Creating Us - A podcast for Texas Tech University System & beyond
A learning and development podcast focused on bringing the Texas Tech University System Values Based Culture to life.
Creating Us - A podcast for Texas Tech University System & beyond
The Leader Fast Lane - Episode 23 - with General David Hill, Executive Director of the Society of American Military Engineers
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In this episode, I am joined by General (ret.) David Hill, Executive Director of the Society of American Military Engineers, and the former Commandant of the United States Army War College.
In our conversation, General Hill shares why:
- Leadership is never about yourself—it's about the mission and the people entrusted to you.
- Humility means taking responsibility when things go wrong and giving credit when they go right.
- Kindness and high standards are not opposites—they reinforce one another.
- Optimism isn't wishful thinking; it's a leader's responsibility during uncertainty.
Hello and welcome to the Leader Fast Lane, the podcast where accomplished leaders from higher education, public service, and beyond share real stories, practical principles, and hard-earned lessons listeners can apply in their everyday work. No buzzwords, no shortcuts, just real leaders sharing real lessons you can apply right away. I'm Lane Mears, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Leader and Culture Development at the Texas Tech University System. Today I am joined by General David Hill, Executive Director of the Society of American Military Engineers. In this role, he is the Chief Salaried Administrator of the Society, responsible for the effective operation and management of the organization as it leads collaboration in support of national security priorities and fosters engineering leadership for the nation. General Hill assumed this role in June 2026 following a distinguished 35-year career in the United States Army, retiring at the rank of Major General. Throughout his military service, he had the privilege of leading soldiers and engineers in complex environments from building critical infrastructure in support of global operations to shaping future leaders as the 53rd Commandant of the United States Army War College. General Hill is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. He holds advanced degrees in engineering management and strategic studies and is a certified project management professional. He and his wife are thankful to live and be a part of a wonderful community in South Central Pennsylvania. Whether in uniform or out, his focus has remained the same: developing people, strengthening teams, and leading with clarity and humility. It's great to have you on the podcast, General Hill.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it's great to be here.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for taking the time. I look forward to our conversation. To start, could you I know I just read your bio, but could you tell us a little bit about your leadership journey and your background?
SPEAKER_01Sure. Well, I was born and raised in Pennsylvania. I left um the state to go as a cadet and at the United States Military Academy and never thinking that that would take on this long professional lifetime in service in uniform. But as I graduated and commissioned from West Point, I had the opportunity to serve as a career engineer officer in the United States Army and spent the first 24 years of my career really breaking more things than building them. I was a more traditional combat engineer serving in our warfighting formations. And then really for the last uh 12 to 13 years, I had that opportunity to step up to more senior sort of enterprise leadership roles and responsibilities at Headquarters Department of the Army and the Army Corps of Engineers, and as you mentioned, at the Army War College. And so it was a wonderful career, um a great experience for my family that that grew up in service, uh wearing, not wearing the uniform, but serving by my side. And um and it was a great springboard to a wonderful opportunity here now after service.
SPEAKER_00Can you tell us a little bit about the the new opportunity that you stepped into last month?
SPEAKER_01Sure. I'm the executive director of the Society of Military, American Military Engineers, as you said, and uh not unlike the Army, it's a it's an organization that has a long and rich history. It was established in 1920, uh, really with the full support of General Pershing at the time and the chief of engineers of the United States Army. Uh, as they exited World War I, there was this recognition that we started with a very small engineering um profession in uniform, and it blossomed by a factor of 10 during the conduct of the war. And at the conclusion of that, it rapidly drew back down to a small permanent army. And there was an appreciation that we would likely be called to serve in similar capacities in the future. And how do we sustain this exchange of technical experience and expertise as well as you know forming relationships in peacetime between industry and military professionals in the engineering, architecture, and construction domains, so that we're ready for our nation to do whatever we have to do. And so I think the organization stays true to that mission today, and uh I'm happy to jump in and be part of it.
SPEAKER_00That's exciting. I'm glad you have that next uh next page to uh jump into. I've got a series of questions for you based on a few different themes uh that we'll just roll through and use up our time that way. But I'll start with just some opening questions. First one is you've led soldiers, engineers, educators, and senior military leaders. What leadership lesson has remained true regardless of the organization or mission?
