Washington

George Washington: Situational Leadership

Edwin Robinson

History 301

Dr. Victoria Ott

December 9, 2007

Washington’s skill as a military leader has been found by many historians to be quite lacking. However, while his generalship has consistently been criticized, Washington’s undeterred conviction to the preservation of the army has become the focus of his contribution to the cause of liberty. A fresh examination of Washington’s ability to maintain a viable fighting force in the field during the early stages of the war reveals an amateur general who took the reigns of a new age army of free men with virtually no experience and an aversion to authority. How did a man who had no experience leading an army, who could not draw support from a professional officer’s core, hold together a fragile alliance men and a cause that was just as delicate? From Boston to Princeton, Washington carried his men through those critical early years with a situational leadership style, adapting to circumstances with flexibility and unconventionality not only in his decision-making but also in the roles he was willing to assume.

Historians have sought to illuminate the distinguishing features of his leadership position that carried the Patriot cause to victory. William Randall, in his book, George Washington, summarizes Washington’s Revolutionary leadership role arguing that he possessed a unique leadership style that set him apart from his British counterparts. Creativity, patience, and logistical knowledge were qualities of Washington’s leadership that to Randall defined a new age of warfare that the British failed to adapt to. Washington’s leadership was at its best when he backed into a corner and the chips were all in. This crisis mode leadership was what made him daring, adaptive and dangerous like at Trenton and subsequently Princeton. He stuck decisive blows when he felt victory was certain and always kept to the conviction of preserving his army at all costs.

Recent biographer, Joseph Ellis, in his book, His Excellency, agrees with Randall’s view that it was Washington’s ability to maintain his forces the expense of quick victory. In doing so, Ellis explores on a deeper level Washington’s personal struggle to overcome his natural headstrong inclination for decisive battle when military necessity and reality forced him into a defensive self-preservationist stance (Ellis, 101). Military biographer, Edward Lengel is more critical of Washington’s defensive policy, namely that it did not exist. Washington never truly assumed the Fabian role. At Boston he favored as suicide attack as Howe was leaving, and at New York, when his staff advised him to retreat, he stubbornly held on and cost many lives, only withdrawing at the last moment. Lengel having decried Washington’s military competency focuses his assessment more on his personal traits of dedication, and vision. Washington had more concern for the lowly soldier than anyone in the army. The dedication to his men went beyond the winter camps at Valley Forge and Morristown, as Washington’s attention to the soldierly was an everyday affair. Washington also had his eye fixed on a national vision that few of his contemporaries saw. Moreover, Washington more than anyone else understood that unity was the most critical component of winning the war.

Another contemporary historian, David Fischer, in his book, Washington’s Crossing, gives perhaps the most favorable view of Washington’s leadership qualities by focusing on the dark days of winter 1776. Washington has lost nearly ninety percent of his troop strength. The Patriot cause on the verge of total collapse, Washington rose in an instant from fleeing fox to fighting tiger. While his narrative centers on Washington’s tide-turning victories at Trenton and Princeton, Fischer provides an intimate depiction of the internally divisive forces working against the rebel leader and the hope of a new nation. Beyond strategy, Washington had to learn to work with men from diverse colonies, crafts, and convictions melding their differences into a unified force. Continuing in this vein, Fischer illuminates a quality of Washington’s leadership that his colleagues fail to emphasis: the overwhelming necessity for Washington to lead this new breed of citizen-soldiers with a flexibility that fostered harmony and not hatred.

Concededly, these various arguments do embody the leadership style exercised by Washington the early years of conflict. However, the traits that characterize Washington’s leadership role during the early years of the Revolutionary War have been a contentious issue among scholars in part because there was not one single quality that defines it. His function as a leader changed so often to meet unexpected challenges that it is hard to pinpoint a common thread. Hence, if change was the essence of his style then Fischer’s argument of flexibility and adaptation stands the test. To not have one distinguishing characteristic of leadership stand out implies that Washington was not bound to one role, or one trait. He assumed many roles because he allowed and thus a testament to his adaptable, flexible leadership style.

Both in battle and in the barracks, Washington’s army was plagued with problems that required his flexible leadership. Desertion was a blood letter that substantially reduced his fluctuating forces. Throughout the war, the Continental Army lost nearly a quarter of its troops to desertion. While deserters fled, those left to defend the freedoms of contemporary Americans had to somehow get along and work together. Troop unity was difficult to achieve with independent liberty-minded individuals prone to outspoken beliefs and conflicting opinions.

The very freedoms that Washington’s army sought to protect were the same liberties transformed Washington’s leadership position from general to disciplinarian. Military order was never far from Washington’s mind, constantly forcing the general into tricky positions. Unlike British regulars who responded instinctively to authority, Washington helmed a headache of disorderly and defiant proletarian forces prone to marauding and mutiny.

Washington’s leadership qualities were tested as soon as he

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