The Bosshole® Chronicles

If We Don't Learn From Our History...

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Join me on a transformative journey to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where the historic battlefield becomes a powerful classroom for modern leadership lessons. Stepping away from our usual format, this special episode takes you inside the Marco's Leadership Institute, where military history and contemporary leadership science converge in fascinating ways.

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John Broer:

This is going to be a very different episode of the Bossh ole Chronicles because I'm actually on location this week recording this from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. I have the honor of being a guest at the Marcos Leadership Institute and they do this leadership training every year and use the Battle of Gettysburg as a backdrop. It's absolutely amazing. Can't wait to tell you about it.

John Broer:

The Bossh ole Chronicles are brought to you by Real Good Ventures, the talent optimization firm, helping organizations diagnose their most critical people and execution issues with world-class analytics. Make sure to check out all the resources in the show notes and be sure to follow us and share your feedback. Enjoy today's episode.

John Broer:

Okay, so this is a really different episode of The Bossh ole Chronicles. You've had our subject matter expert episodes, our roundtables, our new ones. "You might be a Boss hole if and this week I am a guest of one of our clients, Marcos Franchising and the Marcos Leadership Institute, because every year they bring people out to Gettysburg for the Gettysburg Leadership Workshop. Marcos partners with an organization called Diamond Six, and Diamond Six specializes in leadership and strategic development with their clients all over the country Actually, I think all over the world, and from Diamond Six we are being guided by its founder and leadership facilitator, colonel Jeff McCausland, who is retired. Colonel Jeff McCausland, who has retired, and partnering with him is a battlefield historian, Fred Wieners Colonel Fred Wieners, who has also retired. But it has been an amazing day. I mean, I just got back understanding really, not only what happened on July 1st through the 3rd in 1863, but, more importantly, talking about the leaders that were out in the battlefield, not only in the buildup of Gettysburg but also during those three days. I mean people that we have read about in history from the Union George Meade, joshua Chamberlain, john Buford, john Reynolds, Strong Vincent, and then, of course, from the Confederate side, we have notable military leaders Robert E Lee, Jeb Stuart, James Longstreet, George Edward Pickett and the like..

John Broer:

What I'm really taking away from today and I think this is so important for our managers and supervisors out there who aspire to be more effective leaders and remember our definition, our distinction between management and leadership management is about having a position of authority over someone. Leadership is really being in a position of influence with other people. So in leadership it isn't necessary to have a hierarchical position over somebody else, your influence, your effect on other people to get them excited or interested in some sort of a cause, hopefully a good and moral one. And let's face it, remember there have been leaders in history that have done horrible and atrocious things. What I'm talking about are the leaders that had a solid moral compass and embodied those characteristics, those traits of leaders, and other people gravitated to them, they were bought in to the vision, the mission, the direction that they were taking. So all of this to say that this battle serves as a backdrop, it is a lens through history to learn from the different leaders in Gettysburg and what can we glean from that to our leadership practices today? And actually it's quite a lot.

John Broer:

Now I'm not going to go into all the details. Actually, I would encourage people to really do some research and think about that. But one of the cool things that we did, we actually took the Science of Predictive Index, which we talk about, analyze and theorize what would the reference profile be for these key leaders at Gettysburg and through research and historic articles, their own words, textbooks, accounts of these famous people from history, military leaders from history, it actually did come up with some general idea of what their reference profiles would be, and one particular pairing, if you will, that I found fascinating is Robert E Lee was probably based on the AI analysis, more in the innovation and agility grouping, and that's going to be where I am, you know, Captain, Maverick, Persuader, Venturer and actually a little bit of hint of maybe even Scholar, which is in the results and discipline quadrant. So if you're familiar with our competing values matrix, as most of you are, this is on the right-hand side. So somebody who is comfortable with risk, proactive, let's move forward, let's advance. And then one of his most trusted colleagues he referred to him as the Old War Horse, James Longstreet actually came back with our analysis as more of a process and precision individual having leadership traits that were more consistent with process and precision reference profiles, like the Artisan or Guardian or Specialist or Operator. In other words, somebody who is more collaborative, harmony seeking, perhaps cautious with risk and more responsive than proactive.