SPEAKER_01It's a it's a wonderful way to start our conversation. And I think I'm gonna answer um in a way that I've shared, you know, with cadets that are in ROTC programs in Texas, and in a way that I was encouraged to think about leadership here as a general officer, while I was being coached and mentored by others when still in uniform. And it's really around some key characteristics, I think, that in my experience have proven um to be clearly evident in leaders that are most successful. And so um to me, that's relatively simplistic, though. It's be humble, be kind, and be optimistic. And when I say humble, I don't um I what I mean is uh this appreciation that service in in leadership roles in the United States Army is never about self or it never should be. It's about the team you lead and accomplishing the missions and tasks that you're given. Um, that that includes being quick to accept responsibility when things don't go the way you hoped or expected they would, and then you know, quick to praise your team members when uh when they do, recognizing um that we uh have these huge interdependencies between leaders and lead to accomplish the mission. And um I think when I talk about being kind, it's it's not being easy for the sake of of just um appeasing others, it's setting and enforcing high standards, but recognizing that uh most oftentimes when we fall short, there are reasons beyond lack of um motivation or interest in doing a job well. And so it's correcting with respect and recognizing there's plenty of opportunity to do that. And then to be optimistic, from my experience in the Army, and I suspect in most um businesses, and certainly it was true at the Army War College, is there's always a sense that there's more work to do than there are resources to do it. And leaders and our organizations aren't perpetual energy machines, and leaders have to put positive energy into systems to keep them moving forward. And I I heard that um reflected in a challenge to me as I was transitioning from leading as a colonel in the army to becoming a general officer and from a highly qualified expert or senior mentor, he challenged us all to be a happy general. And I sat back and thought, what did he mean by that? It really tied back to this idea of uh putting positive energy into our systems and recognizing you show up each day with a choice to encourage others and look for ways to um to really make your organization excel. So that that's a set of lessons I think distilled down into a couple characteristics that, as I said, have appeared to me to be true consistently through my time in uniform.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's very practical. I one follow-up question. Are you a naturally optimistic person? Or is that sometimes you have to you have to make that decision to take on that persona some days?
SPEAKER_01That's a really good question. And you know, we've had conversations, uh, some friends of mine that are still in uniform and serving about the challenge of leadership at the executive level, or certainly as as a flag officer in the United States military. You could almost view your day, and I and I don't mean this from the perspective when I say this of being um disingenuous, but it's it's a multiple act play. And you oftentimes have to change your mask as you or your your um your wardrobe as you move from one to the other, sometimes literally but figuratively, certainly, right? Because you can go from a complex technical discussion to uh an event celebrating success or um or or some of your subordinates' accomplishments, and then you might have to step into a discussion about uh an issue of misconduct that you have unique authorities to reconcile. And so uh you do, I think you don't have to be falsely optimistic, but you have to work at it. And you know, we can talk more about that later, perhaps. But I think um there's an element of resilience that's important here as you to be optimistic. I think you have to be healthy and well, and some of that comes by nature and some through nurture, I think.
SPEAKER_00But I I I suspect behind that advice that you got about the the happy general, the being optimistic is is the reality that at leaders their their demeanor is contagious. And so if you can bring that, whether it's you know, worked at to develop that exterior for that moment or a natural bent, that that optimism, that resilience mindset is contagious, as the opposite is too. And so I I I I buy into that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's some real nuance to that too, right? I mean, optimism to me doesn't mean, especially when you're making big decisions as a more senior leader that you're you know fanciful or unrealistic about what um you know uh an organization or an army can do. But at the same time, you know, when we sign up to support and defend the constitution, we uh recognize we're going to be asked to do maybe some of the hardest things. And uh that in inspiring, motivating yourself and others to overcome things that might otherwise on their surface seem to be perhaps too hard or impossible to do. Um is particularly important, I think.
SPEAKER_00Good. Next question is when you look back in your career from West Point to being commandant of the War College, um, what experiences most shaped the leader that you became?
