LEADERSHIP STRATEGY PROFILE: GENERAL OMAR BRADLEY

unsung but amoung the very best

Excerpt from DeFelice’s book

Called everything from a conservative infantryman to an unimaginative plodder, General Omar Bradley has fared poorly in many allegedly accurate histories. His designs for the war have been lost in a raft of misconceptions. His personality has been distorted until he appears the exact mirror image of who he really was. His achievements have been handed to others, his failures magnified out of all proportion.

But perhaps the worst thing is that he has been forgotten or miscast even by serious historians. Bradley, even more than Eisenhower, the architect of the American victory in Europe, rarely appears in more than a cameo in many accounts focused on the campaign. There are a number of reasons for this, but the most important is Bradley himself. He was not dramatic—a quality that has always been out of fashion in America.

Bradley was a man of moderate behavior, a mature leader who thought before he spoke, who risked his life but didn’t call attention to it. He allowed his subordinates to take credit and glory. When he disagreed with his superiors, he did so discreetly. He dressed for the field, and looked it. He lived, for much of the war, in a truck. Praised by everyone from paratroop commander James Gavin to Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower, Bradley was one of the great tacticians of the war.

But his real asset was his ability to get results from his commanders—he was as much an enabler as a creator of success. The keys to this were his intelligence, his humanity, and most of all his ability to keep his ego largely in check: a rare quality in a general of any rank, let alone one who ended his career with five stars.   When so much of our perception of history depends on drama and flash, is there room for a man who personified quiet competence?

The irony is that Bradley’s war years were actually full of drama and flash; they’ve just never been written about. He barely escaped death several times and was at every battle dramatized in the movie Patton—closer, often, to the bullets than the movie’s hero. Few men actually experienced as much of the war as Bradley.

Key learnings from General Bradley’s leadership style

•        Engage but don’t draw attention to yourself
•        Demand peak performance from direct reports
•        Protect achievers when they get into trouble
•        Get rid of marginal performers
•        Disagree with people discreetly
•        Don’t let your ego get out of control
•        Spend time “in the field” but do it without grandstanding