wfn.org | Naval ethicist addresses moral leadership essentials

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Nov. 2, 2001 News media contact: Linda Green7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn.
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By John A. Lovelace*

DALLAS (UMNS) - What are the four essentials of true moral leadership?

In a three-hour conference titled "Leadership and Ethics: Lessons from the
Military," Southern Methodist University's Maguire Center for Ethics and
Public Responsibility put that question on an open forum table Oct. 30 and
brought in a naval ethicist to provide some answers.

Albert C. Pierce, who directs the U.S. Naval Academy's Center for the Study
of Professional Military Ethics, listed the essentials as:
7	Setting noble goals of high moral value.
7	Taking active steps to pursue those goals.
7	Being willing to pay a price oneself in pursuit of those goals.
7	Being willing to ask or, when necessary, to order others also to pay
the price in pursuit of those goals.

As his exemplar of one who lives by those four essentials, Pierce used Vice
Adm. James Bond Stockdale. The admiral, a Naval Academy graduate class of
1947, won the Congressional Medal of Honor for leadership as a prisoner of
war in Vietnam.

"Adm. Stockdale established two noble goals of high moral value," Pierce
said. "He was loyal to the United States and loyal to the men under him."
Pierce read briefly from Stockdale's descriptions of torture inflicted upon
him and his men and added, "He asked, even ordered, his subordinates to
accept whatever was demanded of them, but always out of loyalty to their
country."

He said Stockdale's fellow prisoners responded, "It's up to you, boss, to
determine what we must all go through."

Stockdale's experiences as a prisoner of war form the basis of a
semester-long Naval Academy course in professional military ethics. The
admiral gained national attention briefly in 1992 as Ross Perot's handpicked
vice presidential running mate on the Reform Party ticket.

Pierce moved from the personal model to analyze examples of moral leadership
from the 1990s, specifically related to humanitarian crises in such places
as Somalia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Haiti, East Timor, Bosnia and Sierra Leone.

"Humans inflicted massive hurt on other humans in those and other settings,
raising massive political, military and ethical issues," he said. "But, as a
nation, we indicated that we were willing to risk paying the price only if
it were in our vital national interest." Many in the audience of primarily
business and professional people and SMU students murmured as he
characterized the Clinton administration approach as, "If the going got
tough, we got going."

But Sept. 11 erased that agenda, Pierce said, leading him to ask how the
U.S. response since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
measures up to the Stockdale model.

"Our goals are clearly noble, defending the innocent. But to rid the world
of evil, though seeking the high moral ground, may be unrealistic," he said.
"We're taking active steps, well beyond the rhetorical. Plenty more are on
the drawing board.

"For political leaders, steps three and four are blended. Some are paying
the price of having pet projects put on the back burner."

Pierce asked rhetorically how many times words such as "sacrifice," "cost,"
"paying the price" and so on have been heard in the last seven weeks. "Only
a few," he said. 

As models of presidential leadership in times of crisis, Pierce went back in
history.

He read excerpts from one of Franklin D. Roosevelt's famed fireside chats,
dated Dec. 9, 1941, only two days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Roosevelt spoke of "grueling work ahead of us" but said this was "a
privilege and not a sacrifice when we are fighting for the nation's
existence."

 From John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, Pierce repeated the famous phrase,
country." 

"That was nearly 40 years ago," Pierce noted. "Lately political leaders have
told us something more like 'vote for me and I will make your life richer.'"

Summing up, the Naval Academy ethicist said, "We are the raw material our
leaders have to work with. Are we ready? How do they read us? Are we ready
to rise to the Stockdale model?"

He paused, and then said softly, "I'm not sure."

During an audience feedback session, Pierce was asked if it is possible to
separate ethics from spiritual faith. He answered, "Yes, but a healthy
measure of introspection is essential, even if one's internal life is not
conceived as related to a higher being. As for me, I need all the props I
can get."

He also was asked whether American leaders could have established more noble
goals in the post-Vietnam era.

The nation, he said, has been relatively lucky in the past two decades
without dire challenges or agendas created by outside forces. But that
political and moral imagination by leaders during this time has been
lacking, he said.

A five-man panel provided formal response to Pierce's keynote address. Among
them was Joe Allen, professor emeritus of Christian ethics at the
university's Perkins School of Theology. He wondered whether Afghan
noncombatants have been hit inadvertently because U.S. planes fly high to
evade Taliban anti-aircraft weapons rather than being willing to suffer
losses by flying lower.

Panelist Hugh Robinson, a retired U.S. Army major general, cited his pastor
during his opening remarks as honorary chairman of the SMU event.

He said the Rev. Zan Wesley Holmes of St. Luke "Community" United Methodist
Church, Dallas, took his Oct. 28 sermon from Jeremiah 31, the story of God's
new covenant with Israel. "The people had to face new responsibilities," the
general said, "and many paid the price for it with their lives. Like them,
we have the opportunity to determine how we stand on critical ethical
issues. We can get bitter or we can get better. We can accommodate or
exterminate."

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*Lovelace is editor emeritus of The United Methodist Reporter.

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United Methodist News Service
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