Stanley McChrystal (Part 2)
Retired U.S. Army General; Founder and CEO, McChrystal Group
We have the opportunity in America to be whatever we want to be. That's the extraordinary gift about this place. We have agency. We can be as good as we decide, or we can be as mediocre as we accept.
Summary
In this episode of Leadership Matters, Alan Fleischmann sits down with General Stanley McChrystal to discuss his latest book, On Character: Choices That Define a Life, and the urgent need for a national conversation around values, purpose, and leadership. McChrystal reflects on his decades of military service, the discipline and humility that define true character, and the importance of consistency, integrity, and relevance in leadership. The episode explores personal anecdotes, the nature of patriotism, the dangers of disinformation, and why national service could be the key to rebuilding civic trust.
Mentions & Resources
Guest Bio
A retired four-star general, Stan is the former commander of US and International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) Afghanistan and the former commander of the nation’s premier military counter-terrorism force, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). He is best known for developing and implementing a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, and for creating a cohesive counter-terrorism organization that revolutionized the interagency operating culture.
Throughout his military career, Stan commanded a number of elite organizations, including the 75th Ranger Regiment. After 9/11 until his retirement in 2010, he spent more than 6 years deployed to combat in a variety of leadership positions. In June 2009, the President of the United States and the Secretary General of NATO appointed him to be the Commander of US Forces Afghanistan and NATO ISAF. His command included more than 150,000 troops from 45 allied countries. On August 1, 2010 he retired from the US Army.
Stan is a senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, where he teaches a course on Leadership. He also sits on the boards of Navistar International Corporation, Siemens Government Technology, and JetBlue Airways. He is a sought-after speaker, giving speeches on leadership to organizations around the country. In 2013, Stan published his memoir, My Share of the Task, which was a New York Times bestseller; and is an author of Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World, which was a New York Times bestseller in 2015. Stan also co-authored Leaders: Myth and Reality, a Wall Street Journal Bestseller based on the epochal Parallel Lives by Plutarch.
A passionate advocate for national service and veterans’ issues, Stan is the Chair of the Board of Service Year Alliance. In this capacity, he advocates for a future in which a year of full-time service—a service year—is a common expectation and opportunity for all young Americans.
Stan is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and the Naval War College. He also completed year-long fellowships at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Transcript
Alan Fleischmann
Welcome to Leadership Matters on SiriusXM and at leadershipmattersshow.com. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. I'm joined today by an incredible leader, someone who's using his position to start a national conversation on character after playing a leading role in the United States military over the last several decades.
General Stanley McChrystal is the former commander of the U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan and the former commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, the nation's premier military counterterrorism force. He is known for developing and implementing a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, building upon his work at JSOC that revolutionized the command's operating culture. Throughout his military career, Stan commanded a number of elite organizations and spent more than six years deployed to combat in a variety of leadership positions.
After retiring from the military, the General founded the McChrystal Group, a consulting firm that provides leadership and communication insights to high-level executives across a variety of industries. He's also a prolific author who last year published his latest book, On Character: Choices That Define a Life, in which he shares advice on living a life of purpose and integrity.
I'm so excited to have him on the show today, for the second time, to discuss his extraordinary career, his insights on leadership, what he's learned along the way, and really to dive into this newest book — the value and place for character in America today.
General, welcome to Leadership Matters. It is such a pleasure to have you on.
Stan McChrystal
Well, Alan, thanks for the generous welcome. And call me Stan, please.
Alan Fleischmann
I will. I have to say, I love to read. And I love to read books. I have rarely read a book that I have wanted to carry in my hand and have near me in my bag wherever I go. And literally, I pick up the book and I just start looking at it, and wherever the book opens up was what I needed to refresh myself with that day.
I was reminded years ago of Benjamin Franklin and his principles, and George Washington on civility — I carried those books around for a while. And I feel like this is at that same iconic level, the way you with such extraordinary humility, but great confidence, share what you know really helps define a life. As you put in your book title, just the honesty and the integrity of the way you write is just amazing.
So I just want to say thank you for the book. And I am probably going to urge people to buy and read the book at least a dozen times today as we speak, because it's one of the rare ones, and it's so needed right now more than ever, so thank you.
Stan McChrystal
Thank you, Alan. You're kind to say that. And I'll tell you a quick story. This morning, I got an email from an old comrade of mine that we served together in Iraq and Afghanistan. He became a three-star general and became the commander of the Defense Intelligence Agency — great soldier. But he just finished the book, and there's a chapter in there about my son and fatherhood. My son had a mohawk haircut for a number of years and whatnot, and then he went in to become an intelligence professional and worked for my old comrade.
