Gates: We Need Good Leaders

Good leadership is essential to any organization, but for many reasons it is often overlooked or never attained by groups that need it the most, said former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates during an address Wednesday at Texas A&M University, where he served as president for more than four years.

Gates, who served as Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush and Barack Obama from 2006 to 2011, focused on his new book, A Passion for Leadership: Lessons on Change and Reform From 50 Years of Public Service, speaking at the William Waldo Cameron Forum on Public Affairs, sponsored by the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation.

Good leadership, Gates said, is a critical component of any organization and is especially needed in government.

“I worked for some very good leaders, and some who were not so good,” Gates recalled on his 50 years of government service, which included a 26-year stint at the CIA and his eventual heading of the world’s largest intelligence agency.

“One of the key things a very good leader does is to get the support of the people in the trenches. Getting the respect of career employees goes a long way.

“It also means giving people the tools they need to do their job, and showing them that the leader cares about them as more than just employees.”

He said that such presidential candidates as Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders “have tapped into the frustrations of many Americans. Some of these candidates tell us over and over how government does not function, but it seems like they practice scream therapies more than anything else.” One of the biggest problems facing large organizations, such as government agencies, is one of bureaucracy and the troubles it can create, he noted.

“Bureaucracy affects everything we do, from the house where we live, to what we eat, what we drive, how we live,” Gates said. “I have had to register a car in the state of Virginia, and I can tell you it was one of the most unpleasant experiences anyone will ever have.

“Bureaucracy has long tentacles.  Look at recent examples – 9-11, where we had a long line of intelligence failures that it was about to happen; the 2008 financial crisis; Hurricane Katrina and superstorm Sandy; the failures dealing with the Ebola crisis; the launch of the Obamacare health website; Flint, Michigan and its drinking water troubles – all of these showing the arrogance and failures of that bureaucracies can bring.

“I just came from Washington D.C. and because of the recent blizzard, it is paralyzed – just like it was before the storm hit.”

Gates, who has been elected President of the Boy Scouts of America, and served as  chancellor of the College of William & Mary from which he graduated in 1965 with a degree in history before earning graduate degrees at Indiana University and Georgetown, says young people today “need a series of mentors who will guide them and keep teaching them.

“You learn as much from bad bosses as you do from good ones,” he added.

“I told some cadets at West Point recently that all of you will have to serve under some people one day who are a real jackass, and it’s true. But you can learn what not to do.”

Gates cited some examples of good mentors he had, such as William Webster, former CIA and FBI head; Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Advisor; and Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor under Jimmy Carter “who always referred to me as his colleague, not his aide or his assistant, and that meant a lot to me,” Gates noted.

He also praised former President George Bush, saying the 41^st president “knew how to treat people, with kindness and respect. He treated White House staff and workers in the same way he treated foreign leaders. He asked about their families and children and took an interest in each one of them.”

Referring to his days as president of Texas A&M (“I still say it’s the best job I ever had”), Gates said his proudest accomplishment was emphasizing diversity at the school, and the increasing of minority students from 10 percent to 28 percent while he was there and many first-generation students received their Aggie diplomas, and “one of the best to help in the diversity work was R.C. Slocum,” Gates said, referring to the university’s former head football coach.

When asked about the situation in the Middle East, Gates said, “I have to say I am pessimistic. I see no easy solutions there, especially in Syria, and I believe we will have violence and turmoil in the region for the next 25 years.”