Sailing True North

by James Stavridis

  In the course of my career, I have seen many Francis Drakes in the ranks of the Admiralty in the sense of overdriving their subordinates. Very, very rarely have I encountered someone who has the self-discipline to impose sufficient internal discipline so that their own level of intensity is matched by their team. In one example, this led to a two-star admiral ultimately being fired; yet I judged he was no harder on his sailors than he was on himself. Today’s gentler world increasingly does not permit the kind of harsh imposition of maximum discipline on the team, and we are better for it. So as we examine the role of both discipline and self-discipline in character, we see that the ability to effectively incorporate a regime of discipline in an organization begins—as do so many things—within ourselves. Our level of self-discipline—all things in moderation, nothing in excess, a calm demeanor, a strong work ethic—is the enabler that permits effective discipline throughout any organization.

  As with many leaders, the outlines of Drake’s later successes were not always apparent in his early exploits. Most of those, frankly, resulted in failure or near-failure: he abandoned his cousin, narrowly evaded the Spanish, and even struggled to turn profits in his early days as a pirate. It was hardly an auspicious beginning. Despite these failures, Drake did what great leaders do: he kept going, and—most important—he kept learning. Soon after striking out on his own, he realized that weakness and waffling were likely to be hazardous to a pirate’s health and fortunes; though he probably overlearned that particular lesson, he soon reinvented himself as an extraordinarily disciplined and decisive leader.

  All leaders must keep learning and growing throughout their lives and careers, and many—including many of the most successful—learn most through struggle and failure. Had Drake not found a style that allowed him to become a successful pirate, he might never have succeeded in his round-the-world voyage, which required still-greater discipline. This is an important lesson not only for individuals but also for organizations. Knowing that even the best people make mistakes, the best organizations find ways to help competent people learn and improve from failures.

  This was particularly true for me on my very first ship, USS Hewitt. I was never a good natural ship handler. The first few times I attempted to drive the ship in a complex formation, I nearly managed to collide with a fellow destroyer, and as a joke, the next time I took the conn the watch team of a dozen sailors came to the ship’s bridge wearing life jackets. This hardly improved my self-confidence. But I persevered by a combination of watching other, better, ship handlers; studying the classic books of the trade (several of which I later edited); and learning that in the end, so much of driving a ship is a combination of basic confidence and what is essentially eye-mind coordination—you have to watch the hull moving and constantly adjust your steering and motor commands. Driving a car is eye-hand coordination; driving a ship is eye-mind: two very different things. It took me the better part of three years, but by the end of my first tour, I was nominated by our commodore for the top ship handler in the Pacific Fleet, beating out nominees from a half dozen other destroyers—I didn’t win it, but at least nobody was wearing a life jacket when I took the conn of the ship. Perseverance saved me, and it is a habit of character that can be developed as we sail along in life.

  In modern terms, Drake was a master of successful personal branding—and his brand was at heart one of ruthless boldness. In his mind (and in the view of the English leadership and public), looting Spanish outposts and Catholic churches were not the acts of a simple brigand, but of a patriot striking bold blows for queen and country. As he grew wealthier, he also cultivated a story of historical connections to the nobility. Always quick with a bon mot and a good story and never overburdened by strict adherence to the truth, he bragged that his raid on Cádiz had “singed the King of Spain’s beard” and consistently maintained a reputation that far outstripped the reality of his accomplishments. Through what we would call “strategic communications” today, Drake sold himself as a bold sea warrior in everything he did.

  What made Drake successful in establishing his brand of boldness was a sustained pattern of seizing the initiative—“Fortune favors the bold” as the saying goes. He matched deeds to his words more often than not, although there was certainly an element of embellishment throughout. However, the great yarn of Drake’s life continued to spin even after his death, and—largely truthful in terms of his character—continued as well to inspire future generations of British seafarers. Centuries later, the great maritime strategist Julian Corbett wrote one of the most popular biographies of the first great English admiral; today, Drake’s beard-singeing comment has its own Wikipedia page. Boldness has many salutary qualities, especially when linked to a compelling strategic narrative that inspires others.

