Grassroots Leadership: U.S. Military Academy

But understand this too: There's more to the story. The academy's complex and arcane education hangs on an intriguing tension. Think of it, as West Point's own leaders do, in terms of Athens and Sparta. The structure, the monotonous regime, the rote memorization -- that's Sparta, and it's important. Yet West Point also nurtures creativity and flexibility -- the Athens.

In the chaos of battle, as in business, leaders can't expect to stick to a fixed plan. They depend on the predictable competence of their subordinates (instilled by all of that training) as well as on their own judgment. Military officers are given orders, but how they get the job done is up to them. "Everything that happens at West Point serves a question," says Ed Ruggero, a 1980 graduate and the author of Duty First: West Point and the Making of American Leaders (HarperCollins, 2001): "How do you develop an organization that can thrive amid constant change?"

"This is a unique world, where everyone is trying to develop you," says David Sattelmeyer, a senior, or "firstie," and a battalion commander, one of the highest-ranking cadet positions. "You're constantly watching others to see what works. And people are constantly looking at you. The place keeps pushing you." Everyone is following, and nearly everyone is leading, all the time. Everyone is evaluated -- all the time. Every action is taken as an opportunity to learn.

Leadership Lessons (II)

"I had a former roommate who committed an honor-code violation. When he told me what he'd done, I didn't bat an eye. I reported him. Not because I didn't care about him; I cared deeply. But I knew that the principle was more important than his being given a second chance. I was 18, and I realized that my first responsibility was to the principle of honor."
--John Grisillo, '87, president, Compass Group

The Leadership Formula: Knowing, Doing, Being

"People say you can't change someone," says Lieutenant Colonel Scott Snook, "but we're privileged here. We have some of the best and brightest potential in this country, and we have them for 47 months, 24-7. We got 'em at night, on weekends, all summer long."

He is not boasting, exactly. He is marveling at the opportunity. "We have them when they're 18, which is a crucial moment," says Snook, who graduated from West Point in 1980. "They're ripe for change. Not only do we have them, but we're also empowered to change them. The country asks us to change who they are!"

Back in rural Pennsylvania, where he grew up, Snook wanted to be a doctor. To his own surprise, he has stuck with the Army for 21 years since his cadet days. He was the executive officer of a company in Grenada, where he was wounded by friendly fire. He earned an MBA and a PhD in organizational behavior at Harvard, where he returns regularly to teach in executive programs.

Snook now heads West Point's Office of Policy, Planning, and Analysis. His mandate is to confront the academy's well-worn apparatus for leadership development and to seek a scientific basis for a system that's rooted in experience and inertia: Why are things done the way they are? What works? How does it work? Could it work better?

The first Army leadership manual, written 25 years ago, coined the expression "Be, know, do." It was a neat summation of how effective leaders operate, but it also pointed to the central challenge of leadership development. The capacity for "knowing" and "doing" is relatively easy to build up in a student. It's a function of education and training, which is what most universities are good at.

But knowledge and skills are perishable -- both because they're not applied all the time and because they can become outdated. It's the "be" piece -- your self-concept, your values, your ethical makeup, who you are -- that lasts. That's what consumes Snook: What does it mean to be an officer? And how can West Point shape the "be" piece for each of its 4,000 cadets?

Snook really loves this stuff. West Point has devised a mechanism, perhaps unwittingly, that forces 18-year-olds to grow up. Cadets advance by confronting moral ambiguity, by resolving competing claims on their identity. That's how you get at the "be" piece. "We don't know if we have it right," Snook says. "But it happens through experiences, if you're passionately involved. And bottom line, the sorts of experiences that change you are those that get you out of your comfort zone.

"Sometimes," Snook continues, "the biggest window for changing someone's self-concept opens when he fails. That's a fundamentally different way of thinking about development. It might be when he fails a course for the first time in his life or when he commits an honor-code violation. When that happens, he's open to self-reflection."