And so, to get an email from the guy saying, "I can't picture your son now with the way you describe him then" — but that's the way a lot of our lives are, if you think about it. If you really delve down into what lives are like in different parts, they're very human, and sometimes they're pretty funny. And so, to me, that was one of the joys of writing a book like this.
Alan Fleischmann
I was struck, though — the 13 virtues of Benjamin Franklin. I'm just curious if that played a role in your life, because when I read your book, it's extremely different, but it does get into your character, your discipline. I'll say it differently — how the consistency of things, you're very zen. I mean, you're very on guard. The very fact that you were into intermittent fasting before anybody else was, I thought was fascinating.
I'm curious how you get through the day without having breakfast or lunch just from a social point of view, when people probably say, "General, I'd love to meet you for breakfast. Dan, can we have lunch?" What do you do? Do you sit around the table and look at them? I don't know what you do during those periods.
But it is funny that when intermittent fasting came out, you were kind of honored or seen as a great example well before your time. But this idea of discipline and habit — share a little bit about yours. I think of the virtues as I mentioned, the 13 of Benjamin Franklin. And just, there's something very with clarity you write about the handwritten note, as I said, and the obsession and the fear, and how do you overcome it, that you can carry it in your bag and keep looking at it over and over again.
Stan McChrystal
I think that if there's a common theme that I find in myself, I do think about things a lot. I think about things in my life, and I think about myself a lot — not from an egotistical standpoint, but I think an awful lot about, "Am I doing the right things, the things that I should?"
When you describe my discipline, sometimes people will say that's an obsession. And for example, I eat one meal a day, and I've been doing that for about 40-plus years. And I started just because I thought when I was a lieutenant, I thought I was getting fat, and I didn't have the discipline to go eat small meals. I can't go to a meal, sit down, eat a very limited portion and walk away.
So I found it was easier for me just to go to the mess hall and have coffee only, and then for lunch I'll have nothing and go anywhere. But that defers my eating until dinner. So, what I've done is I've deferred gratification, because I really enjoy eating. And so, I work out first thing in the morning, because that's hard. And then I deny myself all day. But when it comes to the end of the day, I like this idea — if I get to the finish line, I can take a breath, I can eat, I can eat sort of as much as I want.
So I'd never heard of intermittent fasting, and all these people told me I was crazy. Then for a short period, I was very popular. And now I think if it goes out of fashion again, that they'll tell me I'm stupid. But it works for me.
And I find that discipline in general — anything that I start that I think is good, like working out or — I joke with people, I still fold my underwear in my drawer just like they taught me at West Point. Nobody comes to inspect anymore, but I do it just because I think I should. Yeah, I think I should. And there are a number of things like that that I do just because I think I should.
And I find that if I don't do them, it causes me distress. Maybe I'm a little manic that way. If I don't work out in a day, I will have a mental issue with it. I will sort of go into self-loathing, which is weird.
Alan Fleischmann
It's kind of like, when I think about the greatest racehorses in history was this horse Secretariat. And what was so amazing about that horse — I have a picture of Secretariat in my office — is that he actually broke every record. But most of the records he broke was when there were no other horses on the course. In other words, he was just competitive with himself.
And you are — looking into your drawer as you're folding your clothes; and having no one to inspect it sends a message like the person you probably are most competitive about in your life is not the next person behind you competing with the McChrystal Group or the general or whoever it was in your career, it's you. And you're saying, "I demand more from you." And you're saying that message to yourself.
And that's a very powerful standard, because it gets back to character, right? And it gets back to, at the end of the day, it's you looking at yourself in the mirror.
Stan McChrystal
Absolutely. Because you don't — nobody else cares anymore. At this point in my life, nobody cares that much what I do. My wife cares what I do and don't do. But most — my grandchildren, you know, back to handwritten notes.
One of the things is I've written five books now, and I give a copy of each book to my granddaughters, and I hand inscribe something. And the oldest is now 10, so she can just now read the notes in them. But what I'm hopeful is in the years in the future, if the girls are intrigued enough by the books when they get older to read them, that they'll read the inscription in there that I wrote them at that particular point. They'll remember me, of course, but it'll be another window into their grandfather that they might not have otherwise gotten. And it's those kinds of things that I think I feel good about.
Alan Fleischmann
My father wrote a book called Lights and Shadows years ago. He passed away in 2019 at almost 94. But he was very close to his granddaughters, my daughters. And he wrote a book called Lights and Shadows, and he inscribed a handwritten note in the cover of it. And the book is entirely in his words, because he served in World War II, and it's about that service.
And my daughters treat that book — their version of the book — they have several copies with no inscription, but the one that is inscribed, to them, is probably their most valuable possession. And I watch what they do with it, how they protect it and guard it, as if that one is made out of glass and the others are made out of paper. So I can see what you're doing — the fact that you're showing that extra care is so important.
