James Mattis: Leadership in times of crisis | Guest Opinion
President John F. Kennedy once wrote, “When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.” Today, our world and our nation face a time of crisis unparalleled in most of our lifetimes.
On Thursday, June 18, from noon to 1 p.m., the Columbia Basin Badger Club will present a virtual forum, “Leadership in a Time of Crisis,” featuring former Secretary of Defense Gen. James M. Mattis, who knows more than a little about leadership and times of crisis. The online forum will be free and open to the public.
Mattis is a native of Richland. He graduated from Central Washington State University in 1972 and went on to serve more than 40 years in the Marine Corps.
He led increasingly larger commands in the Gulf War and Afghanistan and the 1st Marine Division during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
He later served as NATO Supreme Allied Commander, and as the Commander of U.S. Central Command comprised of 250,000 U.S. and allied troops serving across the Middle East and South Asia.
Retiring in 2013, he was a Davies Family Scholar at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He subsequently served as the 26th Secretary of Defense from January 2017 through December 2018 under President Trump.
Since leaving the government, Mattis co-authored the book “Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead.”
Many of us are being called upon to lead during this time of pandemic and economic crisis, whether it is at home, our business, our institutions or our government. What are the lessons of leadership from the past to keep in mind as we try to cope with fast-changing conditions and a flood of new information, much of it suspect? What tools should we utilize to adapt to these changing conditions and threats? Mattis will provide his insights on these and other important questions.
Mattis was once asked how history influenced his leadership. He responded, “I think that the biggest challenge we face in all the Western democracies — not just America — is that we don't study history in a way that we can apply it. There's too much of a short-term view.”
Mattis has said, “A leader’s job is to clearly set the vision.”
After resigning as Secretary of Defense, he was asked if looking back on his career from 9/11 to the time of his resignation if civilian leaders — and ultimately the people of the U.S .— had provided him with that clear vision.
He replied, “Well, probably not in all cases. And I wouldn't expect perfection. I'd leave perfection to God. I think we still have got to have a more rigorous establishing of strategy, a more clearly enunciated policy, something we can sustain from Republicans to Democrats, and from Democrats to Republicans as we did during the Cold War.”
The Columbia Basin Badger Club is holding virtual forums during the pandemic. Registration to receive the Zoom link is required at columbiabasinbadgers.com
C. Mark Smith is program chairman of the Columbia Basin Badger Club. He spent 40 years managing economic development organizations at the federal, state, and local level and is the author or co-author of five books on history and biography including, Something Extraordinary: A short history of the Manhattan Project, Hanford and the B Reactor.
This story was originally published June 15, 2020 at 12:47 PM with the headline "James Mattis: Leadership in times of crisis | Guest Opinion."