An admiring contemporary spoke of Paul G. Hoffman, the director of the European Recovery Program, as "the kind of man who if tossed through the air would always pick out the right trapeze."
Within any military organization, there is always a number of such men, enlisted and commissioned. They know how and where to take hold, even in the face of a totally unexpected and unnerving situation, and they have what amounts to an instinct for doing the right thing in a decisive moment.
If it were not so, no captain of the line would ever be able to manage a company in battle, and no submarine commander would be able to cope with an otherwise overwhelming danger. These men are the foundation of unit integrity. The successful life of organization depends upon husbanding, and helping them to cultivate, their own powers, which means that their initiative and vigor must never be chilled by supercilious advice and thoughtless correction.
They will go ahead and act responsibly on their own when given the confidence, and if they want it, the friendship, of their commander. But they cannot be treated like little children. The lash will ruin them and the curb will merely subdue that which needs to be brought forward. As in handling a horse with a good temper and a good mouth, nothing more is needed than that gentle touch of the rein which signals that things are under control.
From where the executive sits, the main secret of building strength within organization comes of identifying such men, and of associating one's authority with theirs, so it is unmistakable in whose name they are speaking and acting. One of the acid tests of qualification in officership is the ability properly to delegate authority, to put it in the best hands, and thereafter to uphold them. If an officer cannot do that, and if he is mistrustful of all power save his own, he cannot command in peace, and when he goes into battle, his unit strength will fragment like an exploding bomb, and the parts will not be rewelded until some stronger character takes hold.
Command is not a prerogative, but rather a responsibility to be shared with all who are capable of filling up the spaces in orders and of carrying out that which is not openly expressed though it may be understood. Admittedly, it is not easy for a young officer, who by reason of his youth is not infrequently lacking in self-assurance and in the confidence that he can command respect, to understand that as a commander he can grow in strength in the measure that he succeeds in developing the latent strength of his subordinates. But if he stubbornly resists this premise as he goes along in the service, his personal resources will never become equal to the strain which will be imposed upon him, come a war emergency. The power to command resides largely in the ability to see when a proper initiative is being exercised and in giving it moral encouragement. When an officer feels that way about his job and his men, he will not be ready to question any action by a junior which might be narrowly construed as an encroachment upon his own authority. Of this last evil come the restraints which reduce men to automatons, giving only that which is asked, or less, according to the pressing of a button.
There are other men who have as sound a potential as these already-made leaders, but lack the initial confidence because they were not constructively handled in earlier years. They require somewhat more personal attention, for the simple reason that more frequent contact with their superiors, words of approval and advice as needed, will do more than all else to put bottom under them. They must be encouraged to think for themselves as well as to obey orders, to organize as well as to respond, if they are to become part of the solution, rather than remaining part of the problem, of command. If left wholly to their own devices, or to the ministrations of less thoughtful subordinates, they will remain in that majority which moves only when told. It takes no more work, though it does require imagination, to awaken the energies of such men by appealing to their intelligence and their self-interest, than to nauseate them with dull theory, and to cramp them by depriving them of responsibility.
Careful missionary work among these "sleepers" is as productive as spading the ground, and sprinkling a garden patch. When an officer takes hold in a new unit, his main chance of making it better than it was comes of looking for the overlooked men. He uses his hand to give them a firm lift upward, but it will not be available for that purpose if he spends any of his time tugging at men who are already on their feet and moving in the right general direction.
In the words of a distinguished armored commander in our forces: "To the military leader, men are tools. He is successful to the extent that he can get the men to work for him. Ordinarily, and on their own initiative, people run on only 35 percent capacity. The success of a leader comes of tapping the other 65 percent." This is a pretty seasoned judgment on men in the mass, taking them as they come, the mobile men, the slow starters, the indifferent and the shiftless. Almost every man wants to do what is expected of him. When he does not do so, it is usually because his instructions have been so doubtful as to befog him or give him a reasonable excuse for noncompliance. This view of things is the only tenable attitude an officer or enlisted leader can take toward his subordinates. He will recognize the exceptions, and if he does not then take appropriate action, it is only because he is himself shiftless and is compassionate toward others of his own fraternity.
It is the military habit to "plow deep in broken drums and shoot crap for old crowns," as the poet, Carl Sandburg, put it. As much as any other profession, and even possibly a little more, we take pride in the pat solution, and in proof that long-applied processes amply meet the test of newly unfolding experience. But despite all the jests about the Gettysburg Map, we wouldn't know where we're going if we couldn't be reasonably sure of where we've been.