Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Lieutenant General Robert Ashley

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

Adam: Our guest today is a retired general and was the leader of one of America's intelligence agencies. Lieutenant General Robert Ashley served as the senior intelligence officer in the Army before becoming the director of the DIA. General Ashley, thank you for joining us.

Lieutenant General Ashley: Hey, Adam, good to be with you. Thanks for reaching out. I look forward to this session.

Adam: Looking forward to it. You grew up all over but consider North Carolina home. Your parents didn't graduate from high school and didn't expect you to go to college. The expectation was that you would spend your career working in one of the local textile mills in North Carolina. You wound up going to Appalachian State and then joining the Army and the rest is history. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What early experiences and lessons shaped your worldview and shaped the trajectory of your success?

Lieutenant General Ashley: Yeah, so that's a good rundown. You know, my parents, 10th grade education, my mom out of Statesville, North Carolina, my dad out of West Jefferson up in the mountains. And clearly one of his goals was I'm getting out of the mountains and I'm going somewhere and I'm going to see the world. It's really two things. One is what I observed from my parents and the other is my older brother. So, I have an older brother, Steve, who's six years older than me. And so, a lot of times when you have an age gap like that, it's as if you have another parent in the house. What I got from all three of them and really from my mom and dad is just this incredible work ethic and ethics in general. 

So, they were really salt of the earth, great Americans, who worked hard all their lives. And then from my brother, the inspiration for what he did, where he, having been exposed to the Air Force, from my dad's enlisted time, he said, I want to be a pilot. And so, he literally worked jobs as a janitor. He worked at Patrick Air Force Base for the last assignment put himself through school and got an aerospace engineering degree. And so really that kind of inspiration on the education side was from my brother. And I think one of his biggest fears was that I would settle to just kind of stay in our hometown and work in one of the local jobs and not move on. And he really inspired me and then he went on to be an Air Force pilot and aerospace engineer and had a successful career in the Air Force.

Adam: What drew you to the Army and to intelligence in particular?

Lieutenant General Ashley: Yeah, it's kind of funny because I'm not sure the best way to capture it, but having been a great fan of the James Bond movies as a kid, I would say that that was a big part that brought me into it. But the actual path into the Army was walking across campus at Appalachian State. And in the distance, I see a guy in a battle dress uniform, the uniform we wore in the mid-80s. And as we're getting closer, and I'm looking, I'm going, that's Benny Duncan. I went to high school with Benny Duncan. He was one of the wrestlers. And I go, I had no idea you were a student. He goes, hey, let's go to the cafeteria and sit down and have a chat. 

And so, Benny and I are catching up in the cafeteria. And he goes, you ought to go talk to Captain Flora in the RTC department. And I went to talk to Captain Flora. And I joined the ROTC for the Army program. And that put me on the path to coming on active duty in 1984. And the funny thing is at our 40th high school reunion, Vinny was there and he spent some time in the service, but he's like, I'm in awe, you know, you were this three-star general. I go, you know, you put me on this path. So, I told him, I said, this would not have been possible without that chance meeting we had walking across campus.

Adam: It's a really important point. You never know in life who you are going to influence. And in your case, you were influenced by this one encounter with a guy you went to high school with. You were also influenced by James Bond. It could be someone you know, it could be someone you don't know, could even be a fictional character.

Lieutenant General Ashley: I'm a huge James Bond fan. Matter of fact, one of my little interesting trinkets in my office, if everybody's familiar with James Bond, is that he worked for MI6 and that his boss is M when in fact the MI6 head is known as C. And I have a small plaque in my office because I had a chance to work with MI6 in my career. So that's one of the little cool things that I show people when they come into my office at our house. That is cool.

Adam: It is cool. What were the keys to rising within your career and what can anyone do to rise within their career?

