Leadership for Intelligence Professionals   

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates emphasized to students at the Army War College that:

…General Marshall in particular is a worthy role model. In late 1917, during World War I, US military staff in France was conducting a combat exercise for the American Expeditionary Force. General Pershing was in a foul mood. He dismissed critiques from one subordinate after another and stalked off. But then-Captain Marshall took the arm of the four-star general, turned him around, and told him how the problems they were having resulted from not receiving a necessary manual from the American headquarters—Pershing’s headquarters. The commander said, “Well, you know, we have our problems.” Marshall replied, “Yes, I know you do, General, but ours are immediate and every day and have to be solved before night.”

After the meeting, Marshall was approached by other officers offering condolences for the fact he was sure to be fired and sent off to the front line. Instead Marshall became a valued adviser to Pershing, and Pershing a valued mentor to Marshall.

Twenty years later, then-General Marshall was sitting in the White House with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his top advisers and Cabinet secretaries. War in Europe was looming but still a distant possibility for an isolated America. In that meeting, President Roosevelt proposed that the US Army, which at that time was ranked in size somewhere between that of Switzerland and Portugal, should be the lowest priority for funding. FDR’s advisers all nodded. Building an army could wait.  

President Roosevelt, looking for the military’s imprimatur to his decision, said, “Don’t you think so, George?” General Marshall, who hated being called by his first name, said, “I’m sorry, Mr. President, I don’t agree with that at all.” The room went silent. The Treasury Secretary told General Marshall afterwards, “Well, it’s been nice knowing you.” It was not too much later that General Marshall was named Army Chief of Staff.

But, General Marshall did not just speak out to his seniors.  He insisted that his subordinates speak out to him. He is said to have told General Wedemeyer and, probably, others on his staff, including General Eisenhower: “Don’t ever fail to give me your unequivocal expression of your views. You would do me a disservice if you did otherwise.” General Perry Smith says that, later, Eisenhower’s number one rule of Leadership was “no non-concurrence through silence”.

Sources

-Robert Gates “Reflections on Leadership” in Parameters Summer 2008.

-Col. Paul G. Munch, USA “General Marshall and the Army Staff,” Miitary  Review, August 1994.

-Perry Smith Rules and Tools for Leaders