How do battlefield leaders lead change—before the battle, during the battle, and after the battle?
Last week, the story of Captain John Bigelow’s reform of the 9th Mass Battery provided an example of leading change before the battle.
In today’s story, Captain Henry Livermore Abbott of the 20th Mass Infantry led change during the battle.(By the way, I’m adding a stop at the 20th Mass monument to future conferences. This story yells out to be told.)
Already considered a “bright, particular star” by Union leaders, Abbott demonstrated on July 3rd, 1863 how battlefield leaders must be worthy of their men, not the other way around. They must be “perfectly brave.” And fortunately for our purposes, Abbott described what that meant in detail.
Some leaders lead well without thinking about it, others like Henry Abbott lead well out of a defined sense of leadership. Abbott knew what it took to lead men in battle.
Like Chamberlain of the 20th Maine, Abbott of the 20th Mass thought about leadership before he ever led in battle. His leadership was well defined and thought thru. And like Chamberlain, he could articulate how leadership worked.
*The Situation—July 3rd, 1863, just south of the Copse of Trees, Cemetery Ridge, Gettysburg*
Keeping his head down, Abbott steadily moved up and down the line of Company I of the 20th Mass. The Confederates had opened up a bombardment around 1 p.m. that day, preparing no doubt for a massed infantry assault. “Stay down, men.” Abbott said, “This won’t last much longer.” And it didn’t. Across the fields in front of him, Abbott saw the Confederates emerge from the trees, form up in brigades and regiments, and march toward them. “Hold your fire until I give the order,” Abbott whispered to each man, as he slowly walked behind his line. Abbott moved more quickly as the Confederates cross Emmitsburg Road. He saw the flag of the 1st Virginia. Those men are from Kemper’s Brigade—moving steadily despite the Union artillery’s attempt to stop them. Turning slightly to their right, the Confederates pressed toward the stone wall, where the 20th Mass awaited. When they were within 100 yards of their position, Abbott ordered Company I. “Ready, aim, fire!” The rest of the 20th Mass fired as well, sending a withering volley into the gray ranks. Abbott recalled, “we bowled them over like nine pins, picking out the colors first.”
As the men began to reload, Abbott and the other company commanders waited for the smoke to clear. When it did, the Virginians had disappeared.
Had they been repulsed?
Where were they?
Lt Col George Macy, the regimental commander, yelled at Abbott and pointed. The Confederate attack had moved off to their left. Abbott looked off to his right. The Virginians had joined the rest of the Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble charge. To Abbott’s horror, the gray vanguard was already piercing the blue line.
The battle was not over; the 20th Mass had more bloody work to do.
Abbott remembered Macy saying, “face your company to the right, then file to the right. We’ll form a new line at right angles to your original front. Lead out with your company.”
Abbott feared nothing more in battle than a humiliated, misunderstood command that would disgrace the unit. And this particular maneuver was extremely complicated.
To change direction in the chaos of battle was almost impossible.
The 20th Mass would have to change front:
in the deafening noise of battle,
with everyone’s emotions excited by battle and fear,
after having held their prone position behind a stone wall for two hours,
after suffering losses during the bombardment—even from friendly fire
having lost another company commander, the beloved Ropes, who’d been killed when a damn fuse of a Union cannonball exploded too early
after watching over 12,000 men marching toward you, intent on killing you,
after waiting and waiting till the Confederate infantry got within range
and then finally getting to return fire
and finding that fire effective,
after feeling relieved to have survived.
Only to hear Abbott give you orders to move.
Abbott ordered his company to face right and to file right. As Company I began to move, Abbott saw just what he feared. Men down the line were confused. They didn’t understand the order.
As soon as Abbott’s company moved, men from the other companies began to withdraw, believing the 20th Mass had been ordered back.
Abbott immediately gathered what men could hear him and ordered them to follow him. He led them to the critical spot. Several of the other company commanders saw him. Lt Col Macy was there as well. Most of the 20th followed them. All regimental organization was lost. The confused mass followed Abbott and Macy into the melee.
The next twenty minutes were the most deadly for the 20th Mass, losing 50% of the men who charged into the massed formations of the Confederates. Macy went down, shot thru the arm. Abbott assumed what command he could. Abbott later wrote, “The contest around this important spot [the Copse of Trees] was very confused, every man fighting on his own hook.” To fight on your own hook was to fight independently of leadership.
The Confederates were soon overwhelmed and surrendered or withdrew. The 20th Mass had played a critical role in stopping them. Abbott collected the men who had survived after directing care to the wounded. He reformed the 20th Mass near their original position, just in case. But he soon realized, the battle that day was over.
Abbott’s Reflection on Leading Change During the Battle
1. Leaders Must Be Perfectly Brave
Abbott recognized two types of bravery that day.
One is the “bravery of excitement that nerves common men.” He saw that bravery displayed by the men of the 20th Mass. He saw that bravery of excitement reflected in the discipline, training and esprit de corps of the unit, which “enabled the men to reorganized quickly and to stick together in such a scene of confusion.”