Lieutenant General Ashley: I think it's really; you do it one day at a time. And if somebody says, well, okay, you second lieutenant Ashley in 1984, what's the path to become the director of the defense intelligence agency? There's a little bit of luck involved. There's a lot of help from a network of mentors coaches and people that you meet along the way. 

And then there's that focus that you apply to do your job the best you can every single day. And if it works out, that's great. If not, that's fine as well, too. But it's not as if I had this predetermined path where I wanted to be. What I wanted to do was serve my country. I wanted to do a great job. I wanted to take care of the people that were under my watch, and I wanted to help protect the nation.

Adam: Was there a moment in your journey when you realized, I'm really good at this, I can excel at this? Clearly, you were inspired to join the Army by an early influence, you were interested in becoming an intelligence officer because of your passion for the James Bond series. But when did you realize that this could be something that you could excel at?

Lieutenant General Ashley: I'm not sure that there was ever a moment where I said, this is something I can excel at. I think the fact that I loved what I did, I enjoyed it, and the people that I worked with were exceptional. For me, one of the key things is every day I start to work on something that is important to protecting the nation. And so, for me, it wasn't like I'd sense that I'm good at this. I'd probably do a lot of questioning whether or not I was any good at it at all, but for me, it really is about how important this is every single day. One is you get a chance to make an impact on all the people that you work with. But the other part is you carry kind of in your rucksack every single day, the hopes and dreams of at this point now 330 million Americans. And that's a pretty good motivation to apply yourself every day and motivate your teammates. And we talk about that, what it means to serve the nation.

Adam: And when you're working in an organization when that mission is not quite as clear, not quite as compelling, you're probably not going to wake up every day with that same fire, with that same passion. It’s incumbent on leaders of every single organization to communicate a clear mission and to ensure that that mission is compelling, powerful, something that everyone in the organization is going to want to go all in to follow.

Lieutenant General Ashley: And I think that's a good way to look at it because irrespective of what you do, you contribute, it's important. A lot of times I share the story of when I got exposed to Simon Sinek in his book, Start with Why. Matter of fact, he spoke to an offsite we did with the army leadership when General O'Donnell was the chief of staff. And it caught me when he said, it's not what or how you do something, it's why you do it. It really inspires people. And so that really inspired me to share that story. of how he described that because it is the why. And for me, you know, the why starts with my kids. It starts with my family. And I often describe it as it's like a bullseye. 

So, in the center of that bullseye, my why is my kids, my grandsons, my spouse. And then the next ring is aunts, cousins, uncles, nieces, and nephews. The next ring is all the people I work with from the service. And before I'm done, I'm back to my point of the outer ring of that. My why is the hopes and dreams of 330 million Americans, and that really fires me up.

Adam: What were the most important skills that you developed that allowed you to rise within your career, that allowed you to become a three-star general, become the senior intelligence officer in the Army, become the director of the DIA?

Lieutenant General Ashley: I think the skills are not necessarily the technical and intelligent skills that you might think of. I think it's more in what I would call a human domain, the ability to listen, to try to make sure that I communicate, and to have a degree of empathy with the folks that I work with. So, I think it's the connection at the human level through the various jobs, commands, whether I was a staff officer, whether I was in charge. Through the years, I think those have served me well. 

At the end of the day, regardless of all the cool stuff that we have, all the technology, and the Intel community, and within the military, it really is about relationships and the people that you work with. It was really kind of funny when we talked about the tech side. A couple of years ago, we were testifying, I think it was in front of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. And there was some concern about, whether are we able to retain people. Are we able to recruit people back into the intelligence community? And they went through the five heads of the agencies that were testifying and they asked me what my thoughts were. And I said, Tom Cruise only wishes he could do some of the cool stuff. And that's on the congressional record.

Adam: What a great way to recruit talent. One of the biggest issues that companies are facing today is trying to understand how to recruit talent. If every recruiter could go to potential employees and say, what you're going to do is even more exciting than what you see Tom Cruise doing in your favorite Tom Cruise movie, that issue around recruiting talent would not exist.

