I recently interviewed Lieutenant General Jody Daniels on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:
Adam: Our guest today was the leader of the United States Army Reserve. Lieutenant General Jody Daniels is the first woman to lead the Army Reserve and the first woman to serve as commanding general of the United States Army Reserve Command. General Daniels, thank you for joining us.
Lieutenant General Daniels: Thank you so much, Adam. It’s really great to be here. Thanks for the invite.
Adam: You grew up all over before going back east and studying computer science at Carnegie Mellon, and you went on to earn a master’s and a PhD in computer science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Not exactly the typical background of a three-star general. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What early experiences and lessons shaped your worldview and shaped the trajectory of your success?
Lieutenant General Daniels: So I ended up doing ROTC because I needed a way to sort of help fund college. My friends were applying for it. I said, oh, I’m in high school, I’ll do what my friends are doing. And I applied for ROTC scholarships, managed to get opportunities from the Army and from the Air Force, took the Army one that allowed me to have an ability to go to many other universities I would not have been able to otherwise afford. And so because of that scholarship, I then owed the service a number of years. So I went on to do that.
So my first assignment was in Arizona, but then I got pulled in and did some artificial intelligence work back in the 80s for the first go round of the AI world. And then I said, I’ve been building these expert systems, but I haven’t really done anything operationally, tactically for the Army. So let me go and do an assignment over in Korea where I could get lots of great exposure into what it means to actually really serve, as opposed to building stuff. And that was a great experience.
There were a couple of lessons learned from that. The principal one was, as a leader, or as anyone in any job, higher than when you got subordinates is, to me, train your replacement, train your backfill. Because if you want to go up higher, you’ve got to have someone that can step in behind you. And that also allows you to go on vacation when you know that your deputy, your executive officer, whomever is your subordinate, can sort of take over while you’re gone. Don’t think they’re taking over your job, but that’s why you have them, is so that they can make decisions in your absence. So train them, and then you can go away on vacation and be very comfortable knowing that anything that happens will be in the framework that you have sort of already put in place, and that deputy is going to execute according to your thoughts and intentions.
And that allows you to also turn off your cell phone and literally step away and have that vacation. And then when you come back and you continue to train them to replace you, because you know that in many places you’re going to continue up the corporate hierarchy, up the ranks, up the whatever. And so having that confidence that those behind you are going to do well because you helped them to get there. So train your subordinate so that allows you to go away and go away comfortably.
The other piece that I would say is listen to those subordinates, people that work for you. Even though you’re supposed to be large and in charge, you’re the leader, you’re the company commander, you’re supposed to be making all these decisions, you can also be wrong, and you can also go a direction that may not be right. I had a sergeant who was really good at giving me advice, taking me aside and going, yo, ma’am, you’re about to muck this one up. And I’m like, oh, okay. And I respected him and his expertise, and he respected me enough to not let me get into trouble. And it was great that we had that relationship. And so getting that feedback, you have to be open to it. Don’t take it personally, because they’re helping you succeed. They’re stopping you from stepping into something or making it a bit more messy than it needs to be. So those were sort of two big takeaways from my early assignments.
Adam: I love those lessons. Train your replacement, train your subordinates. It really speaks to the heart of successful leadership. Empower people. To be a successful leader, it’s not about you doing everything. It’s about you surrounding yourself with great people and enabling them to excel, enabling them to be at their best, absolutely.
Lieutenant General Daniels: So then I would say, as a battalion commander, one of those things was how do you help your sister units also succeed? Because everyone wants to get the best rating. You want to come out number one. You want to be the highest-level performer. But I didn’t worry about that. I worried more about how we were all doing.
And so when my unit was going out to conduct a weapons qualification or a fitness test or whatever, I would let the other units know, hey, if you got anybody that needs to come along, they missed yours for some reason, they were sick or whatever, they were called away on another mission, send them over. We’re going to go out that day, and they can go ahead and get qualified. And then that unit’s readiness is improved because they’ve got people that are recertified, and my unit’s doing fine because we’re going out and doing that event, and they may return the favor at some point. So play well with the other kids. Simply play well with the others. Let the others participate in this. And that made all of us succeed, and all of us look better to the boss. So playing well with the other kids and helping them out worked really well, I think, to my benefit.
