Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: General John Allen

I recently interviewed General John Allen on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today is a retired four-star Marine Corps general and the first Marine ever selected to command a theater of war. General John Allen led the multinational military campaign in Afghanistan, and upon retiring from the military, led the international effort to combat ISIS. General Allen, thank you for joining us.

General Allen: That's a great pleasure. Thanks, Adam.

Adam: Pleasure is mine. You grew up in Virginia, right outside of DC. You were born at Fort Belvoir as your dad was an officer in the Navy, and you attended the Naval Academy before kicking off your career in the Marine Corps. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What drove you to pursue a career in the service and ultimately in the Marines? And what early experiences and lessons shape your worldview and shape the trajectory of your success?

General Allen: My father was a career Navy officer, and he was the finest officer I ever knew throughout my whole career. He taught me so much about leadership, commitment to country, and commitment to something bigger than oneself. And I wanted to be like him. He was up through the ranks. He enlisted in the Navy in 39, fought his way all the way across the Atlantic, all the way across the Pacific, and ended the war on a ship just within sight of the battleship Missouri, taking the Japanese surrender, and then would go on beyond that. fought in Korea, fought in the aftermath of Korea, et cetera. But he imbued in me very early along this sense of duty and a sense of commitment to the country. 

And I wanted to be like him. But he also told me a story about the carrier on which he was serving, USS Bataan, which was a small jeep carrier. That carrier had been a World War II carrier, which was in mothballs when the Koreans invaded South Korea, and they pulled the Bataan and several other small carriers out and put it into action very quickly. The crew was formed very quickly. My father was, as an officer at that point, was placed in the communications branch. She headed immediately West to get to Korea as fast as possible because we were losing the war. 

And somewhere around Hawaii, a Marine fighter squadron landed on board the famous Marine checkerboard squadron, and off they went. And my father, when I was a very small child, told me the stories of the Marines he served with on Bataan. When the carrier checked on the station off of Korea, it was surrounded by a place called the Chosin Reservoir. One Marine division was surrounded by six Chinese divisions, a field army. And it didn't look good. It was the dead of winter. wasn't certain they could get out of the mountain, get through the passes, to get down to the coast to be evacuated. My father told me stories of Marine aviators flying around the clock, flying the F4U Corsair, that magnificent bent-wing airplane. Not all of them made it back. Some of them were lost in action. 

Some were shot down. Some had to ditch. But his sense of the cohesion of that squadron, its sense of its history, its sense of its mission, the fact that every single Marine, whether the individual was tightening a screw on an engine or loading the aircraft with bombs or rockets or machine gun ammunition, or the pilots themselves, they were all committed to a single mission because the commander was just an incredible leader. And they all did it within the context of the Society of the United States Marine Corps. And that really piqued my interest as a small child. 

So, while I wanted to go into the Naval service and the Navy really for most of my youth, when I finally arrived at the Naval Academy, as you know, people can graduate and go into the Marine Corps. The Marines placed a large number of their officers on the staff of the Naval Academy in those days. Still do. I was a commandant there, so they still do. And this was 1972. I'd been enlisted for a short time in the Navy. And in 1972, the war was still going on in Vietnam. So Marine officers who are serving at the Naval Academy have all basically just come out of combat. 

Many of them had served in some of the most violent, vicious combat against the North Vietnamese regulars in the northern part of South Vietnam, the I Corps area. So, these were battle-hardened officers, all captains, a few majors. Almost all of them went on to be general. But in those days, I was in awe of them. And it really reinforced the stories that my father told. And so even though I love the Navy, still do, and love the Naval Academy, my interest was piqued to become a Marine. And in the middle part of my sophomore year, I made the final decision. In my mind, I would become a Marine. And if luck would have it, I would become an infantry Marine. So that's really the background.

Adam: What were the keys to rising within your career, and making it to the top in such a competitive organization? And more broadly, what can anyone do to rise within their career?