Lieutenant General Ashley: Yeah, but we're not actually going to have him ride a motorcycle off a cliff, but there are some pretty cool things we're going to let him do. It's just that contribution to understand what it is you're doing for the nation. And everybody in the military always talks about being part of something that's bigger than you to contribute in that way. And that always resonates with me. I grew up in a military family. 

My dad was actually a soldier at the end of the Korean War. And then he got out, came back, worked as a mechanic, and thought, there's more to life than this. And I want to get out and do some stuff. And then he enlisted in the Air Force and that's when he did his Air Force career. So, it's kind of interesting that he was both a soldier and an airman and his sons were a soldier and an airman. And he served at the end of Korea. And then he did a tour in Vietnam when I was 10 years old.

Adam: Something that you mentioned that helped you rise within your career, a key skill, the ability to cultivate successful relationships. In the world of intelligence, building relationships is right at the heart of what you do. What are the keys to building successful relationships?

Lieutenant General Ashley: The biggest part is it's building trust. It's being transparent. It's being open in your communications, and being a great teammate. I mean, everything that you want someone to be like that, you know, it's someone that's transparent, someone that's empathetic, someone that's a good teammate. And you also really want to make yourself approachable and what's the human side. So, I'll jump forward to my time as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. 

And so, you have this organization that is rather large. It has a global mission. How do you connect with them? And it was something that I thought of about the first month and a half when I started doing this on Sundays. And it was really, how do I connect with the workforce? And so, I would sit down on Sundays and I would just write a note to everybody at DIA and the note would cover, hey, here's what I'm working on. Here's what I'm concerned about. 

Appalachian's playing this team this weekend. I think we're going to be in a good place. Did you ever actually sit and listen to the words of this particular Pink Floyd song, Time? What it was doing was Hey, this is me. This is what I'm about. This is what's important. And I want to share it with you. And so, I would send that every Sunday. And it was kind of funny because on Mondays, then I would start getting all his emails back. Maybe there's something that resonated with somebody. Occasionally you'd get the, please take me out to the distro. That was a little disappointing, but for the most part, it served me very, very well in connecting with the workforce. 

And it was really kind of funny. probably about a year into the job, I shouldn't say job, a year into that assignment as a director, it became known as the Sunday Missile. And so, at that time, General Mattis was the Secretary of Defense, and I worked for him when he was the Commander of Central Command. And so, I asked him, I said, hey, sir, we have this thing called a Master's Minds Program, and we bring senior leaders to come over and talk to the workforce over at the headquarters. 

And I said I'd be honored if you would do that. And so, he came over and came up, sat down in the office and we had a good chat. We were catching up. And in the Marine three-star that's his Marine aid executive assistant kind of role was with him. And I didn't realize that he was on distro for the Sunday missive. And so, we're wrapping up the conversation and Secretary Mattis looks at me and says, so Bob, tell me about the Sunday message you sent out. I just grinned, you know, like, oh my gosh, my Sunday missive has made its way to the secretary of defense. 

But it was just a chance and it was almost like kind of cathartic for me to sit down and write this thing and just kind of share, you know, what's on my mind, what my concerns are. And I enjoyed writing it. I wish I had saved them all because a lot of them were on the classified networks. And after we went to COVID, I moved them to an un-class network because we had so many people working from home. I enjoyed doing it. I enjoyed sharing that and I enjoyed the feedback I got.

Adam: And the biggest thing that you were able to do was to transform yourself in the eyes of the people who you were leading from a figure, a three-star general, the leader of one of America's major intelligence agencies, an intimidating, imposing figure, into a human being, into a real person.

Lieutenant General Ashley: Yeah, I think that is critical. And everybody's going to have a different philosophy. Some people will, the, who they are as a leader is somewhat standoffish and some will make those connections everybody has a different approach and you have to be you. What are you comfortable with? Because it can't be this false persona that you're putting on. There are days when you have to be bigger than yourself. I am an introvert. And so when I get up in public forums, that's where I channel my inner extrovert. because of what the job requires me to do. 