  Oddly, I have found today’s military far less bold than the public at large might think. As a newly selected one-star admiral in the days immediately after 9/11, I was charged with running a tactical and strategic think tank called Deep Blue, an homage to IBM’s big computer and to the ocean itself. The Pentagon still smelled of smoke, and we were all desperate to get the Navy into the new fight. I was specifically chartered to develop “bold new ideas” for the Navy in the recently-named Global War on Terror. We came up with lots of ideas: a new structure for the old blue-water battle groups that made them more lethal in the littorals striking terror groups ashore; forward afloat staging bases at sea for special forces; increased rotation of ship hulls into the emerging combat zones; and many others. We thought they were bold, but many in the Admiralty thought them crazy. The chief of naval operations supported us, and our ideas went forward—some were better than others. But what I learned was the built-in tendency of the very hierarchical Navy to push back on the new and the bold.

  As always in life, a character trait like boldness can simultaneously be your greatest strength and your greatest weakness. The trick is using it to inspire others, challenge your assumptions, and move with alacrity when it makes sense. In this regard, I am in awe of the Navy SEAL community. Contrary to the public’s view of them as a “let’s just wing it” culture, they are, by far, the most meticulous planners in the military. What they do so effectively is couple pure operational brilliance with deep planning—and cap it with a bold approach. That is the kind of boldness that most often wins in the most dangerous of settings: a bold approach aligned with thoughtful analysis. Left untethered, as Drake’s boldness sometimes seemed to be, this is a character trait that can do more harm than good. Finding the balance is the key to employing boldness as a good quality of character.

  So, what is the legacy of character of that pirate, knight, leader, and adventurer Sir Francis Drake? Many victories in combat, national accolades and honors, great wealth at times, and a fierce reputation as a courageous warrior are all part of his memory. But there is a dark and sinister aura that haunts his legacy, and always will—the needless cruelty, the burning of cities and the killing of civilians, the harsh treatment of his own sailors who cowered before him. Though there is much to admire about Drake, in the end the lessons of character we take away from him are principally of the things we should simply avoid doing. Sometimes the best lessons we can study are indeed those we should not repeat: that is the case with Sir Francis Drake. Not the legacy to be wished, and of all the admirals in this volume he would be the least admirable, pun intended.

  CHAPTER IV

  The Band of Brothers

  Vice Admiral Lord Viscount Horatio Nelson

  BORN SEPTEMBER 29, 1758, BURNHAM THORPE, UNITED KINGDOM

  DIED OCTOBER 21, 1805, CAPE TRAFALGAR, ABOARD HMS VICTORY

  The worst night I ever spent at sea as a ship’s captain was, ironically, close to land. It was in the so-called chops of the channel, the western sea approaches to the United Kingdom near the mouth of the English Channel, in the summer of 1993. Visibility was almost nonexistent in a whipping gale, and my ship—a nine-thousand-ton dest
royer, hardly a small vessel—was seriously battered as we crashed into the wind and seas. I spent most of the night on the bridge of the ship, anxiously scanning the horizon and holding on for dear life while most of my crew were violently seasick. It was a hard, hard night.

  I was a young sea captain in my late thirties in command at sea for the first time of the USS Barry, a brand-new Arleigh Burke–class guided missile destroyer on its maiden cruise. We had left our home port of Norfolk, Virginia, late that spring, and were headed for a much-anticipated first overseas port call in Portsmouth, England. I was very excited to be pulling into Portsmouth, because it would afford me my first opportunity to tour HMS Victory, the flagship of my idol and hero, Royal Navy Vice Admiral Lord Viscount Horatio Nelson. Throughout the long night of hammering storms in the channel, I consoled myself with the thought that soon I’d be walking on the decks of the oldest commissioned warship in the British navy, which served as Nelson’s flagship at the scene of his greatest triumph at Trafalgar. It was also the scene of his untimely death in combat, and thus especially sacred ground to the Royal Navy.

