“LeMay always said that the atomic bombs were superfluous. The real work had already been done.” – Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell is one of my favorite others. I love his pragmatic and well-researched observations. Also, because he is Canadian, he often has a unique look at American history which challenges some of my pre-conceived beliefs. His latest book The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, A Temptation, and The Longest Night of the Second World War is such a work.
This is not so much a book about war as it is a book about human nature and leadership set during war times. The individuals profiled – General Curtis LeMay, General Haywood Hansell, Dr. Carl Norden, Professor Louis Fieser, and many others – are fascinating individuals and complicated to say the least. This is a book about varying leadership styles, innovation, managing change, and the price a leader must be willing to pay for success.
I can’t recommend this book enough. You can purchase a copy by clicking HERE or on the image provided.
For an overview of the book, check out this interview with Gladwell:
I also have written Gladwell before in the following posts:
- Live Notes From Leadercast – 10 Leadership Lessons And Quotes From Malcolm Gladwell
- 30 Leadership Quotes From Malcolm Gladwell’s Book David And Goliath
- 30 Leadership Quotes On Becoming Successful From Malcolm Gladwell’s Book Outliers
The following are 23 Leadership Quotes From Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, A Temptation, and The Longest Night of the Second World War:
- “Obsessives lead us astray sometimes. Can’t see the bigger picture. Serve not just the world’s but also their own narrow issues. But I don’t think we get progress or innovation or joy or beauty without obsessives.”
- “When some new, shiny idea drops down from the heavens, it does not land, softly, in our laps. It lands hard, on the ground, and shatters.”
“I don’t want to know the mistakes other people made. I don’t want to know what they did right. I’m going to develop what’s right myself.” – Carl Norden - “Only God invents; humans discover… He would say he’s just one who discovers the greatness of God, the creations of God; that God reveals truth through people who are willing to work hard and to use their minds to discover God’s truths.” – Norden
- “Revolutions are invariably group activities.”
- “Revolutions are birthed in conversation, argument, validation, proximity, and the look in your listener’s eye that tells you you’re on to something.”
- “Proficimus more irretenti: ‘We make progress unhindered by custom.'”
- “Conversation starts to seed a revolution. The group starts to wander off in directions in which no one individual could ever have conceived of going all by himself or herself.”
- “The Air Force is utterly uninterested in heritage and tradition. On the contrary, it wants to be modern… The Air Force is obsessed with tomorrow, and with how technology will prepare it for tomorrow.”
- “Churchill wouldn’t read a document longer than a page.”
- “The sign of a great fighter in the ring is, Can he get up from the floor after being knocked down? London does this every morning.” – British government film from 1940
- “Transactive Memory, which is the observation that we don’t just store information in our minds or in specific places. We also store memories and understanding in the minds of the people we love. You don’t need to remember your child’s emotional relationship to her teacher because you know your wife will; you don’t have to remember how to work the remote because your daughter will. That’s transactive memory. Little bits of ourselves reside in other people’s minds.”
- “What happens to true believers when their convictions are confronted by reality?”
- “The more you invest in a set of beliefs – the greater the sacrifice you make in service of that conviction – the more resistant you will be to evidence that suggests that you are mistaken. You don’t give up. You double down.”
- “All that mattered to Curtis LeMay was the final outcome.”
- “‘I’d rather have somebody who is real stupid but did something – even if it’s wrong he did something – than have somebody who’d vacillate and do nothing.’ That’s what LeMay values.”
- “When a problem solver is finally free to act, he will let nothing stand in his way.”
- “The easiest thing to forget about the Second World War is that it took place in another technological era.”
- “The dreams of revolutionaries go awry when they are forced to confront an unanticipated obstacle – not a rational obstacle such as inexperience or haste or miscalculation, but something immovable.”
- “If you are a morally guided person, and you want to be able to sleep at night and reconcile what you’re doing with your own principles, you’ve got to find language and concepts to tell yourself that what you’re doing is okay.” – Army War College historian Tami Biddle
- “But (we) have to produce results, and I had to produce them. If I didn’t produce them, or made a wrong guess, get another commander in there. That’s what happened to (General Haywood) Hansell. He got no results. You had to have them.” – General LeMay
- “LeMay was uncompromising with his men in terms of how relentlessly he prepared and drilled them, but he was that way for a reason. Because he cared about them.”
- “Without persistence, principles are meaningless.”
- “The genius of the Bomber Mafia was to understand that distinction – and to say, We don’t have to slaughter the innocent, burn them beyond recognition, in pursuit of our military goals. We can do better. And they were right.”
Once again, this is a fascinating book. You can get your copy by clicking HERE.
The Top 100 Leadership Quotes From 2020 is my latest ebook. The wisdom contained in these pages from top business leaders, pastors, coaches, and superlative thinkers sustained countless leaders in the most turbulent year anyone can remember. If you want to be the best leader you can possibly be, click HERE or on the image provided to download this FREE resource. The lessons learned from last year, if applied, will sustain you for years to come.