Adam: I love that. Play well with the other kids. And something that you brought up, listen. Listen to the people around you, whether they’re people at your level or people who are your subordinates. When you think you know everything, you’re going to run into problems.
Lieutenant General Daniels: Absolutely. As a senior leader, listening is even harder because it’s not hard to listen. It’s hard to get honesty from others because you’re so senior, and they’re like, oh, they must know everything. They’re the three star, they’re the big person. They’ve been through all kinds of stuff. And yeah, as we go through the ranks, you’ve got 20, 30 years of experience and exposure to different things that have happened. But that doesn’t mean you know everything. Hopefully, it means you know a lot of people that can help you solve problems, and that network that you’ve created will allow you to help out.
But to be able to get people to tell you something, you’ve still got to be very approachable. You’ve got to show that you listen to what they say, even if you don’t actually do it. You can help explain why I’m not doing what you said. I can give you the rationale, because if we did that, there’s going to be second and third-order effects. I like your idea, but we can’t do it because of that, because it matters. It’s not that we can’t do it; it’s that there’s a reason for it, or it’s against the law, or you’ve got to change a policy. But to be able to get that, be approachable so that you actually hear that unvarnished truth, as opposed to something that’s been completely watered down to be completely useless by the time it gets to you.
Adam: That’s a really important point, because as a leader, you could have the mindset that I am not the smartest person in the room, and I want to learn from others, but unless you create an environment where other people are going to be comfortable stepping up, sharing what’s on their mind, speaking openly, speaking honestly, you’re never going to get the level of candor that you need to be able to be successful.
Lieutenant General Daniels: It’s hard to create that kind of an environment that people many ranks down will feel comfortable enough to really, watching everyone in between, going, are those bosses going to shoot me when I talk to the big boss? Am I going to get flamed on because I spoke truth to power? To be able to make sure that that didn’t happen is a tricky thing to do.
Adam: You mentioned the importance of being approachable. You mentioned not punishing people for speaking openly, speaking honestly. Do you have any other advice on how to create that kind of environment?
Lieutenant General Daniels: So I did two things. One was it became a thing that I started taking photos with my soldiers, and I gave them rabbit ears. So here’s the three-star with a specialist doing rabbit ears. And if they gave them back, I would just grin and take it as well, because if you can’t take it back, and they’re like, I’m giving the three star, okay, that’s awesome. And I’ll do one without, you can send to your mom, and here’s the other one that’s kind of fun. And so that made me more human, because I was doing something completely silly, but I wasn’t completely unprofessional about the whole thing. That really helped.
Another piece of that was I had put out some guidance pretty early in my tenure. My last job was a four-year tenure, and I gave the same pitch to every group I talked to, whether it was a company commander or a two-star commander and everyone in between. It was the exact same. Here’s what I want you to focus on. Here’s the thing. And so I actually published about a nine page paper, graphics and things to help illustrate the points and make it small, words, short sentences, to really be very specific on what I wanted people to accomplish. It was an easy read, it was really fast. I gave references, citations as to why we did all this.
So I put that out there, and I would go, and I would talk to these company commanders and first sergeants, sort of the first line, second line leader, and they’re like, well, we keep having to do these meetings. And I’m like, oh, I said not to do those. I said, so if you don’t mind, tell me not who your direct boss is, but tell me the organization. I don’t need to know the name, but who’s the organization at the brigade level? Let me know what unit that is. And so then I would go to the two star and say, hey, this brigade is still doing something I told you all not to do. And that way I didn’t dime out the poor people at the bottom. They were still anonymized, but I’m still getting the message from above through the two star down to the colonel and that sergeant major who were doing something I told them not to do. It’s coming from their boss. It’s not coming from below. So I was helping the below by sort of meeting in the middle and telling the two star they had an issue beneath them, and I knew about it because I’d gotten information from the person I was protecting. So that worked out really well, that I’m like, if you’ll trust me, I promise to not use your name, your unit, but I’m going to go after that middle tier to try and get them fixed.