You talk about consistency, which is another word that I find that is underused. You know, you build trust. And certainly, you've seen it in the military, where consistency matters most, where trust matters most on the field. I think we underestimate the power of consistency as well. Obsession is one element. But if I trust you, if I know that you're going to be consistent and you're reliable, we often don't value words like consistency and reliability. And then even character. I mean, obviously character's under siege right now, which is why you wrote the book. It's like, let's get right down to the fundamentals here — how you look in the mirror, how you are with others. Are you opportunistic? Are you serving? I mean, there's a message in your book that is built on not only your humility, but encouraging humility in others.
Stan McChrystal
Yeah. If I could jump on the consistency, because I think it really does mesh with character in such an important way. Because our character is important for us, but our character is incredibly important for the other people in our lives who interact with us — some who interact a lot at work or in family — and they need to be able to rely on our character. They need to be able to trust us, not just because they want to admire us or love us, but because they have to count on us. And they have to know that if they come give me good news or bad news, that I'm going to have a fairly consistent response to that.
At work, the people that I work with have to know that my demand for certain standards will be consistent — that I'm not going to one day be incredibly over-demanding, and the next day be very lax. They need to have predictability and certainty so that they can operate in a way that gives them confidence that they can operate.
If you've ever been around somebody who's mercurial — in one moment, you're their best friend, and the next moment they're screaming at you — it's really hard to interact, and you tend to go around them on eggshells. That's why leaders like that really have a devastatingly negative impact on organizations, because the organization becomes timid, almost like an animal or pet that's been mistreated. It stays away and tentative, and it won't do things very effectively.
So, I think consistency is a remarkable gift that we give to others. And in the military sense, we talk about courage a lot, and courage matters. But courage interacts with consistency. Because when things are bad on the battlefield, troops immediately look to their leaders. They look to their sergeant, they look to their captain, they look on up. And they want to see those leaders being solid. They want to see them being consistent and calm is also part of that. And it gives them the ability to draw strength from that.
And I think that we need that all the way up to the highest levels in every organization — something we can count on, something we can rely on.
Alan Fleischmann
I mean, especially if you're a league of obsessed people, you need it. But also, if you're a lonely island of an obsessive person, you desperately need it, because you can't delegate or share or report up if you don't know that there's trust and truth. And I think the word consistency is so powerful.
So when I saw you focusing on that in the book, I just was like, "Wow." I mean, again, very profound, because people don't realize — a lot of people say, "Okay, I'm going to do this today," and they make these great declarations toward change, and they don't change. And they don't understand why their life hasn't changed, or somehow there's this idea of immediate gratification. "I said it, therefore it must be."
The discipline of creating habits, and the discipline of getting up at 4:30 in the morning every day, and the consistency, and you deciding 40 years ago how you were going to deal with the distraction of eating and food — that's consistent. And that builds trust, and it allows people to know again, you are somebody of character. I mean, that's actually probably one of the great building blocks of character is the fact that I can count on you.
Stan McChrystal
I think you're really onto something there, Alan. Because if we put it in today's environment, and let's put it on politicians — because it's fun to poke at politicians — it would be great to get consistency from politicians.
Because if you have Senator X, Congressman Y, whatever, and they say, "These are my values. This is how I come down on issues. This is how I decide where my position is on issues. This is what I want you to elect me on, and this is what I will be consistent about" — we want that as we send people to represent us and to make critical decisions.
And when we see them operate one way one week, and then two months later they flip-flop completely, and they say, "No, white is black. This is what I think now" — and we're saying, "Wait a minute, we voted for you because we believed that you would be consistent with the values that you portrayed to us." And in fact, the actual value you're displaying to us is opportunism, not consistency.
And I think if we would demand consistency from people — because if somebody comes in and says, "You elect me, I'm going to be a scoundrel. I'm going to do what's best for me" — at least you know beforehand. And you don't have buyer beware.
Alan Fleischmann
It's frustrating when it happens, when you actually are aware and people aren't living by that maximum. I'll say one thing that's amazing. I was a kid, and it was the Reagan-Carter election, and I was so struck by all these Democrats that I thought were all for Carter four years earlier, who were now voting for Reagan. And I asked them, "How do you — if you don't agree with anything President, now President Reagan believed, but yet you voted for him?"
And the answer I got in one way or another, it was always the same kind of indirect way of saying the same thing: he believed in himself, and he was very clear what he was going to do. And I trust him. It was really like, "I kind of know that he stands for this and he stands for that." But I think — "You didn't stand for this or you didn't like that?" In some cases, the answer was yes, we agree on this, that, and the other. But it was just enough for me to trust him.
And I think it goes back to consistency, goes back to, "Are you familiar to us? And are you articulating something that's not opportunistic, but really, truly patriotic?" I guess I would say. And you talk about that too.
