Are you a-buck-stops-here leader? Do you secretly look forward to making the call when a crisis has stakeholders demanding action? If so, then please be advised that some of the world’s toughest leaders are not at all impressed. In fact, as far as Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré (Ret.) is concerned, you don’t have the right stuff to lead any organization in today’s complex world.
“Command and control will not serve the future,” warns the former commander of the U.S. First Army.
Over a distinguished 37-year career, Honoré led the U.S. military’s response to numerous crisis situations, ranging from the sniper shooting spree that terrorized Washington D.C. in 2002, to the devastation and civil unrest unleashed on the American South by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, when he famously told a reporter not to get “stuck on stupid” during a press conference. A different kind of mission recently sent the outspoken general to Canada. In May, he kicked off a conference on collaboration hosted by Western University in London, Ontario, where the Richard Ivey School of Business and the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, along with Central Michigan University, set their collective guns on the transfer of military best practices to the private and public sectors.