  I idolized Nelson for several reasons, starting with the fact that he was a man of very normal height—about five-feet-five or so, which coincidentally is my height. More important, I deeply admired his understated style of leadership, especially with his subordinate sea captains; his true compassion and concern for his enlisted crews; and his deep, instinctive love of country. Naturally, I was well aware of some of his personal flaws and failings, including an adulterous affair with Lady Emma Hamilton and a well-honed love of publicity. But on balance, his was a character and style of leadership that appealed to me deeply, and almost immediately after we finally made it to Portsmouth, having recovered from our rough approach, I literally bounded across the ancient dockyard and up the gangplank of Victory to pay my respects.

  Over subsequent decades, I returned to Victory many times and was privileged when I was a four-star admiral myself to be guest of honor at dinners held in Nelson’s shipboard cabin. On one of those occasions, my host—Britain’s first sea lord, the equivalent of our chief of naval operations and the overall commander of the British navy—presented me with a beautiful pen stand made from wood taken from HMS Victory. In that pen stand today I keep a fountain pen made from the timbers of the US equivalent of Victory, our own beautiful nineteenth-century (and still commissioned) warship Constitution. These two ships, paired up so naturally in the American pen and the British pen stand, represent to me the deep, abiding, and indeed special relationship between our nations.

  But above all, to know and study Lord Nelson is to sail into big and important questions about character, personality, and leadership. And doing so affords the chance to learn and improve how we navigate our own voyage of character. On the shelves of my library today are nearly a dozen biographies of the admiral, and each of them provides a different insight or two into a unique, powerful, and historic figure. I am immeasurably grateful to him for his example in so many ways. So, who was he and what can we learn from him?

  Born weak and sickly, Horatio Nelson was hardly a giant among men: as I mentioned above, he stood at most five and a half feet in his stockings. Slight of build, and eventually missing both an arm and an eye lost in combat, he was also afflicted with seasickness and other illnesses on and off throughout his life. An adulterer and a rebellious subordinate in a navy that prized loyalty above all things, he hardly seems to the modern observer to be the type of leader who would be remembered two centuries after his death in battle. But his “immortal memory” (to which Royal Navy sailors offer a toast each year) is exactly that, and most naval officers of any nation would immediately name him as among the very best sea warriors in history.

  He was born in 1758 to a modestly prosperous family in Norfolk, East Anglia, and sponsored into the navy at the age of thirteen, following the traditional course of on-the-job training as a very young midshipman. Nelson rapidly ascended the Royal Navy’s ranks, and by 1778 was in command of his first ship. He fought well in the battles of the American Revolution and began to develop a service-wide reputation for both personal bravery and tactical acumen. As a young midshipman, he was always small for his age, and suffered the usual abuses of the system; however, his native intelligence and leadership gifts began to emerge early, even in the midshipman’s berth. He was acknowledged as a fine seaman (the sine qua non of the British maritime hierarchy) and “learned the ropes” with great rapidity.

  Nelson also started to formulate the philosophical approach that would ultimately make him an international success: building coherent, seamless teams of subordinates bound together by competence and loyalty to him as a peerless commander. As he would famously write from the decks of HMS Victory to each of his captains before the Battle of Trafalgar, “. . . in case Signals [flag hoists used to signal friendly ships about their orders] can neither be seen or perfectly understood, no Captain can do very wrong if he places his Ship alongside that of an Enemy.” He had the luxury of writing in such a spirit of independence because he knew intimately the quality of the officers under his command and had trained and bonded them together personally. Ironically, that signal—almost as famous as the one he would craft calling on every man to do his duty—implies a premium on independent action. While Nelson favored such independence, his greatest gift was building teams, the “band of brothers” in the term coined by Shakespeare in Henry V. No British commander in history is more respected for pure leadership than Nelson.