SPEAKER_01Well, I will start at West Point since you know, in particular you phrased your question that way, but it was foundational for me, I think. And certainly um, you know, I I won't talk about a rich academic experience, but what I know I carried forward with me was um a real appreciation for our Army values as expressed and as put in practice by my peers at the academy and through our study of history and those that had preceded us and and lived out those army values. And and that institution is really founded on character development. And I think part of that is a respect both for our service with a capital S and for service in general, you know, with a with a lowercase S. And so I think that was foundational for me. And um, while I didn't graduate, like I suspect most of my peers did not, with an expectation to serve for as long as I did. Um, I recognized when I, you know, was about to take the uniform off last year how much I think that actually influenced early satisfaction and the willingness to continue to take it one assignment at a time and serve as long as I did. Um, I there were certainly early career opportunities that were important as I learned the technical foundations for my profession and practice direct leadership, but I kind of want to jump to really two other points in time that I think were influential to me and shaped who I became. I had a a mentor who intervened at mid-career for me and with an appreciation, I think, for potential that perhaps I didn't even recognize in myself at the time. Um, you know, I had been to Desert Storm, I'd been to Bosnia twice, I had two young kids and another on the way. And um, my wife and I candidly, I think, as a family, were tired and considering a branch that would have been, I think, valuable to the Army and rewarding in and of itself in my career path, but that steered me to, I think what was a maybe harder right for me. And, you know, I landed at our national training center, which is in the middle of the Mojave Desert, um, and welcomed our third child uh into this world there. And, you know, one beyond the fact that I think that really did start to really unleash my potential, and we could have a long conversation about the why behind that. What I do recognize is I left that assignment, went to school for a year, and then landed in an organization that almost immediately deployed to the first um deployment in Operation Iraqi Freedom. And then I would go back again every other year for six years. And I recognized that that, you know, that the leader that placed me there couldn't have it um anticipated what happened on 9-11, but he recognized that I had important experience gaps, and that I could this would be best suited for me to um fill those gaps, establish professional relationships that would would be fruitful for me as a as an officer in my second decade of service, and certainly strengthen the tactical and technical expertise that were necessary for the success across my next 12 years of service. So that uh building on the values and characters at West Point and the sense of service, this mid-career intervention to help me consider options that I was ready to sort of write off on my own for good reasons, but perhaps narrow. Um and then go ahead.
SPEAKER_00I was just saying that's powerful. I I know we we've um there's a strong emphasis on mentorship within the Texas Tech University system and encouraging leaders as they climb the ranks to find a mentor that can be that person for them, like like you've talked about with that mid-career challenge that you got.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thanks. I I think I'm glad to hear that that's reflected. I'm not surprised in your system. I do want to share one other example with you because I think it was really interesting because I think it was an early practical exercise and foreshadowed the type of transitions I would go through through the bulk of the rest of my career. So um, four or five years after that mentor conversation, probably six actually, um, I was coming out of a particularly key and developmental assignment as an engineer officer inside one of our warfighting formations. And I was um assigned to lead up a level at um a division headquarters in a role called the director of training. And it substantially broadened my responsibilities outside of areas that I had built technical expertise and tactical proficiency in. And so coincidentally, you know, one of the commanders that I worked for at that assignment at the National Training Center was the commander of that organization and must have had a similar perspective and pulled me up into that role. But it was it was uncomfortable because it was very different and unique for me from anything that I'd done before. But but in working through that, working hard through that, um, it built confidence in my ability, I think, for myself to learn fast, to reduce time to competency and new unique assignments and experiences and succeed in those environments. And as I said before, um, I think I counted them up as I was thinking about this conversation. I had eight different um jobs in the army after that particular one. And don't and two of them were very familiar and had similar responsibilities in a narrow technical field, just stepped up a level in responsibility and scope. But after that, everything that I was asked to do was um starkly different from my past experiences. And so I think that that early transition experience in that role really helped me think about how to how to continue to do that through the rest of my career. You know, answering a call that someone else placed on you to to step in and lead well and make a difference.
SPEAKER_00So uh that's thank you for sharing that. That one follow-up on that is is we talk with faculty from the universities within the system about making that similar switch from being a faculty member, research, all that, you know, all the teaching into a department chair, which is a more of a leadership responsibility. So that it's different skill sets that that there's often a lack of training and preparation for. How are you able to to make that transition? Did you have training? Did you have mentorship? What was the what were the things that support that you had to do that well?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a great question. I I mean, I think I had the the Army is good um at shaping, at pulling you offline at key points in your career and providing a focused um period of reflection and education. Um, but none of those were were optimized around this particular job, right? But there's a set of knowledge skills and abilities, I think, that we develop in those that is transferable to that new experience. I think, you know, you I learned in that by reading quickly, reading a lot and listening more and asking good questions and starting to build that habit, you know, kind of grounded back in humility again of you know, not being ashamed to say, I don't understand what that means. Help help me understand that. And then being a quick study with those things and being able to um to leverage that into your own insights and um creative ideas about how to accomplish the job that you were given. So, and and then I think I had a you know, I I would I would call more of a coach than a mentor at the time. Uh uh, I was a direct report to somebody, as we all are. And I think that particular person was um was very patient and um, you know, had had a heavier um hand on the wheel for me at first to help ensure that we, you know, we're gonna accomplish the key outcomes we had to, but you know, then recognize quickly where he can start to and expect me to act with more initiative and ability to leverage instincts and intuition as I built them over time in that job. So it's a combination of experiential learning with a with a committed coach and supervisor, leveraging your past experiences and then um heavily leveraging your relationships with peers on uh in your organization to to learn and see things from different perspectives.