But, I mean, you hit it spot on. One of the things that was really funny, I've probably been in a DI for maybe about a year and a half, and I was in the gym one Sunday morning. And I come walking in and there's one other gentleman in there, one of our officers. And he just kind of looks at me like, oh, you look familiar. And so, I just come in, it's just the two of us. And so, I go over to the bench and I'm starting to work out. And probably about 20 minutes into the workout, he looked over and said, I said, Bob, I'm the director. And he goes, good to meet you, Bob. Now here's kind of a mid-grade officer. 

And so, we had a good relationship. The funny thing was at the very end of the session when we were finishing up working out, he looked over me and said, so Bob, tell me, a lot of stress in your job? And I said, yeah, there is. Let me talk to you a little bit about it. So fast forward, we're in this huge amphitheater. And the protocols for the military or for the director, yes, it's General Ashley or it's Sir. And so, we have this big amphitheater and everybody's in there. And I said, hey, any questions? We got done with kind of a town hall. 

And I point to him because he sits in the same spot all the time. And I said, so from your vantage point, how's everything going? And he, in the middle of this huge crowd, looks at me and says, Bob, things are going well. You could just hear everybody breathe. It's like, oh my God, I can't believe he called you by your first name. And I told everybody and I said, we've been having this conversation for over a year. I'm okay with that. So, if you're his boss, do not crush him when you get back to the office.

Adam: Cause I'm good with that. It's a great story. And your story brings out a lot of really important themes, essential to successful leadership. humility, accessibility, authenticity. Leaders who are shut off, who are siloed, who are unable to relate and connect to other people are never going to make effective decisions. leaders who open themselves up leaders who bring other people in leaders who want to hear from as many people as possible and Break down the barriers to allow the people around them to be their best most authentic selves so that they can bring the most honest authentic information possible to the table not afraid to speak up if you're in a meeting and the people around you are afraid of you, they're not going to be open. They're not going to be honest. They're not going to tell you what you need to hear. They're going to tell you what you want to hear, and you're not going to be able to get to what you need.

Lieutenant General Ashley: It's absolutely the truth. Matter of fact, they're doing a disservice to the leader when they don't provide that feedback, but you've got to provide the environment where they can do that. They know there's no consequence to making those comments because collectively if you're depending on me to be the smartest person in the room to make the very best decision, we're going to be a little bit of a challenge because collectively, we're going to come up with the best way ahead. And so that's absolutely critical. We had one of the officers that was relatively junior and It's kind of funny because she would always give me this look like that's not a good idea in some of the small groups in the office. 

And I told her how much I valued that. Matter of fact, I saw her probably about a year ago when I was over at DIA and I told her, I said, I still remember the fact that you never shied from telling me that you didn't think something was maybe the right way ahead. And I think that's a key attribute that you want in the culture of an organization. And it's kind of funny because when I'd been there maybe a couple of months I got an email just kind of out of the blue and somebody goes, hey, how would you describe DIA's culture? And it was just arbitrary, my emails in the global access address, or anybody could email me all the time if they want to. 

And so, this email pops in and says, how would you describe our culture? And I said, well, I'm only been here a little bit of time. I've never been assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency. I'm learning about your culture. And I think the other part is there's not one culture. So, it's like kind of generational questions as well. At one point, I think we had five generations. If you go to X or Z or where we are, then I'm on the other end with the baby boomers. But I said, from a cultural standpoint, there's civilians, there's military, there's people that are logisticians. There are people that are analysts. There's a multitude of different cultures. And so, I started thinking about how to convey that. How do I set the tone and a direction for what I think that culture should be? And what I did was I came up with something that was called the Director's Intent. And it's a series of bullets. 

