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The 2008 Russell Leadership Conference
Your organization competes in a dangerous, often lethal, field of endeavor. You realize that it must adapt to new threats without losing touch with the roots of its success. What do you do?
a. Gather your top executives for a strategy session.
b. Hire a consulting firm to divine the road ahead.
c. Let your newest, youngest leaders tell you how to do it.
If you answered "a," you could be an executive at any one of America's big corporations. If you answered "b," your organization could be any one of hundreds that take advice from the likes of Booze Alien Hamilton or other purveyors of expertise. If you answered "c," you could be the Commandant of the Marine Corps.
Introduction
The 2008 Russell Leadership Conference resulted from recommendations of the Commandant's 2007 Values and Ethics Working Group held at Marine Corps Base Quantico. Bringing corporals and sergeants from every part of the Corps to Quantico, the conference's advertised capacity was 200 participants. Enthusiastic response among noncommissioned officers (NCOs) and their leaders in the continental United States, Hawaii, and Japan caused attendance to swell beyond 230.
Previous Russell Conferences employed groups of senior officers and senior staff NCOs (SNCOs) to address leadership issues that impacted NCOs. The 2008 Russell Leadership Conference was the first-ever conference in which Marine NCOs were not represented by proxy. Accordingly, the 2008 Russell Leadership Conference adopted a theme recently articulated by the Commandant of the Marine Corps: NCOs will win this war.
The conference included an ambitious blend of hard skills training, collegiate lecture, and gaming. Throughout the conference, the Lejeune Leadership Institute (LLI) staff took notes and actively sought out NCO perceptions on issues, such as mentoring and core values. Senior NCOs presenting at the conference included SgtMaj Carlton W. Kent; SgtsMaj Richard A. Hawkins and Charles D. "Doug" Castle, Marine Corps University (MCU); and IstSgt Jean-Paul Courville, Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) Parris Island. Civilian presenters included MCU s Dr. Bruce Gudmundsson; Dr. Jonathan Shay, author of Achilles in Vietnam (Scribner, 1994); Harvard University's Professor Sarah Sewall; Wars of Blood and Faith (Stackpole Books, 2007) author, Ralph Peters; Air University's Remy Mauduit; and author of Blood Stripes (Stackpole Books, 2006), David J....