SPEAKER_00Excellent. Thank you. Um leadership under pressure, excuse me. So you've talked about this, you've let in combat zones, major construction programs, and strategic organizations. How does a leader stay calm and effective when the stakes are extremely high?
SPEAKER_01That's an important question, I think, because in particular when you um wear the uniform of our armed services, you are often in positions where stakes are extremely high. And certainly they can be life and death kind of stakes, or they can just be you know stakes associated with um expending large amount of resources that our taxpayers and our public trust us with as you know executive leaders trying to man-train and equip an organization to protect our nation at home and abroad. So um the stakes are high. And I think not not and I don't mean this from like a deterministic perspective where where it's predetermined, but I think this is a nature-nurture kind of conversation as well, right? I do believe that some people are naturally more emotionally reactive than others, some are more comfortable with uncertainty than others, and that's neither one is good or bad. Um, but I think self-awareness is particularly important. And and then thinking of ways a self-aware leader can build a team around them or implement um ways to help you perhaps mitigate a weakness in that regard, a relative weakness, or or to build on a strength. And so um I I think the the piece that that I think enables anyone and is common across them to um succeed regardless of where you fall, perhaps on one of those um less malleable things that you kind of developed early and get locked in is uh just personal resilience. And I think in particular for for me and the career that I had followed for 35 years, you know, this idea of holistic health and fitness, it's around the physical, the mental, and the spiritual component of that. And um and then embracing resilience not just as a concept where where you know you you have the means to fight through hardship, physical hardship or other hardship, and and be optimistic and put positive energy in the systems and hunt the good stuff, but is uh is a just a broader mindset of not unlike we would do if we were engineering a system to protect one of our coasts here in the United States, about you know, you're constantly in this cycle of prepare, absorb, respond, recover, adapt, right? Like how you think about um about doing that and and and doing that, helping others do that as well as you commit to growing the next generation of leaders behind you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. That's great. I really appreciate that insight. I I think you the the the recover is often a challenge. Uh Certainly if people are busy and fail to make space for that, because resilience it's uh it's a diminishing good. I mean, you have to have that time to to recover and refresh, to continue to fight another day.
SPEAKER_01Um sleep's a great example of that, right? I mean, we've spent a lot of time in the army and and has uh so has other you know research institutions looked at the impacts of sleep on human performance, right? But that's a component of holistic health and fitness. And I think it's not hard to quickly understand how um your ability to stay calm and be effective when stakes are high if you're yeah, if you're burnt off and you know operating on half a tank. Yeah, yeah. It's not gonna be the same.
SPEAKER_00So on similar topic, leadership under pressure. Uh so engineer, my wife's an engineer, long line of engineers. So I'm I'm I'm in some sense understand some of the language that y'all speak. Um, so y'all you'll trade to you're trained to solve technical problems, complex problems. Um, but leaders often face situations where there's real no real perfect solution. How do you know when it's time to stop analyzing a problem and time to start deciding?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a that's a great question. And I think first I think it starts with an honest assessment of how much time do you have available to decide, right? And that there's not a doctrinal template that fits each and every circumstance, right? There's general rules, and then I think you have to be cognizant and adapt to the circumstances that you're making decisions in. And so, you know, a simple example of that is in in the military context, when we talk about planning at the tactical level, we we talk about making decisions on your course of action and and issuing this those decisions so that others can prepare and execute using a one-thirds, two-thirds rule or use one-third of the time and give two-thirds to them to do their own planning and preparation for execution. That's a very practical, tactical example of that. And I think, you know, once I once you progress to the level leadership that I was operating in in my last couple of years of service, we might call them a plan of action at milestones, but it's taking the time up front to map out how you're going to get to a decision. Um, and you know, I I had a peer um who's still in service and leading at the highest level in one of our services that we served together in the Middle East in 2018 to 2020. And I remember he was, you know, working in a particular part of our command and control structure that works on a 72-hour cycle and makes decisions about striking places and people and doing things tied to a mission. And that's driven by a process that's driven that process is is filled with staff officers that have a lot on their plate to do and want a decision now because they need to move on to the next task. And I remember him talking about um really asking every time he's gonna make a decision is do I have to make this decision now? And it wasn't because he was um unable to do so or risk averse. It was understanding that the environment could very well change in the next 24 hours and that results of this decision will have um impacts and second, third order consequences we may not fully appreciate that you can't put back in the bottle. So it's a it's an important question, it's a nuanced question. Um, you know, and then there's the old adage of perfect is the enemy good enough, right? So I think if you think about um if when I think about it in that context, that that's what's kind of guiding me. And if you've mapped out your assumptions, you have some understanding of the risks, and you are aware of the dissenting opinions, and and there's no reason to wait, then make a decision because probably generally, normally, usually someone benefits from more time to take it to the next step than than less.
