American Generalship: Character Is Everything: The Art of Command

摘要

In American Generalship, Edgar E Puryear aims to define and explain leadership as practiced by general officers from George Washington to Colin Powell. He builds a useful and highly readable leadership primer filled with historical examples and anecdotes that enable the reader to "hear" top commanders discuss their own experiences.rnPuryear's premise is that military members can learn effective leadership skills and techniques from studying what has made great generals successful and what has characterized their styles and philosophies. Military-management studies frequently compare business practices to military ones and try to distill applicable lessons. Uniquely, this book provides hundreds of concrete examples of military officers exercising leadership in situations with which every officer and noncommissioned officer will identify. The author proudly mentions that he has gathered over 10,000 pieces of correspondence and interviews with more than 1,000 general and flag officers, including 100 four-stars. Among those he has interviewed are legends such as Dwight Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, Matthew Ridgway, Carl Spaatz, Jimmy Doolitde, and Curtis LeMay, granting rare insight into their decision making—not only on major issues of war and peace but also on matters they faced as junior and field-grade officers. Puryear's ability to weave highlights from these discussions into his narrative is compelling, and he relates them in an engaging manner. In addition, he cites examples from Civil War memoirs and great American soldiers who lived before he began his study. He does not deal in esoteric management theories but repeatedly strikes his target with practical examples of military officers confronted with the real challenges of leadership. Most of what his subjects cite is neither battlefield bravado nor the genius many of them displayed as combat leaders, but the hard decisions made by commanders at every level and by program directors as well as section chiefs, doing the everyday work of the military.