John Broer:

Now, when we talk about head, heart and briefcase, remember the briefcase is a person's credentials, skills, abilities that they've learned. Well, these leaders, most of them both on the Confederacy and the Union Army, went to West Point. So they all had a very similar briefcase the heart where somebody's core values reside and their passions. That's absolutely where we started to see some distinction, because you had Robert E Lee, who was invited to lead the Union Army, the Army of the Potomac, and he declined that and went to lead the Confederate Army because he was from Virginia. And then, when you get to the head, where the behavioral data lives, that's where we really start to see the difference. The leadership DNA present itself in very different ways. And so you had Robert E Lee, you had Longstreet two different ends of the spectrum, according to our theoretical research. And as you look at the activities or the events of July 1st through the 3rd in 1863, you absolutely see those distinctions play out.

John Broer:

And it's just fascinating to think about how we can look through the lens of history to some of the most significant military events, certainly in American history, and how do we learn from the leaders that were there? What did they do well, what did they do poorly? How were their decisions influenced by their leadership DNA and should they have done something different? Well, same can be said on the union side with George Meade and Chamberlain and Buford. Just really remarkable differences. So I just wanted to share with you today that I was in this immersive event, this immersive experience at Gettysburg, and reminded about how important it is for our managers and our supervisors to learn from history not just their history, but research and learn about leaders of the past. What did they do well? What did they do poorly? How can we learn from them? And then, at the core of being an effective leader we've talked about this self-awareness is the number one competency of being an effective leader. So that's why PI is so powerful to help you understand your leadership DNA. But that's not enough. Emotional intelligence, the ability to create psychological safety within the team it all plays a role and we've actually been seeing it through the lens of history play its role in Gettysburg.

John Broer:

One last story, and I didn't know this, but after he finished his second term as president of the United States, Dwight D Eisenhower and his wife Mamie actually bought a farm adjacent to Gettysburg. And during an interview, apparently they were in the library at the Eisenhower farm and he had just tons of books on leadership. And the interviewer inquired to President Eisenhower I mean, this was a man who went to West Point, who had a highly decorated career in military service, led the entire Allied force in World War II, moving through Europe to defeat the Nazis. He went to be the president of a university I think it was Columbia University after he served in the military and then he went on to be president of the United States.

John Broer:

And this guy you know asked him what do you read, you know? And he said I read about leadership. I think that really surprised the interviewer. He said but you have such an extensive history of effective leadership. He said, yes, but I want to understand it better but also understand if I could have done it differently or done it better. So, in other words, authentic leaders never stop learning and when they make leadership part of their study, I think everybody can benefit.

John Broer:

So I hope this was of interest to you. I'm nerding out a little bit because I of course do love history and this has been just a really, really special treat. So I thank my friends at Marcos for the invitation and the opportunity to be here and, of course, the amazing work from the team at diamond six. Please go into the show notes. I will put a link to diamond six, to the website for Diamond Six. You can get to know them and the work that they're doing.

John Broer:

And if you do not know your reference profile, there's a link in the show notes. Find that out and let that perhaps be the beginning of your learning, your leadership learning and putting you on the path of honing and refining your own unique leadership approach. And remember and refining your own unique leadership approach. And remember the most effective leaders are the ones that are self-aware, because that self-awareness allows them to understand their strengths, their potential caution areas and ultimately lead from a position of strength. So thanks for listening in everybody, and we will see you next time on the Bossh ole Chronicles. Thanks very much for checking out this episode of the Bossh ole Chronicles. It was so good to have you here and if you have your own Boss hole story that you want to share with the Bossh ole Transformation Nation, just reach out. You can email us at mystory@thebossholechronicles. com. Again, mystory@thebossholechronicles. com. We'll see you next time.