Retired Admiral Mike Mullen Talks about Leadership with GW LEAD program

Former chair of Joint Chiefs of Staff urges future decision-makers to be willing to take assessed risks.

April 13, 2016

Retired Admiral Mike Mullen

Retired Admiral Mike Mullen was the second lecturer in the LEAD Distinguished Speaker series. (William Atkins/GW Today)

By Menachem Wecker

It took just about 20 seconds into his June 2007 conversation with then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates for retired Adm. Mike Mullen to realize what was happening. The secretary was offering him the highest-ranked military job: chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Mr. Mullen took the night to discuss the position with his wife. At 7 the next morning, he went next door and informed his neighbor Mr. Gates, who was making coffee, that he accepted. The one condition, which Mr. Gates may have agreed to too hastily, was that he be able to stay in his home.

“People tried to get me out of the house the next two years,” Mr. Mullen told about 75 people, many students in uniform, Tuesday in the Marvin Center Amphitheater. The talk was the second in the LEAD Distinguished Speaker Series, sponsored by GW LEAD, an interdisciplinary master’s program in leadership education and development (LEAD) for junior officers who will serve as company officers at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Mr. Mullen, who served as the 17th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2007 until 2011 under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, is the third officer in U.S. naval history to hold four different four-star posts. Those assignments were chief of naval operations, commander of the U.S. naval forces in Europe, commander of allied joint force command in Naples, and vice chief of naval operations.

Introducing Mr. Mullen, his former U.S. Naval Academy classmate Clay Warren prepared the audience for a blunt talk. Mr. Mullen had spoken candidly about mistakes he’d made in his career—including amassing demerits in school and crashing a ship under his command into a buoy—as a guest in 2011 on David Letterman’s show, said Dr. Warren, Chauncey M. Depew professor of communication and LEAD director.

In his remarks, which lasted more than an hour, Mr. Mullen shared personal anecdotes, the things that keep him up at night and his leadership philosophy.

In a conversation with George Washington Today before his talk, Mr. Mullen was asked to what extent he believes that leaders are born or made. The answer lies somewhere in the middle, said Mr. Mullen, who has learned in unconventional ways, often with the help of mentors.

“Leaders are so much a factor of not just their personal skills and desires and what drives them, but also the environment in which they find themselves,” he told GW Today. “I learned a lot more in failing than I typically did in success. Without mentors, I wouldn’t have professionally recovered.”

In the interview, as well as during his talk, Mr. Mullen noted two different leadership styles: one that shies away from risks and plays things safely, and the other embracing risks, albeit assessed risks. He chose the latter and found risk-taking exciting, Mr. Mullen said. But even though his failures taught him a lot, he cautioned the audience, “You shouldn’t seek failure. It’s not that great.”

In his introductory remarks, Dr. Warren noted that there are different approaches to leadership, and that the LEAD program emphasizes the permanence of questions and temporary nature of answers.

“The LEAD program at GW is all about helping students find better ways to frame questions about leadership, so they will be better able to discover an appropriate answer for themselves,” he said.

Ben Vinson III, dean of the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, praised the LEAD program in his introductory remarks. “It’s no understatement to say these are some of the bright stars of the future of America, in many ways,” he said.

Addressing those bright stars, Mr. Mullen, who currently teaches at Princeton University, talked about how hard it can be to stay connected with the reality on the ground as one climbs the ranks. Particularly when he began looking into the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gay and lesbian soldiers, Mr. Mullen realized he couldn’t properly understand what soldiers thought on the subject without talking to them in the trenches.

Connecting with the rank-and-file "when you are chairman of the Joint Chiefs is very problematic,” he said. “There are a lot of leaders between you and the troops that don’t want you to find their troops. Penetrating that is more and more difficult as you become more and more senior.”

He brought up “don’t ask, don’t tell” with soldiers every time he could, and he found that those under the age of 30 didn’t resist repealing the policy at all. And that was the demographic that many of those over the age of 30 said would be most affected if the policy were repealed. Then when he talked to LGBT veterans, who told him about how they had to lie every day on the job, that made up his mind.

“I could not for the life of me reconcile an institution, which values integrity, and then asks people to come to work, and in this case—and I’m really sensitive to this—literally die for your country,” he said. “When that light went on, I knew where I was.”

 He later would play a role in dismantling the policy.

Among the other topics that Mr. Mullen discussed were the three things that keep him up at night and the divisiveness of politics today. Most concerning, he said, is the national debt. “If we can’t figure out a way to pay our bills, we don’t have much of a future.” Challenges with K-12 education and the “paralysis” in Washington and a lack of leadership also trouble him greatly.

He’s seen politicization in both administrations and on the Hill, among Democrats and Republicans.

“Fundamentally, this town [Washington] is incredibly disconnected from the American people, and that’s what the American people are angry about. And I think you see that reflected in the campaigns that are going on right now,” he said in an interview. “They really are tired of this town not doing their bidding. That’s what they elect people to do. We’re way beyond gridlock. I’m not even sure I could pick a word.”

He was even blunter in his talk. “It ends when the American people throws the bums out,” he said. “We may be there now.”