Adam: I love that. And you just hit on the magic word, which is trust. You ultimately have to cultivate an environment where people trust you, people feel comfortable around you. You shared a unique and interesting tactic using bunny ears. And it comes down to being yourself, not being afraid to demonstrate some personality, not being afraid to demonstrate some humor. And that word that you use over and over again, so important, be approachable. Just because you have a role where, by virtue of your title, people might be intimidated by you, don’t be intimidating. Go out of your way to demonstrate I’m a human being, you’re a human being, we’re in this together, and that’s how we’re going to be successful.
Lieutenant General Daniels: And that was also true in meetings, because I didn’t want always the senior person to be the one doing the briefing, being the one presenting all of the material. So I had one rule. It was, if you’re going to give me material that we’re going to talk about, I need to have that 48 hours in advance. Why? So that I can read it, so that we can have a conversation. Otherwise, you’re just briefing me, and I’m like poking my eyes out. But if I actually want to discuss it, I need to be able to read it before the meeting. So it has to be present in my office 48 hours to give me a fighting chance to be prepared for the meeting.
So then we could have a discussion. We got a conversation. We could talk through what it is. And again, I don’t care what rank you were, as long as you were the expert in the topic. So that when I had questions, I tried to send the questions out in advance of the meeting as well. Hey, I went through your material. Now that you know I’ve read it, because you can see the questions I’m asking, so come to the meeting and let’s talk about some of these questions I’m asking. And so that worked out well in terms of helping people know how I was thinking. How does my mind work? When you show me some material, I’m looking at different aspects in a particular way, maybe looking at something, and they’re like, why is she looking at that? But we could talk about it during the meeting, and I could show the connection between the material they had given me and what was missing for me to make a decision.
Adam: And what you’re sharing really speaks to the importance of transparency, the power of effective communication as a leader. There’s no substitute for that.
Lieutenant General Daniels: Well, I just don’t want to be bored having someone brief me for 30, 40 minutes. It’s easier if I just sort of flip through the charts and get a sense of where we’re going. That way it becomes interactive versus just a one way stream to me and, okay, make a decision. I’m like, am I still awake?
And the other thing was also to, if appropriate, get others into the conversation. It’s not just everything thrown at me, and I’m now giving the answer. I was really good at saying, and what do you think? What are my options? What do you want to do? And I’m like, what are my choices? What are the possibilities? Oh, you want to know that. And I’m like, yeah, I don’t know all the choices. It’s your area. You tell me.
Adam: You had a lot of choices. You had a lot of options. When you have a PhD in computer science, you can do many things with your life, and you wound up going down this path that led you to become the first woman to lead the United States Army Reserve. What were the keys to rising in your career? How can anyone rise in their career?
Lieutenant General Daniels: So I started on active duty, seven and a half years on active duty, and then I transitioned to the reserve. When I went back to get my Master’s and PhD, I was a full-time student and part-time reservist, and I did that school for many years. And then I went on to work for one of the defense contractors in an artificial intelligence lab for a number of years before I finally ended up going on to a set of full-time orders doing various different roles within the Army Reserve.
So I had a corporate experience as well. So being able to see and gain tools in my toolbox from a corporate environment in addition to a military environment, I think proved very, very helpful. You can’t do everything in the corporate world by a set of orders. You can’t do much of anything by a set of orders. So you have to learn how to play well with the other kids, how to find the smartest one in the room to make your contract be successful. Who’s going to lead the job? Whoever makes the most sense, whoever’s got the right background and talent.
And so doing that, talent matching was really important in both worlds. In fact, one of my assignments, I ended up doing a deployment over to Iraq. The advance party was matching up all of the 800 people that were coming over to positions. They may have had civilian skill sets that match roles we needed them in, but didn’t have anything to do with their actual specific Army career field. So you may have a logistician who happens to be a city planner, or happens to be an elected government official, or happens to be a school teacher, or happens to be a police person or firefighter or whatever it was they were. And they may have had a good reason to put them in a different role over in Iraq than what their Army skill set had said.
