In the March 23rd, 2009 issue of Navy Times, I wrote an article entitled “A Failure of Leadership: Broken, Bullying Command Structure May Be Behind Surface Fleet’s Many Problems.” See the link: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/03/navy_horner_swoculture_031509/ .
The article was very well received by the surface community rank and file, both officers and enlisted sailors alike. Predictably, the Navy brass didn’t care for the article much, suggesting that my views were an oversimplification of the complexities of command. Overall, the response to the piece ran about 125:1 in favor of my argument and observations.
Well, I’ve commanded — lead — organizations. A lot. And, I can tell you there’s nothing complex about how leaders should treat subordinates. It’s really quite simple: when you routinely treat people poorly and create a toxic atmosphere based on fear and intimidation, bad things happen. The remnants — the survivors — of this climate propagate the same climate in their commands. What a surprise! This is precisely what’s happening in the Navy’s surface warfare community.
The result: young surface warfare officers with options — and we know the better performers tend to have more options– LEAVE the surface warfare community and our Navy. Those surface warfare officers that remain tend to be duds – or at least of known lesser quality.
Want further proof of my arguments? See Bob Sutton’s The No Asshole Rule (Business Plus, 2007).
Want even more proof? Read the article (below) from this week’s issue of TIME (March 3rd, 2010).
Dr. Donnie Horner // Davis Leadership Center
—–
Time.com
March 3, 2010
The Rise And Fall Of A Female Captain Bligh
By Mark Thompson, Washington
Women are so common in the upper ranks of the U.S. military these days that
it’s no longer news when they break through another barrier. Unfortunately,
the latest benchmark isn’t one to brag about: being booted as captain of a
billion-dollar warship for “cruelty and maltreatment” of her 400-member
crew. According to the Navy Inspector General’s report that triggered her
removal – and the accounts of officers who served with her – Captain Holly
Graf was the closest thing the U.S. Navy has to a female Capt. Bligh.
A Navy admiral stripped Graf of her command of the Japan-based guided
missile cruiser U.S.S. Cowpens in January. The just-released IG report
concludes that Graf “repeatedly verbally abused her crew and committed
assault,” and accuses her of using her position as commander of the Cowpens
“for personal gain.” But old Navy hands tell TIME that those charges,
substantiated in the IG report, came about because of the poisonous
atmosphere she created aboard her ship.
The case has attracted wide notice inside the Navy and on Navy blogs, where
her removal has generated cheers from those who served with her since she
graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1985. While many denounced Graf,
even greater anger seems directed at the Navy brass for promoting such an
officer to positions of ever-increasing responsibility. The Navy declined to
make Graf available for an interview.
While in command at sea – where a captain’s word is law and she or he has
the power to make or break careers – Graf swore like, well, a sailor. She
“creates an environment of fear and hostility [and] frequently humiliates
and belittles watch standers by screaming at them with profanities in front
of the Combat Information Center and bridge watch teams,” one crew member
told the IG. According to 29 of 36 members of the crew questioned for the
Navy’s report, Graf repeatedly dropped F-bombs on them. “Take your goddamn
attitude and shove it up your f—— ass and leave it there,” she allegedly
told an officer during a stressful maneuver aboard the 567-foot, 10,000-ton
vessel.
Junior officers seeking her guidance were rebuffed. “This is one of the
reasons I hate you,” she allegedly told one seeking her help. When another
officer visited her quarters to discuss an earlier heated discussion, her
response was terse: “Get the f— out of my stateroom.” She allegedly told a
male officer: “The only words I want to hear our of your mouth are ‘Yes
ma’am,’ or ‘You’re correct ma’am.’” She put a “well-respected Master Chief”
in “time out” – standing in the ship’s key control room doing nothing – “in
front of other watch standers of all ranks.”
While most witness statements contained in the IG report didn’t specify
whether the person testifying was male or female, the IG asked at least two
women officers whether or not they viewed Graf as a role model. One younger
woman recalled going to Graf to seek her help. “Don’t come to me with your
problems,” she said Graf responded. “You’re a f—— Department Head.” The
officer also said that Graf once told her: “I can’t express how mad you make
me without getting violent.”
A second female officer told the IG that Graf “is a terrible role model for
women in the Navy,” alleging that Graf had once told her and a fellow
officer on the bridge: “You two are f—— unbelievable. I would fire you
if I could but I can’t.”
The IG investigation, triggered last June by three anonymous complaints,
noted that while conducting interviews into Graf’s conduct at the Yokosuka
Navy base outside Tokyo, four crew members provided “unsolicited written
statements concerning what they perceived as abuse.” While curses are not
uncommon aboard Navy vessels, to have them repeatedly brandished like clubs
against subordinates – especially in front of more junior crew members – is
unusual. TIME obtained a copy of the IG report, from which names names had
been deleted, under the Freedom of Information Act.