By the way, tell us a little bit about patriotism. I never forget that, because that's a powerful thing. If we're being political for the moment too, everybody loves to say, "We love America. We love apple pie and everything's wonderful." We're about to celebrate a pretty important, significant milestone in our history, the 250th year. I spent yesterday — I'm on the board of the Museum of the American Revolution, which is in Philadelphia, and we took this whole meeting talking about what does it mean today. And what are the founding principles of our country that are always needing to be updated? But what does it mean to be a patriot?
And then I brought your book out in this meeting, because you, with great clarity, talk about the true meaning of patriotism and how that plays a role in shaping your character, and how your character plays a role in shaping our patriotism. I would argue both ways.
Stan McChrystal
I think that's absolutely true. In my view, patriotism is not a two-dimensional thing or binary. You either are a patriot or you're not. And typically we say if I'm a patriot, I believe America is an exceptional, an exceptionalist nation — I believe that we are better than other countries. I believe any number of things.
And we can make patriotism very superficial. It's flag pins, it's protestations of just how much we are for America. But then you ask yourself the question, "What am I supposed to be patriotic or loyal to?"
And, then it gets a little bit more nuanced, because really, the United States is just an agreement from a number of people back in the time of the revolution to create a covenant, a compact between 13 colonies. And then as it grew, to create an entity. And then we would try to support that entity, make it as effective as we could be.
It is not perfect. It has never been perfect. It will never be perfect. It gets a number of things wrong in foreign policy, in internal policy, in the way we do things. And so our patriotism should not be this blind idea that if it's American, it's right. If we decide to do something, it's the best decision that could be. In fact, we should be very skeptically demanding of ourselves, because if the premise is we are going to be the best country we can be, that means we have to be rigorous with ourselves constantly.
And it doesn't matter what the Founding Fathers did, or what heroes in previous eras have done. I mean, we can take pride in those, but they are gone.
America is only what America is right now, and it will only be what we decide it will be going forward.
So we have to renew the rigor of how we're going to be as patriots and define that as citizens of America every day. And so I'm really cautious when people use patriotism as this litmus test for either your political views or your worthiness and whatnot. In reality, deep patriotism is the kind that is convinced we have got to make the enterprise better every day, every year. And that takes a lot of work, and sometimes it takes self-criticism of us as citizens and us as a nation.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah. And I think also the fact that it's the sense of responsibility and accountability starts with the person in the mirror. And I think we tend to look at others to take care of us, rather than realize that part of the definition of being of character is that relevancy — that you are relevant, but also you are responsible. And standing up and stepping up is part of that role — being a person of character, a person who is responsible. That's something we don't talk enough about.
Stan McChrystal
No, we don't. And we don't have enough rites of passage for young Americans to very clearly step up in their responsibility to be full citizens. What I mean by that is, if we go back to the Greatest Generation, they went through — most of them went through the Depression as younger people. Then the Second World War starts. More than 12 million serve in uniform. 404,000 are killed in combat. And they come back with this sense that they have contributed to the nation, and they now have both the right and the responsibility to guide the nation forward. They are fully entitled, because they've earned it.
And you don't want a war to create that dynamic. You don't want to have to have a war to create that dynamic. But I think each generation should have a shared experience that as they get to the point where we really want them to step up and be full-fledged citizens and be in the national debate and be arguing and vote at very, very high rates — we want them to feel that sense of responsibility in a clear way.
That's why I've been supporting for more than a decade now this idea of national service for all young Americans — not just military, but civilian. And the purpose is to make better citizens. The purpose is to make people believe that, "Okay, I am part owner of this enterprise. And because I'm part owner, I am part responsible. Power comes out of that. And therefore, I am going to take great care in what we do and how we do it."
And I think that America needs to look for ways which we can make that assumption of responsibility for each rising year group or generation really clear to them — that you can't sit in the corner and not participate. You've got to be a part of it, not just because you want to get the fruits of it, but because we've all got to do it if we're going to make the nation work.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that. And I also — this idea, there's nothing wrong with being patriotic either. I guess is the other thing too. So often we're like, "Oh no, if we're patriotic, we're talking badly about other countries, or somehow we have this arrogance of power."
I'm on the board of the Munich Security Conference, and I'm often struck when I'm in the presence of leaders in other countries how much they look to us to lead. And they're not — they're prime ministers, foreign ministers, presidents — and they're despondent, actually, that the globe can go unhinged without an America.
And then, we've been reminded quite a bit in the last few months that it was Ronald Reagan — I keep quoting him today — but Ronald Reagan who said, "You can move to France, but never be French. Move to England, but never be British. But you can move to America and become an American." And there is something special about this country. It's imperfect, but it's okay to be patriotic and talk about these principles and fight for these principles. I think we got a little off course for a while and not have the arrogance, though, which is the opposite side, which is what I think also, because you write a book on character.
