5 Leadership Lessons from the Soviet Missile Commander who (Maybe) Saved the World

Thirty-eight years ago this weekend (on 26 September 1983), Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov was the officer on duty in a bunker near Moscow watching for incoming missile attacks on the Soviet Union. His mission was to quickly alert his chain of command so they could launch the Soviet Union’s missiles before they were destroyed. Time was limited since intercontinental missiles travel so fast. Around midnight, the computers Petrov and his team were monitoring sent an alert that a missile had been launched from the United States. Then alerts came that four more missiles had been launched. Instead of relaying these alerts up his command chain, however, Petrov decided to call it all a false alarm. He was proven to be right some minutes later when nuclear warheads did not rain down upon the Soviet Union.

Petrov’s situation that night that night only became public knowledge fifteen years later in 1998. Today, they do offer leadership lessons for leaders in fields far from nuclear warfare. Here are 5 leadership lessons from this near miss with a nuclear war.

1 - Pre-Define Action Scenarios - When he explained his decision not to forward the alerts up the command chain, Petrov pointed to information he got from his training. He was told that a surprise nuclear strike from the United States would probably be a massive launch, not just a few missiles. Because the alerts he was seeing did not meet this threshold, he did not overreact.

LEADERSHIP LESSON => Some leaders quickly overreact to situations and escalate them unnecessarily. Some leaders don’t react quickly enough as warnings accumulate until it is too late to act. Smart leaders define plans ahead of time that assess risk thresholds and prescribe actions in a timely manner. Identifying the right data to track and timing for decisions is key to these plans.

2 - Have Situational Awareness - Perhaps Petrov did not understand or care about the larger geo-political situation around him, but his decision to not escalate the alerts was fortunate given the tinderbox that September 1983 represented. Earlier that month, a Soviet fighter plane shot down a Korean Airlines jumbo passenger jet that had strayed into Soviet airspace, killing all aboard. Six months earlier, US President Ronald Reagan had called the Soviet Union “an Evil Empire” and announced plans for a spaced-based missile shield that the Soviets feared would give the US an advantage in a nuclear missile exchange. The Soviet leader, Yuri Andropov, was a former KGB head who my have thought Reagan capable of ordering a surprise first strike. Had Andropov received this alert in the middle of the night and was told he had just minutes to act, maybe he would have decided not to launch a Soviet counter-attack. Because of Petrov’s decision that night to sit on the alert, we will never know.

LEADERSHIP LESSON => Some leaders make decisions with blinders on. Smart leaders know the importance of seeing the larger picture to get context on the situations they face and the implications of the decisions they make.

3 - Make a Decision - Petrov could have frozen. He probably wanted more information. He probably wanted to ask his boss what he should do. But Petrov knew the clock was ticking. He knew it was his job as the officer on duty to make the decision in the field. He decided to deem the alerts as false alarms. Had Petrov said nothing, perhaps someone else in that bunker would have picked up a phone and triggered alerts up the chain of command.

LEADERSHIP LESSON => Making no decision is a decision, and it is often the worst one. It leaves a vacuum. It takes away any chance a leader has to shape a situation. Sometimes the wrong decision is better than no decision at all, as long as it is monitored and quickly rectified if wrong.

4 - Document Lessons Learned - Petrov’s superiors launched an investigation after the incident. They wanted to understand what triggered the false alarms. It turned out that sunlight bouncing off just such clouds in just such a way above just such a part of the US fooled the Soviet satellites into thinking they were seeing missile launches. The Soviets seem to have fixed it because the exact same mistake seems not to have happened again.

LEADERSHIP LESSON => Some leaders ignore history and repeat the mistakes of their predecessors. Smart leaders learn from history. (Subscribers to this #HistorysLeadershipLessons newsletter hopefully do.)

5 - Use Crises to Implement Changes - It is unclear what changes came about after this near-miss episode with Petrov. (After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the US and USSR put in a “hotline” so leaders had a direct line of communication in times of crisis to avoid miscommunications.) One good thing did come out of the charged Cold War tensions of September 1983. After President Reagan was told US military technology could prevent future passenger airliners from accidentally straying into Soviet airspace and getting shot down, President Reagan made that technology open to the public. That is how the Global Positioning System (GPS) became such a big part of our everyday lives.

LEADERSHIP LESSON => Crises can create special moments where it is easier to make changes that are too difficult or controversial to implement in normal times. Smart leaders look for opportunities to take advantage of that.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident

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About the Author: Victor Prince, a Wharton MBA, is a?corporate trainer,?executive coach, and an Amazon Top 20 best-selling leadership?author?who helps organizations build leadership, strategy, communications, and critical thinking?skills. Follow Victor on?LinkedIN?to access his 100+ articles on?leadership,?strategy,?learning & development, and more.