SPEAKER_00Great. Thank you. Shifting to our next topic on building trust and teams. Um You've spoken uh about trust and command climate. What are the most common ways that leaders unintentionally damage trust?
SPEAKER_01That is also an important question. And I think on its surface, my first um instinctive reaction to that is when a leader's deeds don't match their words. And so uh there's certainly an element of personal conduct there that's important, right? Consistent with organizational values, or me as a new leader introducing myself to an organization. Um, when I say what's important to me, uh what I believe in, where I think we need to go as an organization. If I'm not, if the if the deeds that follow don't match the words, I think that can can quickly undermine trust inside of an organization. Um I talked earlier about you know one aspect of humility being recognizing that it's about a team, not about self, and you're in the leadership role and being quick to praise when things go well, quick to accept responsibility when they don't. Well, the inverse of that, I think, can undermine trust as well. Or if you're deflective of responsibility or seen as self-serving and taking credit for all the things that uh that a team has done, that certainly can undermine trust. And then, you know, importantly, I thought, in particular when I was leading at the Army War College, um ensuring that I was that I had a degree of openness and was listening to genuinely understand others' perspectives and not dismissive of their perspectives. Um because that's in that environment, um that discussion and deliberation was particularly important. Um and so there's a lot of other ways I think we could talk about that with, but but you know, living by the values of your organization and your spouse's personal values, um reflecting positively the work of your team, and then genuinely considering the perspectives as others is a huge, um is a strong foundation.
SPEAKER_00Good. When you inherit a team, like you you've done in your current role and and previous roles, what are the first things you do to try to understand its culture?
SPEAKER_01First thing I I think I do, and I'll certainly start this as soon as I know I'm gonna step into a role is to sweep up as much about the organization as I can. You know, what is their what is their mission, vision, and values? What do they have a strategic plan? What does it look like? So it's reading and familiarizing yourself with, at least on paper, um, what an organization says it's about and what it intends to do. And then certainly when when given the opportunity to onboard, it's meeting and engaging broadly to see again whether you know behaviors and and the work of the organization aligns with those ideas. And I don't mean that specifically or limited to just gauging internal alignment. I think it's really just to understand what motivates folks and and uh and understand what they need to be successful in the roles that they have. So there's reading more, asking good questions, listening to understand. Um, I I read a book that was influential to me at an early developmental opportunity I had in the Army that was written by a gentleman named Kim Cameron at the University of Michigan, and he is a promoter of a of a theory of positive leadership. In in advancing that theory, he talks about competing values in organizations, right? And and so what I also look for is internal tensions, and oftentimes that's between two good things, but where they have a difficult time living in balance, whether that's collaboration and competition or uh control and creativity, that that was his framework, but I think you could adapt that to any particular organization. I think it's an in it's a perspective that you can start to form in your mind about um how a culture actually plays out on the ground inside an organization as you lead it. And then, you know, for me, um, an outcome of that that has been particularly helpful is um looking for those things that you think are well, one recognizing what's held most dear by the members of the organization. Um, and then in particular, if they have words or phrases that uh are intended to illuminate that for themselves and for others, is co-opting those words and initially and and then personally reflecting on them because I found in my experience that sometimes you'll read a stated um objective like be a respected organization that develops and cares for its people, but it's that deep and folks haven't reflected on it enough, right? And then start to use the organization's existing language and put your personal spin on it as you move forward.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's good. Appreciate that. I I was just thinking, um, you know, when I was leading some teams overseas with the nonprofit that I worked for many years ago, I I tended to stumble upon a cultural guide, someone in the team, usually pretty lower level, that built a relationship when they they were the ones that would tell me the real deal. Yeah, they would tell me the real dynamics at play, the cultural issues, the team dynamics, and that was invaluable to me. And I never really understood how to proactively find that person. It seems like they bubbled up. But um, you know, to the extent that listeners, if you're in a new role, a new organization, new culture, if you can find those people that can be your cultural guides, that really is an invaluable asset.