Stan McChrystal
Yeah. I think you're exactly right. I think being patriotic does not mean that everybody else is not worthy. It doesn't mean America is better than everybody else. It means it's as good as we can be. It's like being in your family. You join your family, you want your family to succeed. And if you're like most of us, you've got a dysfunctional aspect to your family, and you don't write it off. You try to make it better. And I think that's the way the nation is.
And I think that in the world, we have been disproportionately the beneficiaries of, really, the post-World War II era with Bretton Woods and the economic structure and then the geopolitical structure in our alliances like NATO. There's a certain view that we invested too much around the world, and we were taken advantage of by other countries as we provided security and we did things like that.
And I would just simply remind people that our gross national product has grown faster than other countries. We are far wealthier than other countries. We are more enabled by the fact that we've taken a central role around the world than we are hindered by that. It has been anything but a bad investment. In fact, it's been an extraordinarily profitable investment for us to engage around the world, both diplomatically and militarily and then, of course, economically.
And so, if we try to wall ourselves off or keep the rest of the world in an adversarial role, I think the only people who are really going to pay the price in the long term is us.
And so, I've also found, when I commanded a 46-nation Task Force in Afghanistan, that those countries all wanted the United States to take a leadership role. I was, frankly, like you, I was surprised by how much they looked to us for leadership. And I tell people now that there were 46 nations there in the mission in Afghanistan, all with troops in harm's way. And none of those countries sent troops because Afghanistan was a critical strategic priority for their country. They sent troops because the United States asked them to. What they judged was their relationship with the United States was more important than anything else that might have argued against it. And so, they were willing to do that to maintain their relationship with us.
And we have got to be just incredibly thankful for that and incredibly protective of that relationship, because the next time we ask, we may not get the same response if we haven't treated people correctly.
Alan Fleischmann
That's right. I guess respect becomes a big word here too, right? At the end of the day, if we respect others, even if we hold them accountable, we hold them to high standards, as long as we have the character to hold ourselves by the same standards, the same accountability, then we can do a lot more together.
I'm curious — in not just this book, but previously, you talk about disinformation. And I'm just curious, we are living in an age where it's so hard to find a source of trust. And we learn now more and more every day that people are living in their own universes. And because we're a big country, you could be literally communicating with a population larger than other countries and only be talking to one, relatively one-third, I guess, of American society. And if you're getting the same source of information, you could literally have three different major groups, each one larger than many countries or a combination of countries, all living by a different truth.
So in the age of — and I would argue, they're not all living by what is truth. So how do we navigate, and how do you actually unravel so you can actually discern what is disinformation, what is misinformation? And how do we actually create ways to break down those barriers so that we actually can be having the same national conversation?
Stan McChrystal
Yeah. Of course, we know disinformation, misinformation is so powerful because any message that is simple — and repeated frequently — does have an effect on a population over time. Adolf Hitler proved it. Other dictators through history have proved it as well. And we see it in our own society now.
And one of the advantages now, of course, is information technology has driven the cost of distributing information almost to zero. And so any organization, even small and in many cases very extreme, can reach a significant audience. At least technologically reach them. And then, if they can craft their message so that it's interesting and it's captivating, it can be ultimately very convincing. And if people aren't getting other sources, and if that's all you hear, what else are you going to believe?
It's a real change in technology. I would like to believe that American consumers will get better at understanding that and be better in terms of essentially shopping and curating their own information. But we don't see that yet. We'd like to see it, but there's no guarantee that will be something that comes.
And of course, we've lost some of the big media like Walter Cronkite being the most trusted man. There's nobody like that now because of the way the information distribution system has evolved.
I think the biggest thing we can do in the near term is we can recognize just how dangerous this is for all of us, and recognize just how much what we are believing and acting on may be completely wrong. In the near term, it may be just absolutely incorrect information designed to deceive you, or over time, just to shape your beliefs.
But most of us aren't — I don't know. Maybe we just don't have the time to think that critically. Maybe we're just lazy. Maybe it's comfortable to find something you believe and embrace that and not think about other things.
That is one of the things that scares me about really strong religious faith. On the one hand, it's very good. On the other hand, it can be incredibly powerful, because we've seen people murder other faiths just because they think that faith is not the same as mine. And as soon as you reach that — I'm uncomfortable with it. The whole idea that just because someone has another view of God and religion than I do, that they would be evil and that I have to kill them — because how can I prove what I believe is right?
