“Everything in war is simple, but the simple things are difficult.” .— Clausewitz.Leadership..It seems to be a rarity these days. Along with common sense — that too seems uncommon..I don’t know about you, but when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appears on television news, offering his ill-conceived take on the issue of the day, it just turns my stomach. I want to scream..As one of my friends, Bullitt Bob, recently told me, at one time, say, 30 years ago he was proud to be Canadian, very proud..But today, that pride has been greatly diminished, if not, entirely diminished..And a lot of that has to do with bad leadership and bad decisions..He admitted to me, that, back in the day, he fully backed efforts to keep Quebec in Canada. That, he told me, is now a great regret..And I’m afraid to say I feel the same way. We should have let them go on their own, and let them finance their own way. So long, and thanks for the fish! Nothing personal, of course..Today, some might even say Quebec has fully achieved Sovereignty Association, and, we are paying for it. In the way of billions and billions and billons of bilingual dollars, in transfer fees over several decades..Yet this very province spits in our face, when we ask it for help — to build a pipeline that would be a boon for the entire country..But getting back to leadership. Where did it all go wrong? Why did it go wrong? Why can’t our politicians do anything right? And why do we always end up with losers?.Over the weekend, I got an inkling … a glimmer of light of what true leadership is. What it could be. In a perfect world..And it came from retired US Admiral William McCraven, who was being interviewed on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS..He was plugging his latest book, The Wisdom of the Bullfrog, Leadership Made Simple but Not Easy..Among the many titles he's had is bullfrog, an honour given to the Navy SEAL who has served the longest amount of time on active duty. . Navy Seals in actionNavy Seals in action .McCraven was honoured with the title in 2011 when he had 34 years of service in the SEALs and took over Special Operations command. .Among his claims to fame was overseeing Operation Neptune Spear to capture infamous Al-Qaeda terrorist, Osama Bin Laden. Yet McCraven remains humble, in both literal and personal terms when it comes to sharing his wisdom.. Osama Bin LadenOsama Bin Laden .“I was never the smartest guy in the room, so it was easy for me to write this book on leadership coming from that point of view,” he told Zakaria. .“What I found in the great leaders that I served for, and I was fortunate to serve with, a number of great leaders over my time in the military. And, and since then, it's really about the quality of the man and woman.”.“The character and the sense of integrity, the sense of trust. Can you trust this leader?” .“And that doesn't mean you have to be the smartest person in the room, but you have to listen to the rank and file. You have to be a servant leader in the sense that, you want to make the team successful.”.Unlike our dear, fearless leader, who not only thinks he’s the smartest man in the country, but admonishes any poor soul who dares to disagree or offer a different view, especially when it comes to freedom of any kind..McCraven continues: “If you think as a leader that it's all about you, then you're probably not the right person to be the leader.”.Amen to that. And how amazingly true is that..”What the book does is, I've taken about 18 mottos and creeds from the military over the last thousand years,” he explained. “And I've used those as guides for people when they're having leadership challenges.”.“So, you know, the SEAL motto is ‘The only easy day was yesterday.’ And the implication there is, look, if you think all your hard days are behind you as a leader, you're mistaken.”.“Every day is gonna be hard. So come to work prepared to bring it, prepared to do the hard work. The British SAS have a saying called, ‘Who Dares wins.’ And it's about assuming risk, taking risk.” .“It's important to take risk, personal risk, professional risk, but you want it to be calculated risk.”.This too, is lacking in our Great White North politicians. .Let’s face it, they lack balls, they do. And if they fail, they blame everyone else. Someone else gets tossed under the bus. And nothing ever gets done or accomplished..Look at all the scandals of the Trudeau government — when did Trudeau ever take responsibility, for any one of them. If anything, he’s mastered the art of ducking responsibility..McCraven explains, that the one thing they never show in action movies, is that three quarters of the time, Navy SEALs are working on a whiteboard, planning and rehearsing. .“It doesn't make for a good movie,” he said, “but if you don't plan the risk out of it, if you don't rehearse the risk out of it, then you're gonna fail on the mission.”.”You've got to be prepared to take those risks, or you're, you're just never gonna make that leap in life that, that you need to make to be a great leader, or a great person.”.All wise words, of course, that’s why during the Bin Laden raid, having a Plan B and Plan C was crucial, he explained..”As you know, Plan A did not work out so well. I mean, as soon as the first helicopter came in, it lost lift and careened off into an animal pen … and the second helicopter landed outside the compound.” .“So all of a sudden, the entire plan that we had built Plan A had gone to hell in a hand basket. .“Now we had to execute plan B and plan C and plan D, and, but we had planned accordingly. So we were prepared to flex as we needed to in order to accomplish the mission.” .As for the loss of respect for values in the wake of President Donald Trump’s America, McCraven didn’t mince words..”I think people still value honour and integrity, at least the people that I spend time with. I know they do. And we should expect it from our leaders.” .“Whether it's leaders you know, or the president of the United States, or whether it's leaders at the state or the local level. We should expect our leaders to be men and women of good character.” .“They should be trustworthy. They should listen to the people that they serve.” .“This is what's important in leadership. And again, the great leaders I've worked for in the past have shown this character. This has been the most important quality of any leader, is integrity.”.Integrity. Imagine that. If only … .As they say in Indonesia, water from the moon.
