The old saying goes that today’s Navy is composed of iron ships and wooden men in contradistinction to the “old” Navy which, we are informed by the old timers, was made up of wooden ships and iron men. We, of the “new” Navy hasten to deny that such is the case; that the ships are of iron but that the men are not less so. We cannot entirely deny the fact, however, that the time, money, and intelligence lavished on the mechanical element of the Navy is out of all proportion to that allotted to the human. We cannot deny that our efforts to solve the human equation have been only perfunctory.
Before a turbine is placed on board ship we know just what its water rate will be. Before a gun is mounted in its turret we know just what muzzle velocity it will produce. But what efficiency we get from the ship’s company which makes up our human machine is never determined, never systematically analyzed, almost always casually accepted.
Every June there comes from the Naval Academy a class of new officers with their brand new commissions in their hands. They come out to the service with a youthful enthusiasm, and a real, if somewhat disguised, desire to make names for themselves. They come equipped with the best that the Naval Academy can give in the way of professional knowledge, in all subjects but one. That one is usually known as “leadership,” and is, in effect, the application of the principles of psychology to practice. To be sure, the new graduate has been exposed to a course in “leadership” at the Naval Academy, but in a curriculum which is already crowded with purely technical subjects the emphasis on this course cannot be very great. More is accomplished toward the ability to command—which is the function of the line officer—through association with and observation of older officers and through that potent something known as “tradition” than through the formal study of the course. This study has the salutary effect of giving the problem a name and inducing thought on the subject, and to this extent serves its purpose excellently.
The brand-new graduating class embraces among its members some who will one day be charged with executive authority over the whole Navy. What more fitting time to direct their efforts than during this most impressionable period of their careers? They come to the service well equipped in the mechanics of their profession, but with only a vague notion as to how they are to command the respect and coordination of the men with whom they will come in contact. Their only training which is formally administered is through the medium of journals in which they are required to write up certain subject matter and draw more or less interesting sketches. Here again is the emphasis on the mechanics of being a naval officer, with a total disregard of the psychological phase. Worst of all, these journals usually become odious jokes of uninspiring labor which must contain a certain amount of subject matter, a certain number of pretty sketches, in order to “get by.”
It is not to be denied for a moment that a naval officer should know the mechanics of his profession, but equipped with the Naval Academy education and assuming an average amount of native intelligence, an officer with any interest in his work can assimilate these mechanical details in a short time. But in the matter of sympathetic and psychological understanding, in which most of us are weak, there is no guiding star to lead us out of the wilderness. This is the more to be deplored when it is recognized that the naval officer is ultimately much less concerned, in the function of command, with the mechanics of his profession than with his executive qualifications.
The naval officer is primarily an executive, and as such his material is composed of men. Just as the successful business executive should be familiar with the mechanics of his business, so it is desirable that the naval officer executive be familiar with his. But primarily he must be able to direct his men efficiently, to command their respect, and to obtain their cooperation.
Since executive ability is so commonly tied up with personality, it may be thought that we are limited by the personality with which we are endowed. American history can perhaps produce no better example of dynamic personality and executive ability than Theodore Roosevelt, but he has made the statement that as he had been a rather sickly and awkward boy, he was, as a young man, both nervous and distrustful of his own prowess. He had to train himself painfully and laboriously “not merely as regarded his body, but also as to his soul and spirit” to become the commanding figure we all know. Executive ability is not born to us, it is not a heavenly bequest graciously bestowed on one and denied another, but it can be developed by training and example.
Personality is a nebulous quality which is dangled before our eyes as the vehicle of those qualities which we cannot describe in any number of words. It has become a sort of whatnot upon which are crowded the various attributes that we recognize in a man as tending to make us like him or dislike him, but which we are usually at a loss to describe. Gowin defines it by saying that it consists of those positive qualities which have meant survival to the group in the struggle for existence. It can be cultivated, and should be, by the man who wishes to become a successful executive.