The other type of bravery is what officers or leaders have–they must be “perfectly brave.” To be perfectly brave the leader must, in Abbott’s words,
appear absolutely cool and collected, be apparently unconscious of the existence of such a reeling as personal danger, and despite the slight impetuosity and excitability natural to him at ordinary times, he [must be] sobered down into the utmost self-possession.
And, to be perfectly brave, Abbott also said the leader must:
have an eye that notices every circumstance, no matter how thick the shot and shell, have the judgment to suggest in every case the proper measures, and be able to make decisions where application is instantaneous
Abbott summarized such a battlefield leader in these words:
It is impossible for me to conceive of a man more perfectly master of himself; more completely noting and remembering every circumstance in times when the ordinary brave man sees nothing but a whirl of events which he is unable to separate. [Leaders’] behavior in battle is conspicuous for coolness and absolute disregard of personal danger. . . Such a leader [enters] the service and remained in it . . . from the purest patriotism; not a single ambitious or selfish motive mingled with it. He would have made the noblest sacrifice where he knew that no man would even hear as readily as if the eyes of the whole world were fixed upon him. Such perfect purity of sentiment deserves distinguished mention, [which the leader it describes] would be the last person to expect it.
2 Leaders must “see and be seen” in the emotional chaos of battle.
As Abbott described the action of the 20th Mass on July 3rd, he realized the following:
- In battle, the leader’s visibility and action are critical.
- In battle, the men are an emotional system. They’re interconnected, networked by the anxiety they feel. As Abbott said, men in battle are “excited” but the leader can’t be. But, just as fear is contagious in a system, so is courage. As we learned from Joshua Chamberlain, to lead men in battle, you must demonstrate physical courage.
- In battle, it’s hard to see what must be done. If the leader is too emotionally overwhelmed, he or she won’t be able to see. Leaders must always attempt to see thru the smoke.
- In battle, you often can’t make yourself heard or understood. It’s too noisy and chaotic. You’d love to give crystal clear directions to the whole regiment (whole team or organization), but time won’t allow.
- In battle, leaders realize that any new direction, any new change you intend to make, will often be misinterpreted.
- In battle, the best you can do, is clarify the direction to as many other leaders as you can and then personally set the example.
- In battle, leaders always move to the critical spot—even if they go alone at first. Battlefield leaders have a predilection for the front.
Abbott’s Reflection and Edwin Friedman’s Model of Leadership
I was reminded of Edwin Friedman’s A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix as I read the story of the 20th Mass. Abbott’s description of leaders in battle confirmed the connections.
Although he never applies his leadership principles to battlefield leadership, Friedman explains how Abbott and the best commanders at Gettysburg led *during the battle*. As we rehearse the principles of Friedman’s model below, we’ll see that Abbott’s description of battlefield leaders illustrates Friedman’s model in almost uncanny detail.
Friedman’s Model
Every leadership environment, according to Friedman, is a relational system of networked emotional processes often under stress.
When a team or larger organization is under stress, emotions flow thru that system from individual to individual (or from team to team). And systems under stress (regiments in battle or teams making changes) experience two things: chronic anxiety and imaginative gridlock.
Chronic Anxiety
Under stress, teams experience chronic anxiety and attendant emotions (fear, apprehension, disquiet, tension). These emotions flow from one individual to another as if it were an electrical current. I like to envision this networked system of emotional connection like a row of dominoes standing on edge, tip one of them over and they all fall.
Imaginative Gridlock
And when teams are under stress, the chronic anxiety causes the teams to lose their ability to be creative or imaginative. They can’t think clearly enough to adapt to the stress or to change in a positive direction. They can’t see how to change or move. They are in, what Friedman calls, imaginative gridlock.
A Well-Differentiated Leader
Systems under stress, according to Friedman, need leaders who won’t lose their nerve. Such leaders break the emotional current flowing thru the system; they stand like a domino that refuses to fall, which when the other dominoes fall against it they right themselves.
By their “modifying, non-anxious and sometimes challenging presence,” leaders stop the negative effects of chronic anxiety and imaginative gridlock.
Friedman thus argues that good leadership has less to do with “what leaders do” than “how leaders are present in the system.”
To be this type of leader, one must be self- or well-differentiated.
In other words, the leader must maintain an emotional control or distance while staying tightly connected to those they lead. The challenge, Friedman maintains, is both staying connected and staying detached at the same time.
To do this, the leader’s self-differentiation enables him or her to regulate his/her own anxiety — on purpose.
Self-differentiation means the leader knows who he or she is as a leader (their sense of mission, values, identity). This secure identity is more important than expertise.
In battle or leading change anywhere, such a self-differentiated leader “is less likely to become lost in the anxious emotional processes swirling about. . . He or she is someone who can manage his or her own reactivity to the automatic activity of others” which enables him or her to stand and lead amid chaos.
Such a leader naturally thinks or sees systematically, being profoundly aware of the networked emotional processes flowing thru his or her team. At the same time, he or she is not caught up by or captured by the emotional stress.
Such a leader was Captain Henry Livermore Abbott of the 20th Mass.