So doing that matchmaking and looking at that talent from a holistic point of view really made a difference in how successful we were. And I had help with it. It wasn’t just me as we did all this assignment. It’s sort of looking at people’s skills and talents. Are they great at networking, great at talking, or do you need to put them in a corner and give them a lot of time? How do we best utilize the talents of everyone? It’s true in industry, and it’s true in the military as well.
Adam: We all have something about us that makes us special, that makes us different, that makes us unique. And the more quickly you can figure out what it is about you that makes you special, what it is about you that makes you you, the more successful you’re going to be. And as a leader, it’s your job to understand what it is about every person around you, every person who you have responsibility over. What makes them special, what makes them different, what makes them unique, and help them get to a place where they’re going to be successful. If you’re leading someone and you put them in a role that is so ill-suited for them, then you’re failing as a leader. It’s your job to understand the people around you and align them with roles that allow them to be at their very best.
Lieutenant General Daniels: And so I will say, related to that, the other part of that is recognizing that everyone has weaknesses. And too often there’s an assessment done, you’re like, where wasn’t I doing well? Stop. Don’t worry so much about that, unless you’re doing something illegal, unethical, or immoral. Focus on the good stuff. What are you doing right? How do you expand on the stuff that you’re doing well? How do you grow those skills? How do you expand that toolkit in different ways?
Rather than focusing on the stuff that you’re doing wrong, in the defense industry, I ended up being the evil, horrible person that had to do all the performance improvement plans, because I would hold people accountable, and I got a lot of respect from all the other engineers. Because, okay, we’re going to do the plan. Here’s what it’s going to be. You tell me what you can do. We’ll get back together in a week, and we’ll go through it.
And in holding people actually accountable, people don’t like to see others getting by. And so they know when someone’s getting by. So if you’re holding them accountable, they’re like, oh, there really is a standard. We actually are holding to it. But at the same time, there are a few people that I’m like, you are just not cut out for this job. You are not cut out for this industry. Or the industry is fine, this organization is not a match for you.
Let me help you put together your resume. Let me proofread your cover letter. Let me help you help yourself go find a new job. You’re not a bad person. You’re just not a match. They’re not evil, you’re not an idiot, you’re just not a fit here. And so let me help you be a better you someplace that makes more sense. And so they would leave not disgruntled. People were happy because that person who wasn’t meshing is now no longer a problem, and then that person is now landing somewhere else that they are going to be much happier anyway.
That was quite the learning experience of holding people accountable to performance standards matters for multiple different reasons. How do we help them continue their career growth, even if it’s not here?
Adam: How, as a leader, can you hold people accountable?
Lieutenant General Daniels: Well, if you’ve got milestones, deadlines, objectives, and they’re not meeting them, first of all, you tell them what those are. You have that meeting that says, here’s what I want you to do. Can you do that in the amount of time we’ve given you? Yes, I can, or no, I can’t. You give me too many number ones. This is what I really can do. Okay, you come to an agreement as to what they’re going to get done.
Then when those milestones come along, did they meet them or not? And you’ve had the conversation so expectations are known. And if they can’t meet them, why not? Was it because they weren’t capable, because something else interfered that was outside of their purview? Why didn’t that happen? And so you can have that conversation and go, well, you’re just lower than all of your peers in this area. Maybe this is not your strength. Let’s go find something that is.
Adam: And a key takeaway there is making sure that you have the data. If you’re going to call someone out and you can’t back it up, then what good is that really going to do?
Lieutenant General Daniels: Right. The meetings were typically setting expectations and then meeting minutes. Here’s my takeaway. Do you agree with that, that that was what we discussed and that’s what we agreed to? And if they would come back and say, no, I thought it was going to take another extra month, well, let’s talk about that. Or yes, I agree that is indeed what we came to as a conclusion.
And that’s important not just for performance for individuals, but anytime you have a meeting. What are the takeaways? What are the action items? What are the due outs? When are the due outs due? And is someone following up on those to make sure that there actually is follow-through? I mean, it’s great to have a meeting, but if you didn’t actually come to any decisions or have any milestones or whatever, not supposed to be a brainstorming meeting; it’s like, well, why did we get together? What was the value of this?