Personality, then, will help us in our quest for leadership. The course in leadership at the Naval Academy will help to some degree. But in the final analysis we come down to a study of men. It is leadership of men which concerns us. It is leadership of men by men and, therefore, our study should be a study of men. Some philosopher has said that the greatest study of mankind is man. Surely one of the greatest studies for leaders of men must be the study of man.
We must understand ourselves, our own emotions and reflexes, before we can sympathetically understand those we wish to lead. Assuming that we are already conversant with the principles of leadership as such, we should try to go a step farther. Of course no amount of knowledge about the genus homo is going to assist us unless we keep the elementary ideas of leadership before us. We must recognize the power of example, the necessity for loyalty up and loyalty down, the value of decisiveness.
Perhaps in no other Navy in the world will such conditions be encountered which require the study herein suggested as in ours. In no other Navy in the world will such a heterogeneous personnel be encountered as far as racial derivations go as in ours. No doubt every country in Europe is represented in our Navy by at least one young man only one or two generations removed from the fatherland, and from the temperament and behavior which characterize that land. Although the battle still rages furiously between the proponents of heredity and environment as the causes of behavior, it cannot be denied that heredity plays a very large part and that the different racial characteristics are handed on to a greater or lesser degree to following generations. Nobody would dare formulate and propose a plan which could take care of all these different characteristics we may encounter. The condition is merely mentioned here that we may recognize that a definite problem exists which can be met only by a consideration of the immediate circumstances in any given case.
Although we all would like to think that we are the masters in any given situation it must be confessed that our emotions often get the upper hand. A hereditary mode of response to a stimulus which throws the organism for the moment into a chaotic state may be defined as emotional. This state of excitement tends to shade off into conditions of a relatively neutral sort, so that it is difficult to draw the line between emotional and non-emotional states. Anger, fear, hate, love, grief, embarrassment, may suggest the more vivid forms of emotion. There are many theories substantiating the various classifications of emotions but these cannot be described here. A study of any good textbook on the subject will present the idea better than it could be presented here, and this discussion must be confined more to the naval application of these theories. But whatever view we hold on the subject of emotions we must recognize that our emotional life sustains a most important relation to our conduct and character. Forceful characters are usually those with strong normal emotions, meeting the demands of civilization without exaggeration of these emotions. In some emergencies the cool, calm, imperturbable man may meet the situation excellently, but in general he is liable to be an unsympathetic type unable to understand the reactions of others. On the other hand there is the type of man with a very low boiling point. Any little spark at all will start his blowing off steam to the discomfiture of all concerned and to his own disadvantage. We have heard so much of the desirability of coolness in a crisis that unfortunately we are only too eager to believe that a man who is always cool is a great asset. We may have experienced contacts with the type with the low boiling point which serve to intensify this belief. Unfortunately, the man of the former type may be only a clod incapable of any fine emotion, and the man of the latter type is unpleasant because his reaction is exaggerated. Do we know ourselves? Can we truthfully say that our own emotions are normal before we attempt to lead other men by force of our example? Leadership teaches us that we should never give way to anger, that we should never display fear, but situations will arise when these two emotions are the normal reaction. Can we stifle these emotions as leadership would have us do? If the emotions themselves induce a chaotic state in our minds, as they do by definition and experience, how much more chaotic will the situation become as a result of the conflict between the emotions and the mental effort summoned to subdue them! Unless we have some training and knowledge along these lines we must wander in the wilderness, not knowing good from evil. Some reading on the subject of emotions, tending to show their cause and their place in the human scheme of things would help. Perhaps junior officers might fill their journals with reports of such reading, in place of sketches of the salt-water piping, to good avail.
Instincts, emotional and otherwise, play a great part in determining the motives of voluntary conduct. Anger, fear, love, and sympathy are important characters in the play of normal human life. Anger is one of the earliest instincts evidenced by a baby, appearing whenever appetites or desires are thwarted. Fear, like anger, is one of the earliest and most persistent of emotional motives. Love and sympathy sometimes play a predominant part. The emotions constitute an important study. They cannot be ruled out by saying that a good leader does not give way to them.
