7 Lessons from Eisenhower on D-Day

In 1964, former US President and General Dwight D. Eisenhower returned to the D-Day battlefields in Normandy, France on the 20th anniversary for a television interview. That program provides a remarkable first-hand recount of the D-Day invasion from the person in command.

Here are 7 leadership lessons from that interview.

1 - Master the Details?- During this 20th anniversary interview about D-Day, Eisenhower easily remembered countless names, unit assignments, statistics, and other details in the interview. This was as a 73 year old man, 20 years after the fact, and with 8 years as President of the United States and two heart attacks in that time between. If he remembered all that so easily then, he must have known everything even more in detail at the time.??

2 - Be Decisive?- The final, irreversible “go” decision to launch the invasion had to be given at 4:15 am on June 5th - 26 hours before ground forces hit the beaches. The decision was Eisenhower’s alone to make. The biggest wildcard was the volatile weather. In the 20th anniversary interview, here is how Eisenhower recounted making that decision:?“The waves down on the beaches were not going to be more than three feet or something of that kind, then the wind was going down - there’d be some opportunity for bombing and the gunfire from the naval ships could be spotted pretty well - I thought it was just the best of the bad bargain so I possibly sat silently just reviewing these things - maybe I’d say 35 or 45 seconds. Now it’s been reported by some of the people present - for example my own chief of staff says it was 5 minutes. Well it wasn’t because 5 minutes under such conditions sounds like a year. Actually, I’d think after 30, 45 seconds or something I just got up and said “okay we’ll go” and this room was emptied in two seconds.”

3 - Realize No Decision is Worst Decision?- Eisenhower explained what he was thinking about during those 45 seconds of quiet contemplation this way:?“Well I think just reviewing briefly all of the possibilities you had for a success and what would be the penalties not only of failure? - of making a bad decision if you were too rash - on the other hand, the penalties of not making a decision and saying we’ll wait some more - and I think that I just reviewed them in my mind and said I thought the best opportunity now …we were given sort of a god-given opportunity in this little space of good weather - of which the Germans knew nothing, it turned out later - and I said yes.”

4 - Take Full Accountability?- Eisenhower was asked about a draft message he had prepared to broadcast in the event that the invasion failed: “What I did was this… from the beginning I had been partly responsible for this. I had been the staff, the head of the staff, that originally outlined this operation, way back two years ago. From all those two years I’d believed in this thing. I believed it would defeat Germany. And consequently I felt not only as a commander but as sort of a fellow who’d been trying to convert everybody to the need of this thing - I felt a particular responsibility. So I wrote a little thing that assumed we were going to be defeated but I told no one else about it - and it must have been an aide that got this thing out and told people about it. I just said the landing had been a failure and there’s no one’s fault but mine. I was the one that picked out the - I knew it couldn’t fail except on weather - I was the one responsible for the decision to go and all the fault belongs to me and that’s that because if it did fail, you know this, I was going into oblivion anyway so I might as well take full responsibility.”

5 - Manage Your Manager?- British Prime Minister Churchill wanted to join the invasion in-person and tried to outmaneuver Eisenhower. Here is how Eisenhower described how he handled it:?“He wanted to come and he told me of his intention to come and I told him he couldn’t do it. I was the commander in chief of this operation and I wasn’t going to risk him because he was worth too much to the Allied cause…. He said ‘General do you have the operational command of all these forces?’ And I said yes. ‘But you are not responsible for administratively for the makeup of the crews.’ And I said, ‘no that’s right.’ He said ‘well then I can sign on as well as a member of the crew of one of His Majesty’s ships and there’s nothing that you could do.’ And I said ‘that’s correct but Winston you will make my burden a lot heavier by doing it.’ So he left it there. Well, luckily the King learned of his intention, so the King sent word and said as long as the Prime Minister feels it desirable to go along on this operation he said I think that I should - it’d be my duty now to go along with you. So he sent word to the prime minister... well of course the prime minister didn’t want to take any chances with the king, so he didn’t go.”

6 - Look from Your Opponents Point of View?-?A big part of Eisenhower’s consideration in planning D-Day was to shape what his German opponents would see and interpret. One part of that was intentional deception plans to portray Allied forces as much bigger and widespread than they were in reality. Eisenhower assessed that this way:?“To show you how we succeeded… General Speidel of the German Army, who was the Chief of Staff to Rommel, in writing his book five years later, he said ‘we wondered why the Allies didn’t use very quickly their 75 divisions.’ We didn’t have 75 divisions. We had by then I think it was 35 divisions in all England - in clear all Britain - including the Canadian, British, Polish, the French and all around… the Germans kept those armed forces back in the Pas de Calais when we were fighting in Normandy because they still believed the main attack was coming over Pas de Calais, so our deception measures worked well.”Eisenhower also later realized how unintentional actions on his part confused the enemy too:?“They (airborne troops) got scattered around. And that was quite lucky for us. At the time we thought it was a disaster. But because they were scattered so badly,?the Germans didn’t know anything. They were just bewildered. And their reaction the next day was very weak because they didn’t know where we were going or what we were doing.”

7 - Foster Culture of Mutual Empathy?- Several stories from the interview demonstrated that Eisenhower fostered a culture of mutual empathy around him. Eisenhower demonstrated his care for his troops. For example, in response to a report there was a tear in his eye after the iconic picture of him with airborne troops waiting to depart, Eisenhower replied -?“It could have been possible… If a man doesn’t show a bit of emotion it would show that he is probably a little bit inhuman. Goodness knows those fellas meant a lot to me.”?When those airborne troops saw Eisenhower, they greeted him with?“Quit worrying General. We’ll take care of this thing for you.” When one of his most senior generals made Eisenhower reconsider - but ultimately correctly continue with - a key part of the plan, the general apologized by saying?“I’m sorry I made your burden stronger.”

Just three and one half years before commanding D-Day in a 4-star general role, Eisenhower was a 50 year old Lieutenant Colonel who must have wondered about his future and career choices in the Army. I have written about the lessons from Eisenhower’s remarkable career journey as a late bloomer -?see https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/from-footnote-50-global-greatness-story-career-victor-prince . ?? ?

As an executive coach, I often help clients who want to accelerate or “unstuck” their career. I find the lessons from great historical figures like Eisenhower can often be timeless with questions like those. This video interview of Eisenhower also gave me a chance to see him in a more personal way, which made him even more impressive in how quietly charismatic and confidence-inspiring he was. You can find the video here -?https://youtu.be/vNaxTXfjfXk

About the Author of this Article: Victor Prince is the #1 executive coach for financial services executives. He is also 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.