A Backroom Operator Can Still Be an Inspiring Leader Tomorrow

“The Rumsfeld Way”
By Jeffrey A. Krames
McGraw-Hill, 2002



This review could have been titled “Leaders are a work-in-progress.” It stresses an important point: We must not put a label on someone or someone’s leadership style and leave it at that. But, that sounds very academic.

So, I chose the above title because it zeroes in on an important point: We just don’t dismiss someone over sixty as a “has-been” because there must be a 9/11 event (remember September 11?) that may yet bring out the finest in him.

A philosophy professor once told our class that you can’t describe a person with finality until he is, well, permanently rested. Otherwise, anyone alive is forever in the “process of becoming,” he said, in a classic Heraclitus-style pronouncement.

Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, will turn 70 on July 9. He has just evolved from a backroom operator into a leader whose words are treated as quotable quotes by America’s respected media. And his thinking suddenly acquires a certain strategic edge befitting a 21st century leader confronted with 21st century challenges.

The book, “The Rumsfeld Way,” is sub-titled “Leadership Wisdom of a Battle-Hardened Maverick.” But, after reading the book – and, yes, picking up some tips on strategy and execution along the way – you come away with something that warms the heart of people who are sixty and above: Hindi pa sila laos (closest translation: They are not yet has-beens).

And when you are a cocky thirtyish manager or a sober-minded forty-something executive, you would realize that every experience that adds a line to your curriculum vitae (CV), even those failures you omit in the same CV, count. Later, you will summon these all up to inspire your organization with a strategic direction refined to perfection. Or with a word of wisdom which provides room for all-important nuances and calibrated responses that escape brash young professionals.

Rumsfeld was not a mediocre leader at all. A Princeton University scholar, he went on to become staff assistant, congressman, White House bureaucrat, ambassador to NATO, chief of staff, corporate CEO a couple of times, Secretary of Defense a few times, special envoy of various American Presidents and one-time seeker of the U.S. Presidential nomination. Inspite of all these, media categorized him as a “backroom operator” and master of the labyrinthine power corridors of the White House and the Capitol. Hardly a flattering reputation.

The book quotes Henry Kissinger to stress this point: “I think we are dealing with Rumsfeld now at a different stage of his life. In the 70s he was at the beginning of his political career. Now he is beyond further ambition. But I thought he was a formidable man then, and he’s an outstanding leader now.”

Was there a new Rumsfeld, following a dramatic conversion? Or did the quintessential Rumsfeld, winnowed through years of slow but steady achievement, emerge at that defining moment on September 11 when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center? How did he respond?

The book lifts a quote from The Economist: “He (Rumsfeld) had done what soldiers have to do: stand fasty when the world explodes around you. He had led by example.”

Rumsfeld, like maybe a quiet bureaucrat across your cubicle, might have been grossly underestimated. We know better now. He was being prepared for something greater. And when that time came, he was ready.

Listen to the once cold warrior who spoke (after February 11) with words that warm the heart: “The strength that matters most is not the strength of arms, but the strength of character; character expressed in service to something larger than ourselves.” He was standing in the midst of the ash and ruins in New York.

Interesting are the assessments on Rumsfeld by his fellow leaders. Robert Hartmann, chief of staff for then Vice President Gerald Ford, said of the Defense Secretary:

“Fortune often favors those that have the rare gift of being in the right place at the right time. Even rarer, however, is the knack of being somewhere else. Donald Rumsfeld possessed both.” The story has it that when the Watergate Scandal rocked the Nixon Administration, Rumsfeld was conveniently in Brussels with an assignment in Pentagon.

Rumsfeld is not your idea of Everyman, the guy next door. He is our idea of a leader, taking positions we didn’t agree on and distrusting him for his ideology. Suddenly, he takes a position we do embrace, and we welcome him as the leader of this century. And then, when you review his record, steer clear of ideological differences – you note a dedication to a mission at hand and you see valuable gems on leadership.

This book, while giving us a glimpse of a newly-minted leader who is now the darling of the American press, is also a rich trove of, yes, leadership wisdom. Either way, you are not short-changed. As for Mr. Rumsfeld, we won’t dare make assessments with finality. It is enough to say that he is America’s man of the hour.