The leader should not be emotional, nor should he be unemotional. Perhaps, the best specification is that he should be balanced. A man who flies into a rage at the slightest provocation becomes an impossible and antisocial character. A man who can be aroused by no amount of insults is doomed to shame. To describe just what constitutes balance is difficult if not impossible, but it is very easy to discern just when it is missing. This condition may arise either from the exaggeration or suppression of one of the instinctive groups. Before trying to lead others we should, then, analyze ourselves.
The leader is in an excellent position to derive power through the emotions. The train wreck, the great fire, any moment of great emergency produces its heroes out of what would otherwise seem common clay. But in every-day life the leader may enjoy to the utmost the instinct of constructiveness. He derives a profound pleasure from the satisfaction of this instinct when he watches his orders carried into effect, his theories put into practice. In other words the normal man has normal, balanced emotions which should not be strangled nor yet exaggerated.
The problem of the executive is to motivate the men under him by stimulating them and controlling them in the performance of what he wishes done. His chief business, therefore, is “to organize, deputize, and supervise.” The function of deputizing is not the least important, because more than one leader has failed by trying to do everything with his own hands. This fact is often unappreciated and lies at the bottom of many a leader’s trouble. The commanding officer who usurps the duties of the engineer officer must neglect something else of vital importance to find the time for this usurpation. The chief boatswain’s mate who supervises the hoisting of a boat makes a failure of it when he insists on running the winch himself and passing the stoppers. While he is thus busily engaged some seaman second gets his fingers tangled in a block and utter confusion reigns. The leader holds himself aloof from the actual performance of the task in hand, and devotes his efforts to stimulating and controlling the mechanical efforts of others.
This is all very well. We are disposed to accept the foregoing statements with a shrug and a mental note of “old stuff.” It must be borne in mind that the efforts of the executive or leader are only a means to an end. We cannot stop when we have followed out what we consider to be the correct course and assume that our job is done. We cannot shed our responsibility like the boatswain’s mate who “passed the word,” until the desired effect has been produced in our subordinates. We cannot bombastically apply the principles of leadership and expect the results just to happen any more than a mechanic with a sixteen-pound sledge can produce music by striking indiscriminately, albeit forcefully, on the keyboard of a piano. The correct touch is necessary to produce the melody of accomplishment. The executive’s work is only a means to an end; the real substance is in the effect produced upon the subordinates. Therefore we must know how to apply the principles of leadership, and to attain this knowledge we must know ourselves and our own instincts and emotions, in order to understand the reactions of those whom we lead.
A very definite problem confronts the officer who would be a leader—and what officer would not? We should not only be able to understand the normal man but also the abnormal. Consider the following amusing incident. The captain of a destroyer during maneuvers did not believe that the man on the throttle was responding to his signals with the correct number of turns, and he went to the engine-room voice tube himself to ascertain just what was wrong. He rang furiously on the call bell and upon receiving a response from the engine-room shouted, “What are you making?”
“A dollar a day,” came back the immediate response.
No doubt the above answer would seem quite laughable under some circumstances, but it happened that the man who made it was a “queer duck,” always getting into trouble. Should such a reply have been overlooked, laughed off, or made the basis of a more or less serious charge against the throttle man?
The executive must keep in mind that it is his part to release energy stored up in others. He must know how to strike a responsive chord which will produce the melody of concerted action, and not attempt to pound and force upon the exterior. He will usually meet with cooperation, thanks to the sociological fact that Americans are intense believers in activity and effort. To avail one’s self of this cooperation and release the energy lying dormant or poorly concentrated in those whom we lead, many ways are available. The desirability of having a good record, the certainty of reward for labor performed, may be held out to our followers as a means of releasing this energy. Best of all is the well-recognized principle of leadership to be as liberal with public praise as with condemnation. In the words of Professor James, “We are not only gregarious animals liking to be in the sight of our fellows but we have an innate propensity to get ourselves noticed and noticed favorably by our kind.” The true source of organized energy is in the minds of subordinates and we must employ the means which will best release it.
