Review: Perdido Magazine

Bill Farley, an Oklahoma City police officer, had just settled himself down for a well-earned vacation when he received news of a bombing. He grabbed his gear and rushed to the scene. What met his eyes was horrifying. Rescue personnel worked frantically to retrieve the dead and injured from the smoking rubble, but their efforts were painfully disorganized despite the presence of top officials.

Bill’s supervisor, a lieutenant on the Emergency Response Team, arrived minutes later and walked into the chaos. “He is a big, tough guy, a cop’s cop who always worked alongside his men,” Bill recalls. “Though self-effacing, he commanded respect not only because he was capable but because he cared about his subordinates.” The change at the scene was dramatic as he began issuing orders and organizing teams.

“People gravitated toward him immediately,” says Bill. “They understood that he knew what he was doing.”

When Thomas Kolditz began his study of leaders like this Oklahoma City lieutenant, he thought he was researching a unique form of leadership. However, in his book In Extremis Leadership: Leading As If Your Life Depended on It (Jossey-Bass, 2007, $27.95) he says, “The more I study leadership, the more it is apparent that thinking like a life-or-death leader can be a useful form of introspection for almost any leader.” He discovered that people in leadership deal with risk, pressures, strong emotions, opposition and loss in many arenas, including the business world. So instead of directing his findings to a select few—soldiers, firefighters, police officers, medical personnel, etc—he addresses a much broader audience.

Kolditz defines in extremis leaders as confident, optimistic people “who are high in character and aware of their own thoughts, behaviors, abilities and values.” They bring these characteristics to life-threatening contexts, recognizing that they “are fatemakers in the sense that their purpose and function are to continue to value the lives of others who are at the point of death.” When these leaders “live out” their character, they are able to provide their followers with purpose, motivation and direction.

Developing in extremis leaders requires training in a variety of areas, according to Kolditz. He discusses the required competency, illustrates with vivid, sometimes riveting examples and then shows why that competency is important for all leaders. Areas of training include personal competence in the job at hand, capacity to assess and manage levels of follower excitement, dedication to life-long learning, sense of shared risk, willingness to share the lifestyle of the followers, and commitment to truth, to name a few. The author even includes a section on the physical development of in extremis leaders and shows how this can benefit leaders in general.

However, In Extremis Leadership is not a detailed, how-to manual. Kolditz offers the facts about successful leadership he has discovered through research and illustrates liberally with stories he has collected from a long list of strong leaders in a variety of professions.

For instance, he tells the story of a 24-year-old Marine corporal who commanded eight infantrymen during the march toward Baghdad in the current war in Iraq. His squad had learned to respect him because he was an superb rifleman who fought shoulder to shoulder with them for 30 days of intense combat and little sleep. His consistency had earned their complete trust and loyalty.

Squad members told the author of a period of four days they were forced to share one MRE prepackaged meal per day among the nine of them. The soldiers soon discovered that their leader was meticulously giving each man his fair share while he ate only the coffee creamer. Needless to say, Kolditz notes, “The eight Marine infantrymen, some of the toughest people on the planet, would have walked through fire for their leader.”

The author also devotes an entire chapter to the dynamics of dealing with strong emotion in high-pressure or life-threatening situations. He describes the power of fear, one of the most prevalent in high risk situations. Through stories, he illustrates this phenomenon and discusses how leaders have overcome it by an outward focus.

Kolditz further explores the personal element with a chapter on coping with loss. While in extremis leaders may face death more often than leaders in other fields, these experiences offer the leader an important occasion to influence his or her organization for good. This is true, Kolditz believes, because handling death is about celebrating a life that was and caring for the living who remain.

Readers will find In Extremis Leadership a compelling argument for competence and sterling character in leaders—two abilities that are honed with practice and a steady focus on the benefit of followers.

Taken from PerdidoMagazine.com