Marine Maxims: Turning Leadership Principles Into Practice
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By John Waters
January 01,
U.S. Marine Corps photo by LCpl Tyler Andersen
After 30 years of service, Col. Thomas J. Gordon, USMC (Ret.) has a few leadership lessons to share. Actually, Col. Gordon has every bit of 50 leadership lessons to share, and he’s captured all of them with style and punch in his new book Marine Maxims: Turning Leadership Principles into Practice (Naval Institute Press, 2021). The book is a practical tool and guidebook for leaders, written in a way that delivers the goods “on time and on target,” each lesson combining research with the wisdom earned through experience in command. Though Gordon draws heavily from his time leading Marines at First Tank Battalion and II MEF Headquarters Group, some of his most astute reflections come from his time as a junior officer serving under senior leaders. “Many of the senior leaders I was exposed to as a lieutenant and junior captain ascribed to a Machiavellian philosophy of leadership. Since they knew they could never make all of us love them, they elected instead to make us fear them,” he writes in an early chapter about doing right by subordinates. “Authoritarian leaders can achieve short-term gains, but their potential will always be limited to what they can directly coerce.” The theme of toxic leadership runs throughout the book, affirming the notion that some of the best leadership lessons are learned by observing poor leaders, the kind who end up teaching us what not to do. Colonel Gordon took a short break from his work as Commandant at The Citadel to talk with me about the book. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.
Why did you write the book?
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/01/01/marine_maxims_turning_leadership_principles_into_practice_810139.html
