I learned that leadership is hard. Karl von Clausewitz once said that “everything in war is easy, but the easy things are difficult.” Leadership sounds easy in the books, but it is quite difficult in real life. I learned that leadership is difficult because it is a human interaction and nothing, nothing is more daunting, more frustrating more complex than trying to lead cadets in tough times. Those leaders that do it well earn your respect, because doing it poorly is common place. You will be challenged to do it well.
I learned that taking care of cadets is not about coddling them. It is about challenging them. Establishing a standard of excellence and holding them accountable for reaching it.
Rudyard Kipling, the great British storyteller, poet and soldier once wrote, in part,
“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you.
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowances for their doubting too.
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two imposters just the same.
Yours is the earth and everything that’s in it and which is more–you’ll be a man my son.”
If you can’t stomach failure, then you will never be a great leader.
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