Most of us are the faith that our parents brought us up in. We didn't shop out there and look at all the faiths in the world and decide critically which one is right. We sort of got on a track, and we go there. And if we are very enthusiastic about it, we can also let that enthusiasm, like rampant patriotism, shut our minds off so that we just automatically assume anything different from what we believe is wrong.
And of course, the definition of faith is believing in something you can't prove. And that's dangerous too.
Alan Fleischmann
That's a very good point actually. I never thought of it that way — that I just take faith as belief in God. But what you're saying is, there's no proof. You have to roll the dice. I mean, you have to —
Stan McChrystal
Yeah, yeah.
Alan Fleischmann
Interesting. You talk about, in the book, you talk about anger and frustration also, which I thought about as you're just describing, you know, faith and people using, you know — you don't like the idea of people using the arrogance of using what I believe to somehow reject, fear and harm others or isolate yourself from others. That isn't — that isn't when you look at the principles of faith, when you look at the good books of faith, they're usually much more about love and embracing others. It's not just tolerance, which means you're trying to be indifferent. It really is about respect, which is something more powerful in many ways than just being tolerant.
But you talk about anger, and you talk about frustration, and then you also talk about stepping away from the carousel, which is very anti-everything we just talked about, in some ways, or the obsessive personality, the person who knows consistency matters. But there is something very beautiful about the fact that it's almost a reaffirmation. In order for you to know you are doing what you're doing in the right way is to get off that carousel for a moment before you get back on, I guess is the idea, right?
Stan McChrystal
No, it's a little different. But let me describe it to you. Because what I'm referring to is, when you come back from an airline flight and you go to collect your luggage, you go down to the baggage claim area, and it's a mass of people. And there's always a group of people who get right up on the luggage carousel where it comes out, and they stand right next to it, shoulder to shoulder. And nobody else can see through them to see their bag when it comes out, or reach through them to get their bag.
And there's this sense on the part of the people, I assume, that their bag's going to come out quicker if they get up to the front. And of course, that's got nothing to do with when the bags come out. But if everybody would step back three feet, everybody would be able to see. And then when your bag came up, you could very calmly go up and get it.
And you say, "Well, the people up right next to the carousel are selfish jerks." And the answer is, they're selfish, but I don't think they're naturally jerks. It's hard to — you can't judge them. You don't know them enough. They're anonymous. But they are unconsciously selfish. In that moment, they are thinking about themselves, and they've shut off the idea that what they do has an impact on other people, because they're not going to see those people again. It's a chance encounter that won't be repeated.
And so how often are all of us unconsciously selfish? Unconsciously less — we show less character — because it's not people we are going to see regularly. And so it doesn't matter. And I would argue that I don't know the term for it, but it's being self-centered is rampant in society. And I think it's something that we need to step back on.
We ought to call each other on it. You'd probably start a fist fight at the luggage carousel now if you said anything. But the reality is, we ought to, more often than not, say, "You know, this isn't really the way we want to conduct ourselves."
Alan Fleischmann
That's amazing actually, when you think about it also, it's also, "How important is this one moment that you might get your bag fastest and get out of the airport quickest?" How important is that versus showing a sense of courteousness? And maybe you'll be 30 seconds delayed or 15 seconds delayed, right? But you're not talking about the difference between two hours delayed or an hour delayed even, or 15 minutes late even.
So it is true. It is amazing. And you would almost think that it's — that must indicate that we're a society of great competition, which isn't a terrible thing. But that isn't really what it is. It's what are you prioritizing? Is your moment for competition — there may be other things in life we don't compete, we don't step in, we don't speak up, we don't act on — that's where you're missing. But don't do it on the things, actually, which really is where you want to show basic courtesy and respect.
Stan McChrystal
I think it circles back to what you raised earlier about discipline and consistency too. If you set yourself some rules that say, "I am always going to treat people, whether they're anonymous or not, but people who we interact with, a server at a restaurant or somebody — if I am always going to treat them to certain standards that I hold myself to, then that consistency can really give you an ability to have better character," in my argument.
So that's where the discipline part comes in. It's easy to be generous when you're not tired, you're not in a hurry, you've got plenty of whatever you want. It's harder to be it when you're rushed and you're under stress, you're fatigued. It's a lot harder to be patient with people. It's a lot harder to be magnanimous. It's harder to be generous when you are in tight ways yourself.
But that's where that discipline and consistency comes in. If you set yourself a standard and say, "I don't do that. I don't do those negative things. This is how I am," and I really — I've known people in my life that are remarkably consistent and disciplined in that way. And I just admire them and try to emulate them imperfectly, but I try to emulate them because I think that is more important than having to make a conscious decision in every instant. "I am going to be kind to that person. I am going to be patient."
Because if you have to make a whole decision each time, often you won't. And so I think it's better that that's just who I am, and I'm not going to violate that.