Adam: And to your point, accountability isn’t just about holding other people accountable. It’s equally important to hold yourself accountable as a leader, whether it’s ensuring that you’re achieving what you want to achieve in meetings, whether you’re achieving what you want to achieve over the course of your day, your week, your month. It’s setting an extremely high standard for yourself and making sure that you’re living up to it.
Lieutenant General Daniels: And some of those milestones might be six months, a year out. Not everything is this week, tomorrow, this afternoon. Some things are much further. There’s a longer lead time. In some cases, you just have to wait for the data, the actions to take that time. In other cases, you can in fact break the problem down into smaller pieces and look at those chunks over time. In other cases, you just kind of have to wait to see what the effect is.
But at least having the conversation about it and memorializing the conversation is kind of what’s important. Early on, I went through all of a new leader, you get all your policies. There’s a gazillion policies, they’re all numbered, so you have to go through all those, resign them, whatever. And I went through them, and one of my thoughts was, I want to delegate down the signature authority as far as I can so it doesn’t stay with me. I want less paper to come to me, less decisions to come to me.
And so we had great conversations on each of the different policies. They would send in sort of a little information paper that said this is the thing that we want to discuss, and here’s the regulation that guides it. The regulation says we can delegate this down to the first two star, and here’s the staff recommendation of what we should do. And I would say, okay, why should we do it? So should I retain it? Should we delegate it down? Can I go down to the colonel? How far down can we delegate?
And so then we wrote up a memo after the meeting. We took the original one and said, here’s what I agree or disagreed on it. And so now we had memorialized what it was, why it was, and who I had given the power to. Doing that early on saved me all kinds of time later, because things weren’t coming to me anymore, because other people had decision power. It was fabulous.
Adam: And it comes back to that early lesson that you learned. You need to surround yourself with people who you can build up, and then you need to trust them. You need to empower them. You need to let them do their job and get out of the way.
Lieutenant General Daniels: Yes, and sometimes they’ll make mistakes. Okay, fine. Why was the mistake made? You just didn’t know it? Was it intentional? You didn’t quite understand it? Let’s talk about that and let’s go from there. There’s very few things that if someone made a mistake it couldn’t be cured, and you have to allow them to have that opportunity to make those mistakes, to grow, to learn, to progress.
I was so happy delegating things. And I read so many books. When I got this last job, it was crazy. I read more books about leadership and change management than I had read my entire career. I had three months of intense, how else can I get myself ready for this job?
And one of the things that came across, and I probably should have learned it earlier, was do those things first that you must do, that you can’t give away, that only you can do. Give away the other stuff. But if only you can do it, then you have to focus on those things and give away the other parts. Delegate as much around to save yourself your sanity and your time and your brainpower and your health. But look at that. Do those things that you must do. Get rid of the rest.
Adam: We’ve talked a lot about what a leader needs to do to be successful. What do you believe are the key characteristics of the very best leaders, and what can anyone do to become a better leader? Listen.
Lieutenant General Daniels: Gotta listen. Okay, so when do I have to make a decision? And then I make a decision. Commit to the decision. How many times have you been at some meeting, some topic, where the boss comes back with, well, seven more questions. You go back out, you gather up the answers, and you come back in, then there’s three more questions, and then there’s two more questions, and then there’s five more, and it just sort of perpetuates endlessly, which is a great way to defer ever making a decision.
But it annoys the heck out of the people, your subordinates, because you’re not actually making a decision. You’re sort of punting the problem endlessly. So one of those things that I really tried to commit to was, if a decision has to be made, I’m going to make a decision. We’re going to put it in writing or whatever it is we needed to do to commit to the decision, and then off we go.
And then don’t make the decision behind a door after the last person came in to see you after the meeting. That’s a great way to really undermine your decisions, because it’s no longer transparent as to whether or not the person was whispering in your ear convincing you to go their way, or that was really what your result would have been at the conclusion of the meeting. So be transparent with those decisions. But if it’s time to make a decision, then make a decision, live with it.
