Why Good Leaders Fail
Why Good Leaders Fail
Lee Ambrose is a recently retired Army Commander and Apache Pilot. He served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan to include the initial invasion of Iraq, both surges, and the mission that killed Uday and Qusay Hussein. He commanded small and large organizations as a Captain, Major, and Lieutenant Colonel. He recently retired to the Atlanta area with his family and is the Director of Military Programs at International Display Consortium.
May 4th, 2022
Watch the full webinar in the video above, or read the recap below.
We all love to talk about our success in leadership, but we often skip over the failures. For executive-level leader Lee Ambrose, failure as a leadership training tool first came to mind as he was crash landing his Apache on the first night of the war in Iraq in March 2003. Lee thought "it's not supposed to happen like this, I haven't fired any hellfires yet!" The lessons we learn from failure are often more valuable than the ones we learn from successes. What Lee learned from his failures is the importance of having trusted relationships within your team, allowing you to be agile and adaptive when the unexpected happens.
Lee’s Story: “One of My Most Memorable Failures”
As an Apache pilot, Lee played a key part in planning and logistics of military operations in the Iraq War. Just after his first tour of duty at Fort Campbell, Lee was in charge of a small unit of four Apaches when 9/11 occured. In late 2002 and into 2003, the entirety of the 101st Airborne was deployed to Iraq—a massive logistics effort. In March 2003, Lee was part of the initial unit moving from Kuwait into Iraq. “The sky was dark with coalition aircraft,” Lee described. “The whole earth was shaking, smoke was coming up, the sand and the dust—someone was about to get it.” Two divisions, in total comprising 6500 troops and 1000 aircraft and vehicles, moved into the open desert toward Karbala, passing by the hulks of abandoned vehicles from Desert Storm.
After stopping to rest and refuel, sleeping in the sand about 60 miles south of Karbala, the aircraft and convoys launched out to make the initial attack on the Karbala Gap to reach Saddam in Baghdad. The plan was meticulous: “we had selected the best people, the best units, everyone was motivated, well-trained, well-funded.” Lee’s unit was selected to be the lead company, with his team placed at the front, making Lee’s Apache helicopter one of the first two aircrafts to begin the attack. His Apache helicopter approached Karbala flying at 150mph just 50 feet above the desert floor. It was a moonless night and the aircraft was blacked out, allowing Lee’s unit to be functionally invisible to the enemy, but diminishing his own visibility.
As they entered Karbala, the dark sky lit up with tracer fire from the British close air support and Iraqis firing from ground forces. The aircraft beside Lee lurched out of the way of something unknown, cutting in front of Lee. He immediately pulled back, but the commotion caused Lee’s helicopter to “settle with power,” which occurs when an aircraft has insufficient power to maintain its current altitude. Lee fell away from his expected path and into a controlled descent, landing with a thump and rolling into the street beneath, the rotor blades just clearing the (fortunately) one-story buildings. Miraculously, Lee’s Apache didn't hit anything, and rolled safely to a stop, allowing Lee to radio for a Fallen Angel to send recovery assets. The entire incident took all of five to ten seconds, but to Lee it felt like an eternity, with the only thought going through his head: “This is not what we planned for. This is not supposed to happen.”
Although the landing was unexpected, Lee’s helicopter was undamaged. With engines still running, Lee checked out all systems and started rolling down the dirt road to take off and climb back up. He then rejoined with his wingman and reengaged after only a few minutes. But to Lee, “All I could think about was failure at the time.”
Things Never Go as Planned
From the military to corporations to daily responsibilities, our plans almost never go the way we expect. However, the relationships we build by planning and training and working together is what saves us in the long run. Trust in our team makes us agile and effective. Lee has found that to be key in every organization he’s been a part of, or at least of those he wanted to be.
How does this look in practice? As a large organization leader, focus on your direct reports underneath you and invest in those relationships, then let those people build the relationships below. In the military, Lee was thankful to have an excellent chain of command that supported him and who knew to expect plans to go awry. In a few poor leaders he’s had over the years—those who didn’t focus on building relationships—the relationship was destroyed when failure came. By developing the junior leaders under you and giving them examples of other leaders who have been shaped and refined by failure (or examples from your own experience), you prepare them to face the challenges ahead.
Build trust with your team to weather anything that comes your way, and let those experiences shape you as a leader. If you’re ready to unlock your leadership with foresight thinking, team management, and agility, then contact us to learn more about leadership acceleration services at Bridge Innovate®.
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