Billy Mitchell Leadership Analysis
Billy Mitchell: A Critical Analysis of His Leadership
Billy Mitchell was a visionary airpower pioneer who demonstrated very effective leadership in field operations, but his inability to develop a guiding coalition limited his effectiveness in leading the major organizational change he so desperately desired.
General Mitchell was a famous, some would say infamous, airpower thinker who some regard as the father of the United States Air Force.1 Born into a wealthy family and the son of a Wisconsin Senator, Mitchell could have chosen a life of luxury. But Billy sought great adventure and chose the military life instead. He joined the Army at the age of eighteen, six years before the Wright brothers made their first historic flight at Kitty Hawk. Once powered flight was proven, it wouldn’t take long for men to make it a weapon of war. For the U.S. Army, Mitchell found himself leading this effort in World War I and, by all accounts, he did so superbly. In this experience, he gained a vision for airpower so firmly embraced that he became America’s most outspoken supporter of air forces and the need for an independent Air Service. As he pursued this challenge, Mitchell’s leadership was both stirring and divisive – leading to heroic displays of airpower technology and also to courts martial for insubordination. Despite his efforts, General Mitchell was not able to drive the Army and the nation to the strategic change he desired for airpower. In the years, however, following his downfall, many of his concepts eventually won the day. Denied his dream in life, his contributions were rewarded six years after his death when he was posthumously promoted to Major General and awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
How could a man succeed so greatly in one phase of his life, but fail to achieve the same level of success in another, given the fact that history has proven his airpower tenants correct? To answer this, one must examine Mitchell’s leadership and
Billy Mitchell was a visionary airpower pioneer who demonstrated very effective leadership in field operations, but his inability to develop a guiding coalition limited his effectiveness in leading the major organizational change he so desperately desired.
General Mitchell was a famous, some would say infamous, airpower thinker who some regard as the father of the United States Air Force.1 Born into a wealthy family and the son of a Wisconsin Senator, Mitchell could have chosen a life of luxury. But Billy sought great adventure and chose the military life instead. He joined the Army at the age of eighteen, six years before the Wright brothers made their first historic flight at Kitty Hawk. Once powered flight was proven, it wouldn’t take long for men to make it a weapon of war. For the U.S. Army, Mitchell found himself leading this effort in World War I and, by all accounts, he did so superbly. In this experience, he gained a vision for airpower so firmly embraced that he became America’s most outspoken supporter of air forces and the need for an independent Air Service. As he pursued this challenge, Mitchell’s leadership was both stirring and divisive – leading to heroic displays of airpower technology and also to courts martial for insubordination. Despite his efforts, General Mitchell was not able to drive the Army and the nation to the strategic change he desired for airpower. In the years, however, following his downfall, many of his concepts eventually won the day. Denied his dream in life, his contributions were rewarded six years after his death when he was posthumously promoted to Major General and awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
How could a man succeed so greatly in one phase of his life, but fail to achieve the same level of success in another, given the fact that history has proven his airpower tenants correct? To answer this, one must examine Mitchell’s leadership and
Bibliography: 1. Roger Burlingame, General Billy Mitchell (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, Inc., 1978), 1-94. 2. Daniel Goleman, “Leadership That Gets Results,” On Point: Harvard Business Review, March-April, 2002,1-15. 3. Dr. Michael L. Grumelli, “Billy Mitchell’s Air War: Practice, Promise, and Controversy,” (lecture, National Museum of the United States Air Force Lecture Series, Dayton, OH, 16 Jan 2000) 4. Alfred F. Hurley, Billy Mitchell: Crusader for Air Power (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1975), 1-105. 5. Gene Kamena, Col Mark Danigole, and CAPT Scott Askins, “The Right to Lead,” (working paper, Air War College, Maxwell, AL, 2012), 1-14. 6. John P. Kotter, Leading Change (Boston MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1996), 3-31. 7. GEN Richard B. Myers, Ret. and Albert C. Pierce, “On Strategic Leadership,” Joint Force Quarterly, No. 54, 3rd quarter 2009, 12-13. 8. Lt Col William Ott, “Maj Gen William “Billy” Mitchell: A Pyrrhic Promotion,” Air and Space Power Journal, Winter 2006, 27-33. 9. Don M. Snyder, Dissent and Strategic Leadership in the Military Professions, ASSI Publication 849 (Carlisle, PA: Army Strategic Studies Institute, February 2008), 1-46. 10. Marybeth P. Ulrich, “The General Stanley McChrystal Affair: A Case Study in Civil-Military Relations,” Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly, Vol. XLI No. 1, Spring 2011, pp. 86-100.