Adam: What’s the toughest decision that you had to make in your career, and what did you learn from it?
Lieutenant General Daniels: It wasn’t a decision. It was frequent decisions related to military justice, personnel actions. Someone has done something wrong, and the case comes to me for adjudication. And now I’m deciding whether or not to give them an honorable discharge, a dishonorable discharge, an other than honorable discharge, a general discharge. What are the various distorted flavors and the impacts of that on their ability to get veterans assistance programs, to get tuition programs in the future, to go get veteran care.
Depending on that discharge, it’s going to greatly affect their life and maybe that of their family as well. And so those were ones that I thought about a lot and tried to be as consistent as I could in metering that out, my judicial sentiment. But those were always tough things to do, because you know you’re affecting someone’s life. Those are hard.
Adam: Is there a framework that you use when making those kinds of difficult decisions? Is there any advice that you would share for anyone who finds themselves wrestling with difficult decisions on how to make the right decision?
Lieutenant General Daniels: Dealing with people, as transparent as you can be is my advice. Every now and then, there were some cases that came along that I could tell that if we let the person serve for another two months, it would change the outcome, and it was of an offense that I would consider mild enough, or there are mitigating factors. I’m going to slow-roll this decision. I’m going to wait two months, and that’ll sort of solve the whole problem.
In other cases, it’s like this person needs to have the hammer come down, come down hard. There are other cases where I couldn’t get the whole picture just from the paper and the writing and the lawyer summary and all that. I want to talk to someone, or I’d send the lawyers back out with additional questions to get initial background, because I didn’t feel like I had enough. And every now and then, I actually would talk to someone about their case, about their scenario, about what it was they were appealing.
So, is there a framework? Yes and no. Yes, there’s a broad framework, but then there’s also individual factors that you’ve got to consider. Some people, they just come down hard on everybody all the time. I was a little different. There were some things where I came down hard because they hit a red line, and in other cases, I was like, let’s embrace the gray. Gray can be your friend. Is this something that needs an exception? Do we need to change the rules because of whatever has happened here?
And so you’re going to have to go with your conscience, your set of ethics and principles to do what you believe is right based on the scenario. It’s just hard, but try to be as consistent as you can, because consistency then helps those people that are bringing the information to you.
Adam: And what I’m hearing from you is that the framework that you use, whether we call it a framework or not, starts with caring about people, which is essential to success as a leader. If you don’t love people, if you don’t care about people, you’re in the wrong line of work. And if you do care about people, that’s the first step. Being consistent and using your best judgment, recognizing that life isn’t black or white, so much of it is in the gray, and your job as a leader is to live in the gray. Your job as a leader is to use your best judgment. You’re there. You have to make a decision. It’s on you.
Lieutenant General Daniels: Well said. I’m going to go off tangent just a little bit. You talked about caring and what’s a good leader. You have to make decisions, you have to be a team player, you have to have ethics. There’s lots of different things that you need to be as a leader.
And I found that as I was going up through my career, we get evaluation reports every six months or a year, depending on how things go. And I found that a bunch of the comments kept saying that I cared about my people, that I cared, that I cared, that I cared. And I got to the point where I was getting ready to get promoted, I think, to major, and I was reading through some of my evaluations, and I’m like, oh no. So many of these things say that I care. Is that a feminine characteristic? I am in the Army back in the 90s. Am I going to get dinged for caring? Is this going to hold me back?
And then I went, I don’t give a shit. This is who I am. This is who I’m going to be. So I’m going to care, and I’m going to continue to care. Then as a three star, I went to a meeting with a bunch of two stars and three stars and some senior leaders, some four stars were all there. It was a very senior crowd. And someone put up on the front that it was a leader imperative to care. Success score. I’m like, okay. I felt so validated many, many years later.
But it took all of those years to get someone else, even though they said that I cared, but to say we don’t care if it’s a male or a female characteristic. It’s just something that we want to have in our leaders. I felt really good at that point.
Adam: I love that, and I don’t think caring is a male or a female characteristic. It’s a human characteristic, and it’s a characteristic that every leader needs to have. Agreed.
