Had a great time attending this session with General David Petraeus -- and running into fellow HBS classmate and fellow veteran Matthew Thompson. I too fought under General Petraeus during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Most of our operations during one particular deployment were sensitive enough that they required his direct approval. We knew throughout that harrowing deployment that he had our back and the ultimate objectives at heart and mind, which was reassuring to say the least. What I most appreciate about the General is his penchant for contrarian approaches. One example is his pursuit of a PhD, which others characterized as a "career killer" (at least at that time). A favorite of mine is his rescue (my word) of field-grade officers who'd been sidelined to irrelevant positions due to their outspokenness. General Petraeus brought them to the warzone to be on his staff so that they'd say things to him that he or others might not want to hear. But this is how we get better results. #leadership #mindfulleadership
Head of Public Sector Business @ Socure | Former Founder & President @ ID.me | 11 Years US Army, Special Operations Officer | 15 Years Supporting Government with Building Trust in Online Identity | x CapOne & x IDEMIA
I recently attended a Harvard Business School leadership luncheon with General David Patraeus, who I had the honor of serving under during my time in the Army. This is what he had to say about leadership: The most important job of a strategic leader is to get the big ideas right. Whether it be a CEO leading a company, a division head leading a team, or in his case, a general leading the US military and the CIA. I had the honor of serving under General Patraeus during the invasion in Iraq when I was an Infantry Platoon Leader in the 101st Airborne Division, so we talked about some of his “big ideas” at the time with respect to how we were engaging with the population by living among the people and integrating into their local way of life. Under his leadership directive, we as soldiers tried to do all our duties in a way that built a level of trust, confidence, and security with people in Iraq. Then we talked about when we got some of the big ideas wrong, and how it led to many of the challenges that we had to address via surging forces. Hindsight being 20/20, we were wrong in retreating too early from the original strategy of being integrated. When we started removing ourselves and living outside the cities, it created a vacuum and Al-Qaeda and ISIS networks filled that void. As leaders, we’re all going to make mistakes and we are going to learn from them. For me, the lesson here was the value of staying consistent on the north star of the mission. In the case of Iraq, it was building a long standing relationship with the people and security from within. In the case of government business at Socure today, it’s getting the government to see identity as a critical piece of infrastructure and managing it to the same ideals of trust, confidence, and security that I learned under General Petraeus.
CEO at ARSOME Technology
2wHope all is well; keep up the good work!