A Feet of Leadership…

“How many commanders have we produced who, like General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, could stand alone wrapped in a British Warm at a cross‐roads to watch a brigade of infantry go by? It may have looked like wasted time to the staff but his sole question to a passing young company commander (who did not realize that he was being addressed by his Army Chief) “How are your men’s feet?” went through the whole division like fire and, in consequence, there were 80,000 men who would have died for him. Such is the value of personality in leadership. There was no large staff car; no A.D.C.; no fur collar; but there was a fighting general who understood men.”

“Personality in Leadership,” by Major T.V. Scudmore, V.D., F.R.G.S, The British Columbia Regiment, Canadian Defence Quarterly, Vol.XI, No.2, January 1934.

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