Lieutenant General Daniels: But again, as a female in a male-dominated world, I was highly concerned that I wasn’t tough enough. They weren’t using masculine terms. Care is thought of more as a feminine term, and I thought it might get me downgraded. But the other advantage I had is that my name is spelled J O D Y, and a lot of times people can’t tell if it’s male or female.
Adam: Other than having a gender ambiguous name, and other than being a caring person, what are the keys to excelling as a female in a male-dominated environment? And what advice do you have for men in a male-dominated environment on how to be as effective allies as possible to women?
Lieutenant General Daniels: So I would say just be your authentic self. Be you. Don’t try to be somebody else. You can learn from how you see others operate, and maybe you can incorporate some of that into how you operate.
So, for example, I was a lieutenant colonel. I was over in Iraq, and I worked for a three-star at the time. I’ll tell you, he was, at the end of the story, the man never yelled, never yelled. But you knew when he was pissed off. You knew when he was angry. You knew when you had done something wrong. His tone would change, his physical demeanor would change, but he never yelled. He never pointed his finger. But you just knew that you had screwed up royally. And everyone in the audience knew when he was upset. It was very obvious, but again, never raised his voice.
Was very calm about it, but some of the really pointed questions were just like, oh, oh. And I took that away. I was like, that was really effective leadership in getting the point across. You weren’t humiliated, but you knew that you had done bad. You knew that you could have done better.
And it turns out that was General Petraeus. But he never yelled. So I was like, okay, I need to internalize how I can do better at never losing my cool, but being effective. That was one of those traits that, as well as a good leader in a meeting, your people are giving you bad product, they’re not being complete, they’re waffling, they’re not prepared. How do you respond to that makes a difference.
Publicly belittling them doesn’t help. Helping them get to the answers, helping them get you the material you need, helping guide them to get you content is what really matters as quickly as is necessary for the topic. And so I internalized that and learned from that leadership style.
Adam: General Daniels, what can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful, personally and professionally?
Lieutenant General Daniels: Again, be you and look at other successful people. Talk to them. Ask them what they’ve done. Ask them how they’ve succeeded. How have they progressed through their careers?
One thing that I tell a lot of folks is in order to be successful, you probably should look two positions out. You kind of know what your next positions are, but find someone that can talk to you about the next, next tier up. So you kind of know what you’re probably going to do for the next two to four years. But what are the opportunities beyond that? You may not even have any idea of things that are out there that could help you succeed and have a really interesting career, male or female, and it just doesn’t matter.
So I had a really good boss. I had two good bosses that did this to me. One when I was a brand new lieutenant, and I was out at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, working doing building some AI systems, expert systems. And my boss said, hey, you know you should go get a Master’s and you can go get a PhD. And I’m like, I don’t know how to spell PhD. I mean, not on my radar. I had never even thought about it. But the simple fact that he said that, that pat on the back is like, hey, you’re doing good. I think you’re smart enough. I think you could go and do this, planted the seed that later came to pass.
So years later, I actually did go apply and go to a PhD program, but it was his foresight of what out there looked further than that. When I was a lieutenant colonel, I was over in Iraq, had a boss. He says, hey, have you applied to the Army War College? And I’m like, oh sir, I’ve just finished seven years, Master’s and PhD. Do I really need to do any school? He’s like, yeah, if you don’t apply to the War College and go to the War College, you can never make general.
What did I hear? You think I could be a general? Really? That’s kind of cool. Maybe I need to go apply to the War College. And so I did. But the fact that he was looking further out, because it was however many years later, general officer wasn’t for a bunch more years, but there were things that I needed to do to make that even a possibility.
So having someone or some bunch of someones that you can talk to about what are those opportunities later, not four or five positions down the row, but a couple, three rather than just the next one, I think is really helpful and would help people sort of open up their aperture of what their possibilities are.
Adam: General Daniels, thank you for all the great advice, and thank you for being a part of Thirty Minute Mentors.
Lieutenant General Daniels: Thank you so much for this opportunity. I appreciate it. It was great chatting with you.
