that sacred spot in American history, known as Little Round Top, I believe we realized that Chamberlain was the complete package, a true servant leader.
Speaking from experience, I was not ready for the early leadership positions in which I was placed. I was not taught the importance of alignment, successfully mediating conflict, or affirming others. I learned the hard way – from my many failures. We owe it to the organizations we serve, and those we love, to learn the importance of these principals and to put them into action.
As I participated in this powerful and valuable experience in Gettysburg, I realized that keeping things simple is the key to making ideas stick. So, if organizations and marriages can practice the thee A’s – Align, Argue, and Affirm, by creating mission Alignment, by Arguing constructively and with respect, and Affirming others by practicing grace, we have a much greater chance of being successful both professionally and personally.
So, as we approach July 4th, let us not forget the lessons learned from this important battle that started on July 1st, this day, almost 160 years ago. I hope that after reading this, July 1st will never be the same for you. Happy 4th of July weekend everyone!
