The Art of Command: Military Leadership from George Washington to Colin Powell

7. Technology and Leadership: Hyman G. Rickover

7 Technology and Leadership Hyman G. Rickover Thomas L. “Tim” Foster In November 1981, two months before the end of his unprecedented sixty-three-year navy career, which included thirty-five years overseeing the U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover lectured to a Columbia University audience on the components of effective leadership: “What it takes to do a job will not be learned from management courses. It is principally a matter of experience, the proper attitude, and common sense—none of which can be taught in a classroom.”1 In less formal surroundings, he called leadership and management courses “crap.” Graduates, he believed, too often came away with the false notion that, by applying a few textbook principles, almost anyone could manage almost anything. To Rickover, academics underemphasized, if not ignored, the importance of determination, innovation, and accountability. Despite his depreciation of leadership studies, an examination of Rickover’s extraordinary career, which featured a high degree of excellence, can teach us much about leading people in the field of high technology. Rickover demonstrated, as much as any leader could, the importance of learning lessons from history and personal experience in pursuit of technological excellence. From the perspective of a former senior member of his staff, this chapter explores Rickover’s personal characteristics and the leadership practices that inspired the long-term devotion of thousands of people in the Naval Nuclear Propulsion HyMan G. riCkover (National Archives, College Park, MD) Technology and Leadership 181 Program. It is surprising that Rickover, widely known as a harsh, nofrills taskmaster, was able to attract, retain, and motivate so many talented people to work under austere conditions. Why is it that, even today, so many people, including those who had minimal direct contact with the admiral, still look back fondly on their experiences in his organization, which remains the worldwide standard for nuclear excellence? Rickover had a paradoxical and unconventional brand of leadership . He was a study in contrasts. He could be serious and funny, brash and humble, harsh and kind, bluntly rude and astutely diplomatic . He was apolitical yet was a master politician. Rickover was clearly in charge, yet he welcomed internal debate and argument. He was intimately involved in organizational details, yet his people managed their departments as if they alone were responsible. He was a strict disciplinarian but also an inspiring cheerleader and enabler. Within the nuclear program, his criticisms of poor performance were pointed and personal. Externally, he assumed full responsibility for the program and its personnel. The admiral was part engineer, part mechanic, and part liberal arts intellectual. His senior staff, many with far superior academic credentials, admired his engineering genius. Theodore Rockwell, a senior member of his staff in the early years at Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program headquarters, writes in The Rickover Effect, “The most memorable interactions with Rickover, the ones that were burned deep into your psyche, were those in which you and everyone else in the room were in violent disagreement with him, and he insisted on doing it his way, and he turned out to be right.”2 When this happened, the standing staff joke was to concede grudgingly that Rickover had been right, but for the wrong reason. Rickover possessed an uncanny ability to anticipate second- and sometimes third-order effects that were often overlooked even by his most experienced staff. This capacity , combined with his courage to invest substantially in precautionary measures, is an important characteristic of effective technological leadership. Rickover’s leadership was crucial in establishing the impeccable worldwide reputation of the U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion 182 Thomas L. “Tim” Foster Program, a record that remains intact and is the envy of other civilian and military nuclear programs. The admiral’s determination, innovative thinking, and accountability , together with his unconventional management techniques, reveal keen insight into human nature and, in particular, into his success in translating principle into practice. This chapter explains why Admiral Rickover, arguably the most significant technical leader in U.S. military history, was so effective and why his people worked so intently and became so loyal not only to what he was trying to accomplish but also to him as their leader. Born in Russian-occupied Makow, Poland, in 1900, Rickover relocated to America with his Jewish parents five years later. The Rickovers settled in a Chicago immigrant community, where his father, a tailor, set up shop. Young Rickover proved an adequate...