On February 20, 2024, Dr. Lindsay Whorton, president of The Holdsworth Center, interviewed Admiral William McRaven, a retired U.S. Navy four-star admiral and former University of Texas System chancellor.
As chancellor from 2015 to 2018, McRaven oversaw 14 institutions that educate 221,000 students and employ 20,000 faculty and more than 80,000 health care professionals, researchers and staff.
In his 37 years as a Navy SEAL, he commanded at every level. He led a force of 69,000 men and women and was responsible for conducting counter-terrorism operations worldwide. In 2011, McRaven oversaw the Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
In 2011, he was the runner-up for Time magazine’s Person of the Year. In 2012, Foreign Policy magazine included him in its Top 100 Global Thinkers list, and in 2014 Politico magazine listed him on the Politico 50.
He is the author of four books: Make Your Bed, The Hero Code, Sea Stories: My Life in Special Operations, and The Wisdom of the Bullfrog: Leadership Made Simple (But Not Easy).
Here are four takeaways from the hourlong conversation.
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Listen to the rank and file. And to those who disagree.
If you don’t listen to the rank and file, you are going to make bad decisions. The good leaders I have spent time with, they get out of their office, they walk around, they talk to the employees, they get on the factory line. Wherever they go they are listening so they can find out where the real problems are.
You have to be confident that what you are doing is the right thing, but you can’t be so righteous that you don’t listen to the other side, to the opinions or complaints of others.
You have to listen to the voices that may disagree with you. Because maybe there’s some truth in that. I tended over the last couple of years to write op-eds. And I would get some scathing emails back. I would try to answer all of them.
You have to be confident that what you are doing is the right thing, but you can’t be so righteous that you don’t listen to the other side, to the opinions or complaints of others. You have to take them into consideration. Maybe they’re of value, maybe they’re not. But you can’t dismiss them outright.
Showcase hope. Be inspired by young people.
If you don’t have hope, what’s the purpose of doing anything? As a leader, you’ve got to make sure the people working for you understand that even in the toughest times, there’s hope. Hope is what’s going to keep us moving forward.
Every time I get a little worried about the direction of the country, I go talk to the students. They give me hope.
You inspire by finding opportunities to showcase hope. I’m the biggest fan of the Millennials and Gen Z you’ll ever meet. There’s this narrative out there that they’re soft, entitled little snowflakes. Well, then you’ve never seen them in a firefight in Afghanistan or going to the University of Texas to make a better life for themselves. These young folks are absolutely fabulous.
Every time I get a little worried about the direction of the country, I go talk to the students, or I go down and talk to the young kids working at Starbucks. Let me tell you, they give me hope. They reinforce the goodness of where we are. Wrapped up in watching too much TV, we forget about the real people out there.
Ask for forgiveness. Offer it generously.
While serving in Afghanistan, McRaven oversaw an operation in which American soldiers inadvertently shot and killed innocent Afghans. He felt an obligation to apologize to the father of two women who had died in the firefight. He asked an Afghan colleague, General Salim, for advice.
I said, “What do I say to this father? And I remember Salim looking and me and kind of cocked his head a little bit. He goes, “I don’t understand.” I said, “Well, how can he ever forgive me?” And he said, “Oh he will forgive you. It will not only relieve your burden it will relieve his burden.”
In today’s world, we want to be angry and mad at everybody. We seem to have forgotten the importance of forgiveness.
I talked to the father and he said, “We will hold no anger in our heart against you.” And I’m thinking to myself, “Could I have been that good?” I don’t think so. And I never forgot his grace and ability to forgive me and my men.
When I was a young officer in the Philippines, I had a junior enlisted guy that worked for me. I can’t remember what I did but it was something patently egregious and I was really upset with myself. I went to have a conversation with him and he said, “Hey sir, it’s OK, it’s OK.” I realized how vitally important the apology was.
In today’s world, we seem to want to be angry and mad at everybody that even has the smallest slight against us. And that doesn’t serve anybody well. We seem to have forgotten the importance of forgiveness.
Support public schools. It’s the best national defense strategy we’ve got.
If we are not educating the youth of America to have the right STEM skills, to have critical thinking skills, to understand different cultures, then they’re not going to be the national security leaders we need them to be.
If we have one dollar to invest, invest it in K-12. It starts with the principals, it starts with the faculty, it starts with the superintendents, it starts with the boards. This is where the real hard work is done.
If we have one dollar to invest, invest it in K-12.
We moved every two years when I was in the military. And my wife, the first thing she would do whenever we moved, she wanted to find out where the best school district was. What I found was if you had a really strong principal, that determined the quality of the school. Man, that made all the difference in the world.
Go talk to an educator. Hear the passion they have for the kids they’re teaching, for the difference they’re making. If you can’t be inspired by that, nothing is going to inspire you.
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