Alan Fleischmann
Tell a little bit about what you described about the monuments.
Stan McChrystal
Yeah. We all see monuments, and you see them in different ways. And I've seen them on battlefields. I've seen them in different places around the world. And some of them are sort of offensive. Saddam Hussein built a great big monument in Baghdad to his war with Iran, and it was this sort of braggadocious thing — "Look how many Iranians we killed" and that sort of thing. And I'm offended by those kinds of monuments, because they are a celebration of our superiority, our victory.
And so when I go to battlefields, I used to be sort of spring-loaded to be dismissive of the monuments, because people would put these monuments to ourselves. I collect a bunch of money with my comrades, and we build a big statue to us. And I see that as egotistical.
But then, when you actually get to most monuments, and you go to a place like Gettysburg, the battlefield, and there are a ton of monuments on there, and you actually read them, most of them are not that at all. Most of them give a short summary of the unit that they are reflecting, and perhaps the other battles that the unit was in. And then, typically, they will say, "Okay, we were in the battle on the first and second day, and these are the casualties that we had."
I haven't seen a single monument that says, "Yeah, we kicked their butt," or "We were the bravest of the brave." What I see is this very humble statue that simply says, "We had a mission, we had a duty, and we came here and we did it. And we have put this monument not just to ourselves, but to our fallen comrades who paid the price for that duty."
And then the monument to me is in a different sense — it suddenly is a reminder to all of us that the time when we have to do our duty is not past. That's not history. It's going to happen again. We are going to have to step up, whether it's in war or in something else. We are going to have to step up as individuals and as people. And if we see it celebrated in the past, it's an enduring reminder of how important that is.
And so, when I live in Alexandria, Virginia, near Washington, I can see the Washington Monument every day. And you get this huge obelisk there, and you say, "Well, wow, what's that thing?" Well, it's a very austerely simple monument to George Washington. And I would argue it's really a monument to a person who exemplified many of the attributes that we want for the nation.
Now, he was a rich slave owner. Okay, we can get the doubts out of people. But he was a consistent supporter of the idea of a nation. He was a consistent leader. He became our first president. And he was remarkably disciplined in that role, because he could have stayed — he could have become a dictator. He had that power, but he chose not to. He voluntarily gave up power that he had available to him.
And so, he really embodied many of the values we want. That obelisk is a reminder to that. And I love that it doesn't have a big picture of him on it, or him on the top of it, or something like that. I think that's effective.
Alan Fleishmann
That's amazing. When you talked about also — I want to mention, when you talked about opportunistic versus opportunity. Are you optimistic? I'll put another one that's similar. Are you optimistic about where we are? Or do you see — we obviously see so many things to be concerned about that are challenging to your book, to character, discipline, humility, respect — all the things you're saying is under attack right now in a way that we haven't seen, I would argue.
And you quote the Stoics in the book, and you give us moments of pause. But are you optimistic? And then what do you mean when you talk about opportunity versus opportunism?
Stan McChrystal
Yeah. And I'll take the second part first: whether I'm optimistic. The short answer is no. But I have to explain, because in reality, the meaning may be very different.
And I go back to what James Stockdale did. Admiral Stockdale was shot down as a naval aviator in 1965, and he was for seven years held a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, the Hanoi Hilton. And he was tortured and mistreated. But through his courage and his stoicism, he earned the Medal of Honor, and was an example to other prisoners. He did a lot of writing about it afterward. And he was a little older when he got shot down, he was a little more comfortable with his faith and his values and his linkage to philosophy, so it helped him in captivity.
But he came out with something that's called the Stockdale Paradox. And the paradox is really the case that you need to be very honest about your current situation. You can't be in denial that things are going a certain way and whatever it is in your life and your circumstances. He felt he had to be completely honest, that as a prisoner, he had no control over his physical well-being, no control over his freedom, no control. He did control his mind.
And then he said, "But at the same time, where you have to admit the reality of the current situation, you have to maintain a long-term faith in the outcome."
The reason I say I'm not optimistic is in his description of the experience, he said those prisoners who let themselves get optimistic in the near term — "There's going to be a peace deal by this day and we'll be released by this point" — every time they got their hopes up and then that didn't happen, it was crushing to them, and it made them much more vulnerable.
And so, when you ask me if I'm optimistic now, my answer is, I think we are in a bad place right now. I think the United States of America is suffering an erosion of character that is an existential threat. We could end up not being the country that we think we are or want to be. And we've got to turn that around.
And that's why I've been calling people for a national conversation on character. We have got to get people at every level — and not among the elites. I don't want it on Sunday morning TV, just people who are paid to do this. I want people in churches, on teams, in schools everywhere, stepping back and saying, "Okay, what is character? What do we believe it is? What do we want it to be? And what do we want to demand of ourselves and of others to do that?"