SPEAKER_01You know, when the Army has a has a program, as is the Department of War, I think that requires commanders to survey their workforce. Um, and you know, we call it a climate survey, but if you if you actually read it carefully and critically, you know, it'll touch on issues of climate that are more temporal, but it'll touch on things that really illuminate the culture of an organization, things that transcend one commander or one survey this year versus the year before. Um, and that was super helpful. And so, you know, stepping into a new role outside the military, thinking of where I could gain similar insights that swept up large numbers of perspectives pretty quickly. So, what in in my case now it might be a member survey report, right? That's done every three years. But pull the most recent one off the shelf, read it, understand what it means to you, and talk to others about it. And that can help uh, I think, tease out that elements of culture that you need to understand.
SPEAKER_00Good. What behaviors signal to you that someone has real leadership potential?
SPEAKER_01Well, coming right back to the first question you asked me first, right? I am looking for a degree of humility. Um, you know, someone that that uh sets and forces high standards but does so respectfully, uh, that that is resilient and optimistic. I also think um for for me, I'm I'm I'm cued in to look for those that feel ready to exercise disciplined initiative. That's an army term that's tied to our philosophy we call mission command, which is centered around understanding purpose and intent and and a and a description of an end state, perhaps. And then um understanding that uh they don't necessarily need to be told how to do, or more importantly, if they are, they recognize when that how is inappropriate, but another is better suited to accomplishing the purpose, right? So I think to the extent that you can recognize that in subordinates, um that helps point to those that can carry that talent forward with them. I think more and more uh I appreciate the importance of effective communications. And you know, I think as a young officer, that was maybe uh implicit, but you're talking to small groups and you're spending every day with them as you're communicating now, not just in in orally but in writing to try to influence alignment and the direction of large organizations. I think that's an important skill. And then I do think are they genuinely committed to developing themselves and others as they look to help um build the next generation of leaders? So I think that's a a short list that that I look for as I evaluate.
SPEAKER_00That's a good list. Uh that touches on those key qualities, I think. I appreciate your sharing that perspective. Uh our next topic is strategic thinking. As commandant of the U.S. Army War College, you're responsible for developing strategic-minded senior leaders capable of operating in complex environments. What separates a leader who can think strategically from one who remains trapped in tactical thinking?
SPEAKER_01I should ask you that question as a war college uh alumni, but um well, first I'll say, you know, I I think what separates is the degree to which a leader is aware and open to adapting their mental models and behavior. Um more so than on any particular knowledge area, skill, or or attribute that you might, you know, measure on a test. Um, because it speaks to a broader concept of adaptability and agility that's important, I think, in strategic leadership. But um, you know, I think in in in in the army, we talk about direct and organizational leadership and then strategic leadership. And uh, you know, I think at that lower echelon, you're thinking first about how do I help my team succeed. You know, as you step up to organizational leadership, how do I create a high performance culture or organization? And then, you know, I think you really start to shift when you're when you're serving at the strategic level. It doesn't necessarily mean this is an adequate definition of strategic thinking, but it's it's just that mental model of how do I position an institution for future success, right? So it's it's about today, but it's very much so about setting conditions for those that will follow because you're a temporary custodian of of the organizations most often. Um, I think you know, we did have uh a set of skills that we sought to hone at the War College. Um, and this is certainly not all inclusive, but includes historical mindedness. That's a habit of using history within any uh strategic framework to think about complex challenges. Thinking in time, you know, the ability to anticipate and consider third, second, third order consequences, systems thinking, critical thinking, those are all um, you know, course objectives that you might recognize from your own experience inside our organization. And then I think uh there's a heavy degree of emphasis in um considering how you build and maintain positive relationships, executive communications that I talked about before, and importantly, perspective taking, like seeing things through other people's lenses, uh that could be culturally, geographically, or a number of different, or just based off technical discipline and background. And so I think that's uh that's it in a nutshell. And you know, the final one I think that I would highlight maybe, and it was a challenge to me when I was when I when a leader I highly respected called me late at night one night and said, Dave, congratulations, we're gonna promote you to general officer. And and he said, uh, you know, you're really talented, we're gonna put you in this particular job, but you don't know squad about that organization. And and you know, it was a way of introducing this idea that I didn't need to be the smartest person in the room anymore on any particular subject. My role was to lead interdisciplinary teams of experts. And there's you know, you can understand how some of those things I just described and other skills would contribute to that sort of ability to think strategically.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. That's really good. I just to draw on my experience, I was with USAID for 11 years, I think. We talked about that. Um and as I rose into more of the senior leadership, it this was a this was a challenge. People who grew up as technically competent, technical experts who grew to lead their technical teams brought into the senior leadership for USAID's operations in a country. There was little preparation, little coaching to shift from this is my team, I'm representing my team at the senior leadership meeting, to we as the senior leaders are driving the organization. And that's our primary team. Our secondary team now is my technical team. Um there was that mindset shift. I think that's something that was illuminated with me with my time at the Army War College was that that shift that I, you know, we were trying to make that shift um in the places where I worked when things came down. But uh no, it's a powerful perspective.
