Old Blood, Guts & Glorious Leadership: The Patton Way
Leaders come in many hues and one of the most sensational of them was General George S Patton (aka Old Blood, Guts & Glory). I recently happened to watch an autobiographical movie on him and couldn’t help myself from admiring his unique personality & leadership style. This brilliant movie revolves around the life & experiences of Gen Patton during the peak of Second World War and went on to win seven academy awards including one for best picture.
Gen. Patton was an impetuous army commander and self-admitted Prima Dona. He was loud in more than one way. His flashy uniforms (he made the standard issue, otherwise drab uniform , into a desirable piece of clothing), inscribed ivory handle sidearm , his jeep with loud sirens was indicative of his larger than life portrayal of himself as a field commander.
While he was certainly impulsive (on one occasion he famously pipped himself with a 3rd star, without waiting for the formal announcement, saying that he has his own schedule to keep), his sole purpose was to get the men & machines under his command to execute seemingly impossible tasks and achieve near impossible wins with the sole objective of winning the war (and also to grab some headlines for himself while doing all of this). His brilliance was evident in the fact that he had anticipated & penned a defense plan against a surprise air attack against Pearl Harbor 10 years before it happened!
His personality was such that you could either love him or hate him but could not ignore him!
He was a tough leader and though his style & methods were sometimes questioned & came under scrutiny, no one could deny that he was the “go-to man” when the chips were down or an impossible target had to be attained. He was credited for moving his divisions across many miles within 48 hours to relieve the town of Bastogne, when all the other generals thought that it was an impossible mission to complete. He was one of those rare generals who was respected & hated by both his allies & his enemies equally and at the same time! While he was sidelined during the long anticipated D-Day landings due to his tendency to speak his mind to the press, and was placed in command of the fictitious first US Army Group as a decoy, such was his reputation, that German General Alfred Jodl was convinced that it will be Patton who would be ultimately chosen to lead the invasion.
Despite being a brilliant field commander, an effective strategist and a connected leader, he unfortunately was also one of the most maligned & misunderstood general the allied forces had in the world war. His need to be recognized & quest for battlefield glory for himself (even at the cost of sometimes ignoring the issued orders) was an overpowering personality trait that came to haunt him on many occasions in his otherwise impeccable career.
The movie focused on his brilliant on field track record and his innate propensity towards getting into trouble with his superiors because of his straight shooting (sometimes abrasive) interviews & speeches. Despite all of his shortcomings his intrinsic talent for leading men & mission shone thru and after a career marked with trials & tribulations, wins & achievements he retired as a 4-star general.
In the corporate world, we have many managers & business leaders who have their own idiosyncrasies and personality traits that are overpowering. We have all, in our careers, come across leaders who were either loud, overbearing simply abrasive, brilliant strategists and thinkers or outstanding executor's. Some of them are impetuous while others are perfectly articulate. Gen Patton to me was an extremely brilliant example of someone who represented the eclectic mix of all of the qualities of a great commander or leader. Despite his personality shortcomings, he reached the rank of a four star general, was awarded multiple medals and is still remembered as a general who made things happen!
Seldom do we see a manager/leader that has the complete package & qualities that Patton had. How many managers/leaders do we know who possess his drive, ambition, strategic thinking, personality and sheer presence...Not many names come to my mind!
It’s quite easy to characterize a manager or a leader based on some visibly standout personality trait. However, what a lot of us fail to appreciate are the hidden qualities that these leaders possess. To me personally, it is acceptable to be crude in your language, or to be blunt in your approach, aggressive in your demeanor as long as you know (as Patton most certainly did), that’s finally the buck stops with you. He knew that leaders are finally responsible for attaining the set objective and that the personality, language & bearing are just a tool that can be used to push one’s team (or nudge them gently) towards the required direction. Napoleon once said that the art of the general is not strategy but knowing how to mold human nature, and perhaps that is what Patton was trying to do thru his tough talking and overbearing personality.
If you have a sharp mind & devilish drive like what Gen Patton had, you will always find yourself an army to command, irrespective to how many people you shout or slap along the way (while Patton did slap a soldier once, I wouldn’t recommend this at all) and men would be glad that it was you who laid it out straight to them and led them on the field, to victory & success! Good Old Blood, Guts & Glory.