General Allen: I worked for a commandant a few years ago. I was his speechwriter, then later I would be his senior aide, and then later I would be his military secretary. The commandant was General Charles C. Krulak, Chuck Krulak. And he used to say to people when they would ask a question like that, he would say, the secret to my success is I just did as best I could whenever I had a job. I didn't seek to compete with anyone. I didn't seek through ambition to achieve a certain rank. Whenever I got a job, I did as well as I could. He used to say, bloom where you're planted. And that was the same for me. I wanted to be an infantryman early along in my basic school period, which all Marine officers have to go through. and you compete for your occupational specialty, infantry being one of them. I said I wanted to be an infantryman. 

And they said, well, you may not get it. Infantry is really competitive. So, if you want to be an infantryman, you better stand at the top of your class. And I did. And that's how I became an infantryman. And that really is what motivated me for most of my career. I didn't feel as though I was competing against anyone. But when I was given a mission or given a position, I put my all into it to be as successful as possible. I was just doing as well as I possibly could in every job I ever had. And what happens when that occurs is you attract attention. And maybe not to your benefit, but as you attract more attention, you get harder jobs, you get bigger jobs. 

And that's really what happened to me over time. The other thing I sought to do was to vary my career First, I always did as much as I could to get back to the operating forces, the Fleet Marine Force, as it's called, as often as I could to command at all the right gates. I felt I had an obligation if I was going to someday be in a position to command at a more senior level, I had to do those kinds of things that were necessary to prepare me to do that. So, I was very lucky in my first tour in the Fleet Marine Force and 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines, I was very lucky as a lieutenant to ultimately command a rifle company, and I commanded it on a med float as a lieutenant, and it was the raid company of the 6th Fleet. And that was a huge experience. 

And so, I came out of that tour and went to Marine Barracks Washington, where I was exposed to some great leadership, but I also had a chance to go at night to graduate school at Georgetown University. And that exposed me to another different experience. And then coming out of Marine Barracks Washington, I was sent to graduate school again, and then back to the fleet. I spent my last 14, or 15 months as the operations officer of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine. And I was mentored the entire way. I had four principal commanders on that tour, two battalion commanders, and two regimental commanders. I was sent to the Naval Academy to teach. 

And again, this alternating environment where I would be in the operating forces, and then I'd go into an opportunity for education or to teach and then back to the operating forces and so on and so on. Until I got to be a colonel and commanded the basic school as a colonel, as I was headed to an MEU, the commandant called me in and said, I need you to go to the basic school. I need you to become the leadership example to the next generation of Marine lieutenants. And I was heartbroken that I wasn't going to get a MEU, but I was honored that the commandant had that confidence in me. 

And then at the end of that tour, I was headed for the joint staff because in those days you needed to get a joint ticket in order to be considered beyond colonel. At the last minute, my orders were changed and I was sent to the Naval Academy to be the first Marine commandant there. And then for the 10 years or so, I was a general officer. I only spent about two of them in the Marine Corps. All the rest of them in the joint force were on joint billets, which would culminate with commanding the International Security Assistance Force, the NATO force, and US forces in Afghanistan, which was the great honor of my life. 

You started the conversation by saying I was the first Marine selected to command the theater of war. It was a big job. And as I'm headed off to command that theater of war, President Obama gave me very explicit instructions that you are now going to pivot this war. We've been at this a long time. We're going to start to turn it over to the Afghans and bring everybody up. And so, I not only still had to fight the Taliban, I had to completely restructure the theater and the force ultimately to adapt to the president's orders to me as his theater commander.

Adam: You shared a lot of topics that we're going to dive into. I want to ask you about your time leading in battle, leading in Afghanistan, but I want to unpack some of the themes that you shared, which are essential to anyone listening, and trying to understand how to excel in their careers. Something that you shared right off the bat, which is something that I've heard from so many guests on 30-Minute Mentors, other generals, a number of CEOs of household name companies, don’t focus on trying to become a four-star general. Don't focus on trying to become a CEO. 