SPEAKER_01It is. I saw that play out on my first assignment on the Army staff as a um as a colonel. And, you know, that was a developmental opportunity for me. I was, you know, given a portfolio that really was centered around one particular technical discipline in the army. And so, but my role was to bring that into big deliberations about uh how we were going to apply resources and to size and shape the force for the future, man, train and equip it. And what I recognized is I could walk into a meeting and often felt like I did with an infallible argument, like from a logic perspective. But then I'd sit around the room with 10 other professionals that had similar responsibilities for different technical portfolio, and they all did as well. And the senior leaders' challenge was to reconcile all that, you know, when obviously the the resources we had um couldn't address all those very um reasonable and important arguments, but yeah, yeah, that's a great point.
SPEAKER_00Um, all right, we're we're getting close to the end of our time here. I want to shift to the topic of character and personal growth. You've spent much of your career developing leaders. What do the best lifelong learners do differently than other people?
SPEAKER_01Um I think they they read a lot. Um and and they don't just read to say they've knocked another book off their list, right? They they create time for reflection about it and think how does this apply? Um, and I think the most effective out, and I don't know you know how effective I would grade myself in this is a discipline and approach to that, because sometimes that can be hard to balance, you know, with all the other competing demands of the present, the urgency of today. Um I'm grateful in the in the profession that I led in that our institution helped us with that. It uh created opportunities, it built structure to align those opportunities at the right place in time and set expectations that you take maximum advantage of it, and then you know, continued to challenge us to bring self-development to the table beyond the things that the institution was going to provide to you. Um, and importantly, you know, this isn't directly um part of your question, but I think when in a position of responsibility, it's really important for a leader to provide the same for their organizations, to do their best to model it and incentivize it. So that's that's been my experience, I think.
SPEAKER_00And sure. If a leader is taking the time, making the personal investment to develop themselves through the three advanced degrees or books or trainings, then that sets the standards, the norm for the rest of the team. Hopefully, that that that's permitted, that's encouraged, that's rewarded. Um has failure shaped your leadership philosophy.
SPEAKER_01Uh I love that question. And, you know, um this is one of those ones that spurs reflection, I think, right? And certainly I don't know your perspective, but you know, when you've had a long and I think, you know, arguably successful career, sometimes it's hard to look back and pull out a particular failure that was like a inflection point for you in the trajectory that you're on, because I feel like you had more wins than you did losses. But um I will draw on an experience in my very first platoon that I led, which is the smallest sort of organization that officers are assigned to to lead. Um I was a combat engineer organization. We were trained in overcoming obstacles and helping our uh combat arms um formations uh close that last hundred yards to an objective and secure it. But our commander, two levels up at the time, three levels up for me, felt it was important to give us early developmental opportunities in building and construction and thing, other things that engineers were asked to do. And so uh my first opportunity to do that was to lead my platoon in uh building a not small um amount of sidewalks and staircases inside the footprint of the you know the legendary 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. It was concrete work. Um, and you know, I I did not long out of West Point, what I think I was coached for four years is ask your NCOs and uh your non-commissioned officers. And you know, I think the response I got was from a particular staff sergeant, I won't say his name, and he was a great human being and a really talented leader in his own right. But he said, Hey, sir, no problem. I put a patio on my back deck last year. You know, we we we got this. And, you know, long story short, we had to rip most of that out after putting in more than a small amount of cubic yards. concrete on the ground. And um I don't remember ever getting yelled at for that. Um I and certainly it was it had costs associated with dollar costs and reputational costs. But I think, you know, I had a the I had a leader that actually was grounded in why did we give these projects to our teammates. We we didn't give them to them so they would fail, but when they did, we had to you know help them maximize the opportunity that meant to develop. And so um you know I think that uh was helpful for me early or in my career and um has remained true across uh the arc of my career that uh you know we'll fall short of standards but you can there's an opportunity to learn correct respect and cartridge that's part of our army in the after action reviews sort of approach to things. I will say um there was another example later that uh I don't know that I would I I I think it was a failure in the sense that I recognized and was late to make a decision back to your early earlier question that I had full authority to make but I was a new leader in that first organization that my boss had said you don't know anything about. I was visiting a very complex project that was in year one of what ended up being you know seven years of construction of a million square foot medical