And I think we can do that, but I think it's not a simple task.
So to curve back around to opportunity or opportunism. We have the opportunity in America to be whatever we want to be. That's the extraordinary gift about this place. We have agency. We can be as good as we decide, or we can be as mediocre as we accept. It's up to us. That's great. Most nations don't have nearly as much freedom to do that as we do.
Unfortunately, we've had a rise in opportunism. And the differentiation I would make is I think opportunity is the ability to do things, the freedom to do things, pursue things. I think opportunism is where an individual or group sees the ability to capitalize on something, and they divorce their values, their character, their consistency from the decision whether or not to pursue it. And they pursue it either to make money or to get political power or something.
And so we see people who are like chameleons. They say they're one thing, and then when they find, "Oh, if I'm this, I can do something else," they switch. They turn colors, and they suddenly pursue that. And when people are doing that, it's very self-oriented ultimately.
And so, I think that it differs from opportunity, and it's a negative fad or fashion in America to accept that, to view that as someone who does that is clever, "They're smart because they've got the opportunity to do something. And they are opportunists in that they avoid responsibility for something." Famously, people who go, "I found a way not to have to pay this tax or do that sort of thing. Aren't I clever?"
And I think that is a sad reality that we've got to address in a very direct way.
Alan Fleischmann
I love the idea of a national conversation also. And in that national conversation, to come up with some real solutions, like you're saying — national service, not military, but really to serve the country. Remind ourselves that there are more things that are bigger than oneself. And we don't have that. And we're living in a selfish world right now where we celebrate people who are somehow gaining for their own gain, even at the national level. And it's clear, rather than, "What are you doing for the nation's purpose or the nation's good?" both here and abroad.
This idea that you talk about — character's a series of choices. And you took the basic elements that one should consider in order to create the habits of integrity or the habits of good character. But ultimately, what you are taught in school, hopefully what you're discussing or being — what's being preached at church or whatever faith you have — should also be reflected in your personal values and beliefs. And it's important to align those actions and your personal values and beliefs for the public conversation, the public discourse.
But that's what you're saying, which I thought about the book in simple terms and clear, very, very clear terms. You're saying you're relevant. And it goes back to, you matter. Your family matters. Your neighborhood matters. Your work colleagues matter. Your community matters. But only if you decide that your character matters.
Stan McChrystal
That's exactly it. And there's nothing in the book that tells people what their character should be. I don't have that ability. I don't have that wisdom. What I think we did in the book is I found questions that were very relevant to me, and they forced me to think about my character and its journey. And I would offer those questions to people. If everybody approached that or a similar set of questions, I think it would be a value to them on an individual level.
And then I think as a group, if we have that national conversation on character, as you talk about, I think it could help us move forward.
Alan Fleischmann
It answers another question too, which is how often people think that "My vote doesn't matter, my point of view doesn't matter. I don't need to speak up. I'm one of too many people." And what you're saying so clearly in the book is your personal beliefs, your personal attributes, the virtues you live by, how you articulate and explain yourself and share yourself is so important. And that means your voice and your vote matters, which goes back to the founding of this country. That's true patriotism. You are an important person in this role.
And I think if we get people to understand that, but do it with the basis of respect and kindness and understanding and empathy, discipline and consistency, we can be more optimistic than we are right now, because I feel the same concerns that you do as well. It's an amazing book.
You've been listening to Leadership Matters on SiriusXM and at leadershipmattersshow.com. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. We just spent the last hour — and I knew it needed to be two hours — with General Stanley McChrystal, former commander of the U.S. allied forces in Afghanistan, the author of what is truly one extraordinary book, On Character: Choices That Define a Life, the founder and CEO of the McChrystal Group, a great patriot, a humble leader.
It has been such a pleasure to have you on this show, Stan, back again. And this has been an amazingly important conversation about leadership, about values, about virtue, and about the role and responsibility of each and every one of us, and how maybe we can restore that value, that individual value at scale, if we have that national conversation. So I am grateful for you, all that you do. And I want to sign up and join you as we push this national conversation further, because that's really where we're going to be able to restore all the things that we fight for.
Stan McChrystal
You're on. Let's do it.
Alan Fleischmann
Let's do it. This was such a great show. Thank you so much.
Stan McChrystal
It's my honor, Alan. Thank you. I look forward to spending more time with you. And I really do want to help figure out how we can — with your name, reputation, leadership, and your humility but confidence — can we rally a movement here to have that national conversation. I think we can. Let's see about who you have among you, and let's try to see how we can add more people to it. But I would be grateful to do it with you.
Alan Fleischmann
I look forward to it. Thank you, Stan.
Stan McChrystal
Thanks so much.
This transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.