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In this episode of Start With A Win, General Martin E. Dempsey joins Adam for a conversation about how effective leadership begins with becoming a good follower. General Dempsey was the 18th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and retired in 2015 after 41 years of military service. He now teaches leadership and public policy as a Rubenstein Fellow at Duke University and serves as Chairman of USA Basketball. General Dempsey was named one of TIME magazine's most influential people, is the author of the new book, No Time For Spectators: The Lessons That Mattered Most From West Point To The West Wing.General Dempsey opens the conversation by talking about his perspective on how best to lead a diverse group of people. He points back to his time in the military when he learned the important responsibility of a leader to always foster a sense of belonging.Adam asks General Dempsey about his reasons behind writing his newest book, No Time For Spectators. The General shares that in writing a book on leadership, he realized that some of those most important principles he learned about leadership actually originated from his years of being a “follower” in his career.General Dempsey rounds out the conversation by talking about his current role as a professor at Duke University and his philosophies on teaching the practical application of public policy and giving students an insider's perspective on the decision-making process of national leaders.Order your copy of Start With A Win: Tools and Lessons to Create Personal and Business Success:https://www.startwithawin.com/bookEpisode Links:Teddy Roosevelt's speech, "The Man in the Arena” https://youtu.be/A311CnTjfosConnect with General Dempsey:https://www.generaldempsey.comhttps://twitter.com/Martin_Dempsey?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthorhttps://www.defense.gov/About/Biographies/Biography/Article/602694/general-martin-e-dempsey/Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://www.instagram.com/REMAXadamcontos/ Leave us a voicemail:888-581-4430
Ep #63 - This week on the podcast, I'm doing something a little bit differently. Rather than sitting down with a guest, I'm taking the opportunity to discuss the topic of leadership through the lens of a great book called "Radical Inclusion: What the Post-9/11 World Should Have Taught Us About Leadership" by General Martin Dempsey. The author of this book, General Martin E. Dempsey, was named one of the most influential leaders in the world by Time magazine in 2015 and is now retired after 41 years of military service. During his time in the Army, he commanded various military units including United States Central Command. He served in both Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, accumulating 42 months in combat. Over the past decade, he has served as the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army and then as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff he was the senior officer in the armed forces and the principal military adviser to the president of the United States. In this episode, I go through the key lessons from this book and break them down to fit within the business world. Enjoy! Get The Book "Radical Inclusion" By General Martin Dempsey: Get the book, "Radical Inclusion: What the Post-9/11 World Should Have Taught Us About Leadership", on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Inclusion-Post-9-Should-Leadership/dp/1939714109 Visit General Martin Dempsey's Author Page on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/Martin-Dempsey/e/B07B44771S Also, please remember to subscribe, rate, and leave a written review for the show if you find value in it. Your reviews help this show to reach a wider audience and I appreciate everyone that has been leaving them. FOLLOW CHARLES GAUDET ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Follow Charles Gaudet on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/charlesgaudet Follow Charles Gaudet on Facebook: https://facebook.com/charlesgaudet Follow Charles Gaudet on Twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesgaudet VISIT THE PREDICTABLE PROFITS WEBSITE: https://PredictableProfits.com
General Martin E. Dempsey served as the 18th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the senior officer in the Armed Forces and the military advisor to the Secretary of Defense and to the President. General Dempsey is the co-author of “Radical Inclusion: What the Post-9/11 World Should Have Taught Us About Leadership.” “No Time For Spectators: The Lessons That Mattered Most From West Point To The West Wing” is Dempsey’s latest book, and he examines the limits of loyalty, the necessity of sensible skepticism, and the value of responsible rebelliousness, and explains why we actually should sweat the small stuff. The conversation with General Dempsey takes listeners behind the closed doors of the Situation Room, onto the battlefields of Iraq, and to the East German border at the height of the Cold War. The conversation also answers: Why are the best leaders the ones who are most adept at following? What should we expect of those who have the privilege of leading? Key Takeaways The relationships between leaders and followers—employers and employees, politicians and constituents, coaches and athletes, teachers and students—are most productive when based on certain key mutual expectations. [3:05] General Dempsey spent some time as a youth really getting to know his origins and understanding his Irish background. [6:50] Chapter 5: Don’t Hurry. If you try to spend up the process, you are bound to miss a few steps along the way. For example, it takes time to build critical relationships from within the organization. Trust takes time. [14:25] People are wondering when they can get back to normal. The question really is, was normal even that good? Can we build a better ‘normal’? [16:15] We all have our own lens or level of expertise but it’s our character that really brings these levels to light. Character is the final filter for making tough decisions based on the limited information you might have. [22:15] Innovation happens with a bit of rebelliousness. The question becomes whether you can define the limits of rebelliousness so that it can still be responsible and valuable to the organization. [28:35] General Dempsey really enjoys the ‘art’ of Twitter and how he creatively has to convey his message within a limited amount of characters. There is real power towards being able to share your message concisely. [34:10] This is our first global crisis in the social media age. You see people being very helpful and also manipulative. General Dempsey wrote a chapter in his book about sensible skepticism. In the world we live in today, you can’t take anything without applying your own common sense to it. [35:10] General Dempsey believes you can get people to come together through influence and