Graf told the IG she had “no recollection” of making such comments and
“appeared incredulous at the accusations.” She “repeatedly” emphasized her
“very high standards for my crew” and “repeatedly” spoke of a “groupthink
mentality” aboard her vessel. Graf said that “a small group of disgruntled
officers in Cowpens wardroom were spreading rumors throughout the crew and
convincing others that the command climate and [her] demeanor were far worse
than they actually were.” But she followed up with an e-mail. “Many times I
raised my tone (and used swear words) to ensure they knew this times, it was
no kidding,” she wrote. “I also did it on other occasions to intentionally
pressurize the situation.”
The lone witness supporting Graf in the 50-page report was an “unsolicited
e-mail” from a Navy colleague who had spent two weeks aboard Cowpens and
said Graf may be “blunt, but clearly [her] intent is readiness.” But the IG
came down firmly on the side of her crew. “The evidence shows” that Graf
violated Navy regulations “by demeaning, humiliating, publicly belittling
and verbally assaulting… subordinates while in command of Cowpens,” the
report concluded. Her actions “exceeded the firm methods needed to succeed
or even thrive” and her “harsh language and profanity were rarely followed
with any instruction.” Her repeated criticism of her officers, often in
front of lower-ranking crew members, humiliated subordinates and corroded
morale, “contrary to the best interests of the ship and the Navy.” The IG
also found she had failed to adequately train younger officers.
The report claims she grabbed several junior officers or sailors to get
their attention or move them elsewhere – usually while in a heated
discussion – and threw a wadded up piece of paper at one. It also says she
asked junior officers to play piano at her personal Christmas party and to
walk her dogs. These minor infractions might have been overlooked if
committed by a more even-keeled commander, but in Graf’s case they were used
to substantiate the charges of “assault” and the use of her “office for
personal gain” that led to her removal.
On one popular Navy blog there are 190 posts on Graf, nearly all negative
and most from those who served with her. There were only four supportive
posts, none apparently from anyone who had served with her at sea. “The only
way that Capt. Graf could have failed at being CO of the Cowpens was to try
to please all her sailors,” one backer wrote. “Leadership is lonely and not
for the faint-hearted.”
But many officers who served with Graf over the years were not surprised by
the IG’s findings. Paul Coco, a 2002 Naval Academy graduate, served as a the
gunnery officer under Graf aboard the destroyer U.S.S. Winston S. Churchill
from 2002 to 2004. “She would throw coffee cups at officers – ceramic not
foam,” he recalls, “spit in one officer’s face, throw binders and paperwork
at people, slam doors.” The hostile work environment led to a gallows humor
among the crew. “We all would joke that after Bush liberated Iraq, he would
next liberate Churchill,” he says. That day finally came in January 2004,
when Cmdr. Todd Leavitt arrived to replace Graf. “As soon as Cmdr. Leavitt
said ‘I relieve you’ to Cmdr. Graf, the whole ship, at attention, roared in
cheers.”
“I’m more upset that the Navy let this go on so long,” says Kirk Benson, who
retired from the Navy as a commander three years ago after a 20-year career.
Many complaints up the chain fell on “deaf ears,” he says. “When I think of
Holly Graf, even 12 years later, I shake,” he says of serving under her when
she was second-in-command on the destroyer U.S.S. Curtis Wilbur in 1997-98.
“She was so intimidating even to me, a 6-foot-4 guy.”
Nicole Waybright served as a junior officer for five years before leaving
the Navy in 2001, including a year with Graf on the Wilbur in 1997-98. “She
was a terrible ship handler,” Waybright recalls. “I was 23 years old and I
wanted to show, just by my actions, that women could do it, and just blend
in like the gray doors with the rest of the gray ship,” she said. “But she
betrayed our gender.” Waybright felt the Navy pushed women into command too
quickly at that time, but said Graf’s “sadistic cruelty” didn’t help.
Shawn Smith is a retired Navy captain who, along with her husband, also a
retired Navy captain, applauded their daughter’s decision to join the Navy
in 2007 after graduating from Notre Dame on a Navy ROTC scholarship. Erin
Smith was “seriously considering” making the Navy a career, like her
parents, until she was assigned to the Cowpens. “Her experiences with Capt.
Graf definitely helped form her decision to do her time and leave the Navy,”
her mother says. “I was appalled that this happened, guilty – I think she
went into the Navy because of us – and angry, because these kids did not
deserve this kind of leadership.”
Even though Graf comes from a Navy family – her sister and brother-in-law
are both admirals, and her father was a captain – there appears to have been
no “godfather” shielding her and greasing the skids for her promotion, Navy
officers say. Prior to the IG probe’s release, the Navy had tapped Graf for
a top job at the Pentagon following her Cowpens command. Now she’s being
shuffled off to a Navy weapons lab outside the capital. “Her career,” one
admiral says, “is over.”
Well, I guess my earlier op-ed / article in Navy Times actually got it right. SWO culture tends to be noxious, toxic, and cultivates a command climate incompatible with good order and discipline. The remnants — the survivors — of this climate propagate the same climate in their commands. What a surprise!
The result: young officers with options — and we know the better performers tend to have more options– LEAVE the SWO community and our Navy. Those SWOs left to command tend to be duds – or at least of known lesser quality.
See this week’s issue of TIME . . . and the article below.
Best,
Donnie
fccw.mp3