facility. And the lines between performance and schedule were already starting to separate and our this gets kind of the biases but our systems were were biased to technically assess and try to figure out causes and all the rest. And um you know I got this sense a month into that new job that we might not have had the right leadership team there to constructively work through problems with the industry partners that we were engaged with. And I um but but all involved around me said this is our most experienced person, you know, we're it's not us, it's them kind of approach to things and you know a year later we did make a change and it wasn't you know with prejudice against that particular individual we just realized we had to reset a leader team and um so so I do consider that a bit of a failure personally because I think I if I'd have trusted my gut and maybe asked better questions in a different way we would have made that decision earlier. Because once we did we didn't get back that time but we started to recover performance in a way that it didn't continue to separate but create space and underwrite mistakes and yeah there's probably plenty of other opportunities I could think of that be good examples.
SPEAKER_00We've all had them for sure yeah all right our last themed uh section is on transition and legacy so you've talked about the importance elsewhere of of leaders being stewards of their profession. How would you say this applies in in higher education?
SPEAKER_01That is a that is a really important question I think um and I should you know say up front that you know I had the privilege of leading at the Army War College for four and a half years or six months as an interim um leader for the organization and then four years fully vested as the commander of the of the institution um we were a blend of military and civilian faculty uh so I have some basis I think to consider how this applies to higher education but it's in a it's in a pretty unique model there at Carlisle but um I think I'll go back to something I said earlier first is you know recognizing yourself and encouraging others to recognize that they're all temporary custodians we didn't have tenured faculty but we had people that served there for decades. So whether you're there for a year or you're there for 20 um you have an obligation to leave the institution stronger academically financially and you know I think you could argue perhaps culturally and morally than than it was when you got there, right? And that's a difficult question. And back to my earlier um point about competing values inside organizations, I think that's going to create a tension between things that are all on on their own worthwhile perspectives and considerations about what you should be doing today, what you should be doing for the future but a leader's going to have to navigate tensions for that I think in a professional military education institution and I recognize just from the little you know bit that I understand about challenges that have been presented to leaders of our in particular colleges and universities that you know navigating and finding a healthy balance between tradition and innovation and institutional autonomy and and um public trust responsibilities and and then certainly for me we had to navigate this regularly um academic freedom with alignment and accountability um and so those are um I think aspects of stewardship of a profession that that all are vested in you know in sharing in when they're part of one of our higher education institutions.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. One last question you mentioned the term leading fast earlier on in the discussion. What what does that mean?
SPEAKER_01Yeah that's a I I love the idea uh you know I I'd love to hear um someday if I'm in Texas again, you know, from your perspective why you named this podcast series the way you did um to me I think leading fast means in the context that I've led in recently at least not the pace that you're making decision but your ability to sense quickly in particular understanding the environment that you're leading and making decisions in to learn continuously we've talked about that and then to adapt um deliberately and so I think any good institution back to that balancing tradition and innovation is anchored first in in perhaps an enduring purpose um but has to be flexible in how you achieve it. And so you know leading fast um to me again is centered around um a continuous effort to really understand how things are changing around you um and what that means for your organization so that you can make the right decisions at the right time to do what you're asked to do today and you know um be relevant and impactful in the future. So leading fast is um really about that pace of learning and and seeking understanding in the environment and adaptation.
SPEAKER_00Okay good thank you well General Hill it's been a it's been a real honor and pleasure to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for taking time today.
SPEAKER_01It's been great to be here Lane and thanks for doing this and inviting me to be part of this.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely uh it's been great to hear your leadership journey and get practical takeaways that we can all incorporate into leading our teams. To those listening thank you for joining me on the Leader Fast Lane. If today's conversation sparked a moment of reflection or a lane change in how you think about leadership take a minute to share this episode with someone you lead or learn from. Join me next time when I'll be joined by Derek McIntyre Chief Operating Officer of TCP Software you can find more episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time keep leading with purpose integrity and clarity especially when it's hard
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