collaboration. Do not rely on your authority as a leader to get empowerment/trust done. [42:15] Sometimes not everybody can have a say or voice in the decision-making process, but if you try to make it as inclusive as possible when you can, people are not going to think less of you during the times where you can’t include them. [49:35] It was tough for General Dempsey to see fallen soldiers, but it was even tougher trying to comfort the men who still had to fight after losing someone they cared about. He could see in their eyes the mix of emotions between fear and guilt. [54:00] General Dempsey’s challenge: What has this pandemic done to you/for you? Quotable Quotes Make it matter. “You have to get off the sidelines if you want to have positive, productive relationships.” “I hope we don’t go back to normal, but rather to a new normal.” “Character exists in the privacy of our own individual consciousness, and it’s a willingness mostly invisible to others to allow our aspirational self to confront our actual self.” “Almost every decision made at the presidential level is of such importance that character is the final filter, or it should be the final filter. ” “Innovation normally occurs with a little bit of rebelliousness.” “There are 330 million people in this country and the vast majority of them want more knowledge, want more honesty, want more clarity, and want it more concisely.” “I don’t think, in the world we live in today, you can take anything without applying your own common sense to it.” Resources and Books Mentioned Generaldempsey.com General Dempsey on LinkedIn General Dempsey on Twitter: @Martin_Dempsey No Time for Spectators: The Lessons that Mattered Most from West Point to the West Wing, by General Martin Dempsey General Martin Dempsey retirement ceremony, “Parting Glass” The Leadership Podcast is Sponsored by: Cultivate Grit. Amplify Action. The Self-Reliant Leadership® Manifesto reveals the Three Pillars of a Self-Reliant Leader, which encompass the character attributes, interpersonal skills, and levers required to lead today’s workforce. Get your free copy HERE. Free downloads of Quick Reference Guides on Delegation, Time Management, Sales, and more.
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Long-time listeners might remember that Martin E. Dempsey, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was a guest on our humble show back in early 2014. In the next phase of his career, Dempsey has become a writer or, as he prefers it, a storyteller. He has a book out — his second — called No Time For Spectators: The Lessons That Mattered Most From West Point To The West Wing. From its stories about Cold War Germany to working for President Obama, Ryan enjoyed the book a great deal. He spoke to Dempsey about the book and all sorts of other things in an extended conversation.
We sat down with General Martin E. Dempsey in his office to talk strategy, the profession of arms, military compensation reform, and professional military education. Interview Transcript (courtesy Federal News Service, Washington, DC): RYAN EVANS: Hi, this is Ryan Evans with a very special War on the Rocks podcast. I’m here with General Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and I have Jason Fritz, one of our editors at War on the Rocks, also joining us. And we’re going to talk about profession of arms, which is, General, a big passion of yours, or one of your central efforts, actually, ever since you were TRADOC commander. How much has your – did your experience joining the post-Vietnam Army in the mid ’70s, which sort of went through some similar challenges that we’re about to see now, shape your approach to profession of arms? GENERAL MARTIN DEMPSEY: Well, you know, I think you’re shaped by the accumulation of your experiences over time. So I entered West Point in 1970, and you know what kind of climate there was in the country in 1970 – not just related to the Vietnam War but related to just a whole bunch of social issues inside the country. So, you know, in that environment, the military had kind of lost its standing with the American people, you know, simply stated. And so even as a very young officer, it occurred to me that if we are to live up to our – and especially as we transition to an all-volunteer force, by the way – it occurred to me that this issue of professionalism would have to become more prominent. And, in fact, in 1998, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, I studied for a master’s degree and took as my thesis that issue. And in that particular treatise, if you will, I came to the conclusion that the single most important value in our long list of professional values was the – was the duty – was the value of duty. By the way, I wasn’t the first one to turn that up. You may remember that Robert E. Lee said that duty is the sublimest virtue. So that started me down a path of studying what it means to be a professional. How is it different from simply a job? What is it that we owe ourselves internally? How do we hold ourselves to a higher standard? How do we identify that standard? What are the key leader attributes that define us? And how do we deliver them? And how do we make sure we know we’re delivering them? And so that’s the context in which I entered TRADOC, did some things there, did a few things as chief of staff of the Army, knowing that after 10 or 12 years of conflict we had gotten sloppy. It’s not – I’ve said this before. It’s not that the war caused this misstep, if you will, but rather that the tools that we had at our disposal, whether they were education, oversight, surveys, command climate assessments, fitness reports, mentoring and – you know, mentors and protégés, we had kind of broken – you know that – we had kind of broken some of those relationships because of the pace, and in some cases because of modularity, this notion in the Army, anyway, that you can kind of plug and play with units. Well, you can, actually. They’re very fungible. But when you do that, you break the mentor-protégé relationship as you plug and play. So we’re looking back now and looking forward as well. That’s a long answer, but that’s how I came to this conclusion that it was time to take a very close look at this. RYAN EVANS: That’s a good answer, actually. And I know Jason, a fellow armor officer, experienced – I don’t know if, Jason, you want to comment or question based on what you saw. JASON FRITZ: Yeah, I would agree, particularly on the issues of mentor and protégé issues. I was in the first modularized brigade, 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, and, you know, we – going through the pains of transitioning to that model and some of the repercussion over the years with them. I was a brigade planner during the surge,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin E. Dempsey attended a ceremony at the ROK National Cemetery in Seoul, commemorating the veterans who gave their lives during the Korean War.