Focus on excelling at the job that you have today. Dan Helfrich, one of the first guests on 30-Minute Mentors, CEO of Deloitte Consulting, asked him, how did you become the CEO of Deloitte Consulting? And he told me, I never once thought about becoming CEO of Deloitte Consulting. I focused on doing my very best at every job that I had, and he excelled in his jobs. He got promoted, he got more difficult jobs, he excelled at those jobs, and next thing you know, turn around, he's the CEO of the organization.

General Allen: If you are genuinely a humble leader, it's not about ambition. It's about the humility associated with leading your people and achieving the mission. And those things are not exclusive. You know, the old saying is that people are first, but the mission always. And if you're really serious about that, you will be noticed. 

Not because you're attempting to attract attention, but because when you do a job, it gets done right and it's done to a level of quality that attracts attention. And people want that kind of individual to get more jobs, bigger jobs, harder jobs, longer jobs. And all of those things combine ultimately to deliver you to be the CEO of Deloitte. Not because you wanted to be, but because the accumulated performance over time clearly pointed to the fact that that individual ought to be the CEO of that company.

Adam: You also spoke about the importance of diversifying your skill set, having a growth mindset, going to graduate school multiple times, and lifelong learning essential to success as a leader. No one gets there alone. The power of mentorship is very easy for anyone listening to this podcast right now to listen to you, to look at your background, and to be blown away. But as you just shared, you're not the product of being born a four-star general.

General Allen: Well, I would say to my officers, the officers that worked for me over the years, that you can't rely on the school system of the Marine Corps or any service to deliver you properly prepared professionally for the positions of increasing responsibility that you're going to hold. There are really three things you've got to do. One is, of course, going to school. The second thing is you can't rely on the service for your entire education. A true professional warrior, a true professional officer in the service must be a student of the profession of arms. There's no substitute for it. If you're not prepared to be a student of the profession of arms, get out. 

Because you have an obligation to the missions that you'll have. You have an obligation to the troops that you will lead, that you be best intellectually prepared for whatever that mission is. And that mission might be close combat, and it's awful, and it's horrible. And you're going to do killing, and you're going to get killed. But you've got to be prepared for that. And that only comes absent the personal experience. That only comes from a lifelong dedication to learning. 

And then the third thing I tell them is, and that learning, by the way, is to read constantly. You can see the professional library behind me. I've got two or three times that number of books in other bookshelves around my house. I just gave away 400 volumes of my library to new lieutenants coming out of the Naval Academy. 

And you just have to read. You've got to master the history. And as I would tell my subordinates, We're really fortunate in the West. We're really fortunate. We have, in many respects, the unfiltered history of warfare through the eyes of commanders for 5,000 years, which means you ought to be reading because the limitations that you have in your personal experience can only be expanded by looking at warfare through the eyes of those who've written about it or who have been written about. 

And I would say to people, look, you can't do anything about having a 25-year-old body or a 35-year-old body, in my case, a 70-year-old body. You can't do anything about that. But you have no excuse for not having a 5,000-year-old mind. And that 5,000-year-old mind will make you successful. It will give you the capacity to read because you are now benefiting from all the experiences, good or bad, that leaders and commanders have had throughout their history. I said there were three things. One is the schools. The second is the personal professional development, which is about your reading. 

And the third is to, I would say, pick a campaign in history and study it relentlessly. Study the leadership on both sides. Study the courage in close combat. Study the capacity of leaders to sustain their forces in combat or sustain their forces in a campaign. But study one campaign relentlessly. It doesn't mean you can't study battles and other dimensions of warfare. But study one relentlessly. And the one for me was always the Southern Maryland campaign of the U.S. Civil War. The great thing about the study of the Civil War, human factors are human factors. 

The nature of war, the human dimension of war really is unchanging. The character of war, the technical dimension, changes all the time. But the nature of war, the nature of command and combat, courage and battle, et cetera, that's pretty standard throughout history. And I don't mean to diminish it. It just is. The nature of war is largely unchanging. And so, when I study the Battle of Antietam, which is really important, it was the bloodiest single day in all of American history. And the entire battle was determined, the outcome, by the leadership of the generals on both sides. So, study one campaign relentlessly so you understand the political overtones, the command, and control, and the leadership of commanders, right down to where the bayonets were being crossed in close combat by the grunt. And you just can't go wrong. Schools, personal professional development, and study one campaign. And I gave it to all of my leadership.

