Thank you Robert! Entertaining, illuminating and fascinating. Needs reading again I feel and I need to buy 'Generals' now - then read in conjunction with Al Murray's new book on leadership perhaps. I love the lessons you lay out for those that want them and I intend to circulate this to many within my organisation to inspire innovative and novel thinking linked back to the key tenets laid out here. What strikes me mostly is the balance between luck, innate and instinctive ability and being in the right place at the right time for the right job - oh and of course, the 'say do gap' like Stilwell! I personally warm to O'Connor and his stellar advance in the desert to capture so many Italians and nearly push them out - and then his unfortunate capture after Rommel's arrival - but then after escaping to go on to lead a Corps in Normandy and Market Garden.
Excellent article Rob - so informative and yet so easy to read. Thanks!
Thank you Robert! Entertaining, illuminating and fascinating. Needs reading again I feel and I need to buy 'Generals' now - then read in conjunction with Al Murray's new book on leadership perhaps. I love the lessons you lay out for those that want them and I intend to circulate this to many within my organisation to inspire innovative and novel thinking linked back to the key tenets laid out here. What strikes me mostly is the balance between luck, innate and instinctive ability and being in the right place at the right time for the right job - oh and of course, the 'say do gap' like Stilwell! I personally warm to O'Connor and his stellar advance in the desert to capture so many Italians and nearly push them out - and then his unfortunate capture after Rommel's arrival - but then after escaping to go on to lead a Corps in Normandy and Market Garden.
A great read indeed. I read 'somewhere' that soldiers of every nation like to see dead generals in war and don't really care whose side they were on.
Were the British the only ones to give their generals titles like 'Uncle' Bill Slim, 'Uncle' Frank Messervy, 'Daddy' Warren for example