  After the American Revolution, like many of his brother officers, he was sent ashore and languished there until the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars at the end of the eighteenth century. He returned to sea and fought in a series of minor battles against the French revolutionary navy, continuing to burnish his reputation. By 1797, he ascended to command of the major warship HMS Captain, and fought in a major battle at Cape St. Vincent under the command of Admiral Sir John (later Lord) Jervis, who became a strong patron and personal supporter. Throughout this period, he not only consistently demonstrated the skills of seamanship and war fighting that defined his professional reputation, but also displayed a skilled ability to find and impress mentors like Jervis. No British admiral could rise to the heights of command without skill both bureaucratically ashore as well as at sea.

  During the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, another part of the Nelson legend was cemented in history when he chose not to precisely follow the signaled orders from Admiral Jervis but used his own initiative to do what he knew was tactically most optimal. He said later, “The Admiral [Jervis] made the signal to ‘tack in succession’; but I, perceiving the Spanish Ships all to bear up before the wind, or nearly so, evidently with the intention of forming their line going large, joining their separated Division, at that time engaged with some of our centre [sic] Ships, or flying from us—to prevent either of their schemes from taking effect, I ordered the ship to be wore.” Translation—Nelson ordered his ships to sail in essentially the opposite direction from what the admiral in command decreed, taking full initiative (and responsibility) into his own hands. While this was blatant disobedience of an order, Jervis later publicly praised Nelson for his initiative. Nelson followed that same pattern of doing what he thought was right, not blindly obeying orders, throughout his career. He managed to balance that spirit of independence nicely with an ability to keep the chain of command well informed about not only his operational plans, but his successes as well. Nelson was certainly not without a certain thirst for glory, and that trait manifested itself throughout much of the latter part of his career.

  Another incident at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent involved then Captain Cuthbert Collingwood, a follower of Nelson’s who would go on to become an admiral himself and was to lead the lee line of the British fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar alongside Nelson. During the earlier battle, Collingwood helped Nelson by directing his ship, HMS Excellent, to support Nelson’s command, HMS Captain. After the battle
, Nelson wrote Collingwood, saying, “A friend in need is a friend indeed, was never more truly verified than by your most noble and gallant conduct yesterday in sparing the Captain from further loss.” Their careers were much intertwined over the next decade, and Collingwood was eventually buried near Nelson at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Nelson, for all his self-publicizing style, managed to form and maintain close relationships with his peers—so often the most critical of judges for anyone in a relentlessly hierarchical organization like the Royal Navy, where everyone is jockeying for their turn at the brass ring.

  Geopolitically, Nelson was fortunate to live in a period in which the British nation depended heavily on the “wooden walls” of the Royal Navy. Had Napoleon’s France not risen from the confusion of its bloody revolution to become a serious threat to Britain’s independence, Nelson probably would have spent much of his life on half pay hoping for a return to sea that might never have occurred. Given the rise of the threat to Britain, Nelson’s career timing was as impeccable in terms of his planning as it was lucky in terms of timing—like most successful admirals, he needed both a war to prosecute and a nation to defend at the time in his career when his skills, connections, and savvy were at their peak. In that regard, all seemed to be on track for a relatively young Rear Admiral Nelson—until the wheel of fate spun significantly against him for the first time in his life. It was a personification of something he said later, which is that “in war, much is left to Providence.”

  The next major battle in his career was devastating, as Nelson lost most of his right arm at Santa Cruz de Tenerife and was sent ashore for a significant period to recover. Some of his despairing letters and journal entries from this period are heartrending, bespeaking a deep depression as he contemplated the potential end of his career. His scratchy script as he painstakingly worked to learn to write left-handed is painful to read, and many biographers talk about this period as the darkest of his career. Yet within a year he was back at sea, again as a rear admiral, and in command of a significant Mediterranean force that pressed the French fleet around the Med and ultimately forced a disastrous defeat on French forces in the Battle of the Nile at Aboukir Bay in August 1798, ending Napoleon’s geopolitical ambitions outside of Europe. The Battle of the Nile cemented Nelson’s place at the upper reaches of the British Admiralty and marked him for future high command. It also opened the doors of British society at the highest levels to the diminutive and somewhat battered admiral, who took every advantage he could.