Adam: You've studied leadership your entire life. You've been a leader at the absolute highest levels. You've been around the most successful leaders, not only in the military, but you were at one point the most favored general of the president of the United States. In your experience, what are the key characteristics of the most successful leaders and what can anyone do to become a better leader?

General Allen: Look, it's never about yourself. That's the first thing. It's never about yourself. You are a servant of the country. You're a servant of your mission. You're a servant of your troops. And if you ever believe anything other than that, then you might want to think about doing something else. But it's never about yourself. I retired at 38 years old, roughly, in the Marine Corps. And I suddenly realized after I took my uniform off the last day, I was okay. Now, I was going to go right back into government to work with John Kerry. But I was okay because I had never defined myself as a Marine. 

I defined myself as a servant. of my country. I happen to wear a Marine Corps uniform. I happen to have had the great privilege and honor of leading Marines and the joint force in combat. That didn't define me who I was. What defined me was the fact that I believed as a leader that I was a servant of something bigger than myself. And I would offer that advice to anyone. do the very best you can in every single job. If that's where you're focused and you are a humble leader throughout that process who believes yourself to be a servant of a cause bigger than yourself. You almost can't exhibit better leadership principles.

Adam: You made reference to your time leading in Afghanistan. You led the coalition that ultimately helped defeat ISIS. You spent two years leading in Iraq, leading an outreach effort to Sunni tribal leaders to try to persuade them to take on al Qaeda militants. What are the keys to leading in the most adverse situations, the highest pressure, most difficult conditions? What advice do you have?

General Allen: I have a book that I really treasure, and the book is called Defeat into Victory, and it's written by Field Marshal Sir William Slim, Bill Slim, he goes by, and he talked about the physiological effect of command at a level where you're losing troops by the tens or hundreds or thousands a day. Now, I didn't experience that kind of loss, but I had losses every day in the forces that I commanded in Afghanistan. And the war was unrelenting. It was 24 hours a day. 

And we'd have high-intensity operations, or we'd have high-value operations in the context of a major raid going down somewhere with some of my tier-one special operators, I tried to sleep when I could. I seldom ever got more than four hours, maybe five hours a day in sleep. And often it was broken up. And so, the physical and physiological pressures on a commander in combat, it can become quite overwhelming. If you've prepared yourself in terms of the reading that you've been doing and the experience that you've had, and you've been delivered incrementally into that position, in other words, you deserted by virtue of your experience, then the impact is less. 

But in this book, Defeat into Victory, no less a man than Field Marshal Slim talked about the physical, and physiological exhaustion. that he experienced when he took over the Burma Theater against the Japanese. And they were losing. And he had to turn that war around and to go from that to victory, to turning it around and ultimately defeating the Japanese took not just an enormous effort on the part of the troops and the supply effort. I recall very well the stories of the hump where our supply aircraft were flying over the Himalayas. deliver material to some of these forces. But it took an enormous toll on him personally. 

And I had my staff, when I got to Afghanistan, read the book. In the end, what saved him was his staff's disciplining of his life to ensure that he got sleep, to ensure that he received nourishment, to ensure he was hydrated, etc. Because I had a couple of occasions where I had to put some of my generals down. I'd call their deputies and say, you're in charge. Put your principal on." And I told him to go to bed because of the enormous physical and physiological drain on a commander in combat at a high level, it's not possible to describe. I thought I would be ready for it. I thought all the studying I had done; I'd be ready for it. And I wasn't. And it took quite a toll on me until I was able really to condition myself to what I was experiencing every single day in Afghanistan.

Adam: It sounds like the key lessons that you were able to take away from that experience that anyone can apply regardless of where they're leading because very few of us are going to have that experience that you just shared. Have the right people around you and make sure that you're empowering those people. Additionally, as challenging as your situation is going to be and the situation that you just described is as grueling a situation as any of us are going to find ourselves in, there's a pretty good chance that you're not the first person to be going through that situation. 