Imitation has its basis in our social structure in that the superior is always imitated by the inferior. Luckily it is a human presumption that whoever holds a position of superiority is really superior, and as such is imitated. There are tremendous possibilities in this one fact which the leader can use to his advantage or disregard to his destruction. It is an elementary hypothesis of leadership and should not be overlooked. The superior must be clothed with a certain amount of prestige in the eyes of his subordinates, and the fact is that the subordinates themselves will build up this prestige from their impressions of the leader. If properly handled they will pick out the fine points and enhance them, and sometimes make quite an improvement on the actual person, in distinguishing between what he actually is and what they think him to be. Such a man will enjoy all the benefits of prestige and be imitated and idealized. But this practice of imitating ruins originality and individuality, it might be said. It is a sad commentary, but only too true, that “most of our mental furniture is borrowed.” We will insist that a certain cigarette does not irritate our throats because, “there isn’t a cough in a carload.” We will insist that another brand satisfies because for years beautiful girls, riding in snappy roadsters under a low swinging moon, have been shouting it to us from billboards and streetcar advertisements. We will all stand up and defend democracy as the best type of government although most of us have never taken the trouble to get authoritative data on the subject. We should not be too jealous of our individuality. Even imitation, however, must be controlled, and controlled through the mind. The executive must first win the minds of his followers before he can enlist the power of imitation on his side, as imitation made compulsory is an empty shell.
In bending many to the will of one, discipline has been and must always be a factor of great importance. Although the more theoretical may claim that more can be accomplished by the elimination of discipline with its attendant threat of punishment, the theory does not hold water when set afloat on the sea of experience. The mailed fist is sometimes indispensable, sheathed though it may be in its velvet glove. But here many an executive encounters tragedy, for discipline is a two-edged sword which must be handled with care. We are all familiar with the rules-of-thumb concerning discipline— that it must be strict, that it must be impartial, that it must be swift and sure. With some men a public dressing down may produce a greater sense of guilt and repentance than hours of extra duty. In some cases it is wise to keep the misdeed quiet. “The organization which apparently runs smoothly by its seeming harmony tends to make these indications a reality.”
Throughout this article intelligent understanding of the situation is emphasized. After all, intelligence may be said to be nothing more than the ability to make an accurate estimate of any given situation and to prosecute the decision adopted to a satisfactory solution. The attempt has been made to get away from the platitudes of leadership, as such, and to suggest an approach to our subject through the province of the mind. We are, in general, too eager to attain the ends to be bothered with the means. We are inclined, if we think of the subject of leading men at all, to accept the experiences of others and the generalization of these experiences, rather than to approach the subject from the ground up. John Dewey says that “it is impossible to form a just estimate of the paralysis of effort that has been produced by indifference to means.” Since we must concede that the leading of men is a mental act rather than a physical one the proper means to secure this end must be mental. We must approach through the mind, first unraveling our own minds and laying them out in logical order where we can see how the pressing of one mental button summons a certain mental response. Understanding ourselves—as nearly as we mortals ever can—we are well on the road to understanding others. Without this understanding we cannot lead intelligently. We can only blunder on, those who are born leaders achieving success, those who are mediocre remaining so, and those who have no conception of the problem doing themselves and the service incalculable harm.
The argument is usually advanced that experience will point the way to success as a leader. But what a shame that this experience must be gained at the expense of real, live specimens, instead of in a laboratory ! Given enough time most of us would make pretty fair seamen, but we are not put in charge of a ship until we have had ample opportunity to obtain the necessary experience by observing others.
It would seem logical that naval officers, who must be leaders and not doers, should get some exposition of the fundamentals of the art of leading, if for no other reason than to suggest a definite line of individual study. Just where in the naval officer’s career this exposition should take place could best be decided by those charged with the responsibility for training officers, but there is no doubt that there is a crying need for it in the Navy today. The mechanics of being a naval officer are amply covered but the psychology is woefully neglected, to the detriment of the organization.
Arms and the Man! They have ever been linked together, and of the two the Man is the more important. Man himself is a complicated mechanism which does not follow the ordinary laws of mechanics. Man is the only mechanism in the Navy which is not duly analyzed and described in bureau instructions. Man is a complicated mechanism, but a group of men is an even more complicated mechanism. Arms and the Man! Let us not forget the Man!