So, try to understand what other people have done to navigate that situation. And in your case, you had a guide. You went back and studied history and understood how it had been done successfully before, and that gave you a roadmap to understand how you could do it leading in Afghanistan.

General Allen: Well, that's a really important point. As I said, there is this component of personal and professional development, which I admonished all of my subordinate leaders to pursue. And one of the things I would tell them that they had to do was to read the biographies of the significant senior leaders. And I wanted them to look at three things when they read the biographies. The first was, who was their mentor? Because almost all of those senior leaders could point to a person or two or three people who had had really significant experience in the process of mentoring that person. The opposite of a mentor is not the mentee. We often hear that term. I'm the mentee. That term is not a proper term. You have a mentor. The word mentor actually means a guide. 

And then you have the protege. Sometimes we don't like to use the word because it doesn't sound American. But I believe that I was the protege of a number of really well-rounded, well-educated, humble leaders. And I would tell my officers, read those biographies, and find out who the mentors were. And what were the qualities of the mentors that were then passed on to these younger officers who grew up to be senior officers? The other thing I would tell them is, what were the two or three key billets that they held as they progressed to senior leadership? And was there a moment that changed their career in some form or another? Some of these guys, very senior folks, got relieved. 

For whatever reason, they got relieved. Study how they were resilient. How did a guy get relieved or get an adverse fitness report, etc., and then still turn that around and become a fleet commander a division commander, or a theater commander, it's possible to happen. So, study the mentorship, study the resilience of these officers, and then study what they did when they became senior and how they managed their time. Because of all the things, all the weapons that a senior leader can bring to bear in battle, time is the most important. 

And if you squander a senior leader's time, you're really putting the mission at risk. And that's really important to understand how these senior leaders managed their time. Some of it was an art form, some of it was science. If you were surrounded by good people and you told them that they are responsible for making sure you're in a good sleep plan, a good nourishment plan, and a good hydration plan, and they took it seriously, then the leader is in sort of a protective bubble and is able then to focus on the mission without having to worry about whether you're going to run out of gas on a particular day and go down yourself.

Adam: Was there a moment that changed your career, a moment of resilience that defines you, that you look back on and say, this shaped me as a leader, this shaped me as a human being?

General Allen: Oh yeah. I had a couple. I don't want to go into it in your podcast, but I've had a couple of headshots. One as a captain. I thought it was over. I was going to get out and I was encouraged by my mentor at the time to stay in. And I did. And that then created a succession of positions. And then John McCain intervened with me to help me to understand how I should think about myself and my future at a time that was a very difficult time for me. He didn't have to, but we'd created a relationship, both him in the role he played, the central role, the role we miss desperately in our world today, which was a very responsible politician who could work across the aisles and get things done. But he took an interest in me. He didn't have to. And he really settled me down and gave me hope in some very difficult times. So, yes, it isn't all about the eighth and I parade and the medals and all that sort of thing. But I often judge leaders by their resilience in how they have processed and overcome difficult times. Really difficult times in order to still be successful.

Adam: something that you mentioned early on in our conversation. One of your jobs as a leader in the Marines is to get the people who you're leading to be prepared for killing and be prepared to be killed. Talk about motivation and as a leader having to motivate someone and you've had to motivate people in all different types of environments motivating troops in battle, motivating troops in battles where people are getting killed every day, motivating troops in battles where you might think that you're winning, you might think that you're losing. What are your best tips on the topic of motivation?

General Allen: Yeah, there's a term I use that is descriptive of a leadership style that I think is really important. It sort of transcends all of those environments that you were talking about. The environment of close combat, the environment of sort of interminable pressure and tension that just saps the life out of you. And that leadership style is called an inspirational leader. The word inspire comes from our theology, our theological history. And it derives from the idea that just use the Christian faith. I'm not getting religious on you here, but the idea is that you can be filled with the spirit. That's what the term inspire actually means. An inspirational leader is a leader who can inspire their people to fill them with their spirit. It's a spirit of their value, not their religious orientation necessarily, and not usually. 

But it is the values of that leader that create cohesion amongst those who are led. It's the values of that leader that the individuals within the organization would like to emulate. It's the capacity to create synergy because that leader not only leads from the front, in other words, inspiring those to follow, the inspirational leader leads from the front in all things. Intellectually, physical courage. Intellectual courage, moral courage, and people want to be like that leader. It's also important for that leader to be able to explain their leader, stand in front of their organization, whether it's a big one or a little one, and explain what they stand for and what they expect out of their organization. An inspirational leader to me is someone who live their values every day for everyone to see, lives them in a way where those values or desirous in individual people's character, and they try to emulate it. 

And that means also then when the organization is on its knees, it's exhausted, whether it's from close combat or whether it's from long-term extended operations, or whether it's the pressure of getting the budget out in headquarters and, you know, you just don't have another five minutes that you can put into it. When that happens, you start to cash checks on your spirit. You're not sure whether you've got the physical capacity. You're not sure you can take another step. And it's during those occasions when we're starting to really cash checks on the very essence of what a person is, where the inspirational leader really shines through and can drag a unit through hell to success. 

And I put a lot of emphasis on both trying to live as an inspirational leader, but also organizationally, we should do all we can to create and support inspirational leaders as well. And one of my fears is, Adam, as we get farther and farther from this experience of war, not that war is ever good, but we learned a lot about ourselves in combat. Lord Moran wrote the book, The Anatomy of Courage, which is a fantastic book. Everyone should read it if you're a professional in the military. And he says war has no capacity really to create courage, the anatomy of courage. War really exposes that which is at the heart and the soul of the individual. And if we have done our job in preparing the souls and the spirits of our troops and surrounding them with technical knowledge and physical fitness, etc. 

War, when it comes, will expose the strength of character. But if we haven't done that, a war will expose the weaknesses. And one of the things that Lord Moran said, Lord Moran was the surgeon for Winston Churchill during World War II, one of the things he said was that often wars and battles are determined long before the forces are ever joined in combat because the strength of the individuals involved is going to be exposed by the dynamic of battle and dynamic of war and the extended dynamic of conflict. So, we should be trying to create inspirational leaders wherever we can because we know that in battle, in war, and in conflict, when the pressures are on and they're unrelenting, it will be those spirits that are exposed by the experience that will win through.

Adam: General Allen, what can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful personally and professionally?

General Allen: Well, part of it, if you're a professional and you're in the military, you should Seek at every possible turn in your career to go to school. You should be utterly committed to your personal and professional development. And you should be studying the activities of others before you in the context of major campaigns. If you're not a professional military officer, and most people aren't, that does not make it any less important to commit themselves to their personal professional development. I used to say to my captains when I commanded the basic school that if I saw you out in public and you didn't have a book under your arm, I was going to ask you why. I wanted all of my officers to be reading. 

And when I had my captains go into the classroom with the lieutenants, I wanted them to have a book under their arm. I wanted the lieutenants to see my captain reading. I wanted the lieutenants to see that the captains were not at rest at the basic school. They are committed to their learning. And I also required them. to read some passage out of that book to the lieutenants every day. So, the lieutenants from the very earliest moment of their professional birth, whether it's in the military or whatever it is the professional birth is maybe of an individual in the private sector, they have an inherent understanding and ultimately an inherent commitment to their personal professional development. 

And that can really only come from a searching study of the literature that defines that particular career. In the military, that literature is generally history, but increasingly given the march of technology, the effect of technology on the character of war. I talked about the nature of war being the human and the technology being that which defines the character of war. You have to study both of those things now and the way that technology is changing, not just the fact that it's changing, but the rate of change of technology demands that probably more than in the past, our professionals must study the effect of technology on the character of war as they continue to prepare themselves for the human dimension of the nature of war.

Adam: General Allen, thank you for all the great advice, and thank you for being a part of 30-Minute Networks.

General Allen: My honor to be with you today, Adam. Thank you very much.


Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.

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