And I said, okay, if I were, want somebody to, you know, some DEI officer that's out in Nebraska on a trip and somebody goes, hey, how would you describe the culture at the Defense Intelligence Agency? And so, I sent out these bullets and they were, we strive to be great teammates. We listen first. We have to be accountable for our own behavior. And back to your point about bringing up issues, we challenge the status quo respectfully. We move at the speed of war, and the importance of what we do. We complete the run together and we value people. 

And the complete run-together part for me, I think about really the stress of deployments and families that end up in divorce and things like that. And I know that One of the things that I wanted to make sure and we carry on today was whenever this time in the army ended, that when we walked out, whatever day we walked out, it was my wife, Barbara, and my hand in hand.

Adam: That's important. I love that. Something that you mentioned as you were describing how to build successful relationships right off the bat, leaders need to build trust. How can leaders build trust?

Lieutenant General Ashley: You bring people in; you value their opinions. You share with them the direction of what you're doing. You're not compartmented. You help them understand what you're doing and you're just forthcoming. For me, it's one of the things from the special operations community is you can't surge trust. It is built over time and you can lose it in a second. 

So, for me, it's everything about the relationship, how you bring people in, how you team with them, how you communicate with them, and how you value them. What they do is build trust and know that you don't have any hidden agenda. What you said is the truth. And if something comes up and there's anything that they need to know about you're going to share with them. And so, I think it's everything you do 360 degrees around you every day. about who you are is how you build trust.

Adam: In order to succeed in the world of intelligence, you have to be able to effectively communicate, persuade, and motivate people to do what you want them to do. What are your best tips on the topics of persuasion and motivation?

Lieutenant General Ashley: I think you have to have them understand the importance of the task at hand. What is it we're trying to accomplish so that, and I don't want to use the word buy-in so that they understand what it is we're trying to do, the value and importance of it. And that they're just as integral to this journey and the success as anyone else that's on this team. And so, it's really getting people to embrace what it is you want to accomplish and then understand the importance of their role in it. 

And I had a conversation with Peter Singer, who's a futurist, earlier this week. And he said, when people come into organizations and they try to instill change, or they try to accomplish something, where they, a lot of times fail is that the narrative doesn't resonate with the folks that they're leading. And so, what you have to be able to do, and this is one of the comments that Peter shared with me is, when you talk about that narrative, that vision, where you're going, they have to see themselves in that story. They have to see themselves as a contributing value member of that narrative and that story and that vision of where you're going. And I think that's important because we do this as a team.

Adam: You mentioned that you are by nature an introvert. And oftentimes people associate leaders erroneously with being naturally extroverted. If I'm an introvert, I can't be a great leader. I have to be an extrovert to be an effective leader. I've done a lot of teaching over the years at UCLA, and I've brought in guest speakers who are like you, introverts, who talk to my students about how they've been able to lead effectively and how introversion isn't necessarily something that impairs your ability to lead. And my students, who are often introverted, are blown away by that. And I'd be interested if you could share with listeners, in your experience, how your introversion has played into your ability to become such a successful leader.

Lieutenant General Ashley: The fact that I'm an introvert I tend to be an observer of things that are going on around overcoming it over years is really just experience and you get more comfortable with what it means to get out in public and whether it's testifying in front of Congress or speaking to an auditorium a thousand people but It's kind of funny when people have asked me, so tell me about your mentors through the year. I mean, who were your mentors? And I usually answer the question the same way I said, I didn't necessarily reach out to somebody and say, I would like you to be my mentor. 

And I said, my education as a leader, I think comes through kind of three legs on this particular stool that we'll call leadership. The first one is my own personal experience, things that I experienced directly that I learned, whether I did it well, poorly, or however that might be judged. The second one is the observations that I make of everybody that's around me. I watch carefully how other leaders, whether it's somebody that's senior to me, whether it's a peer, or whether it's even somebody junior, how they interact with others. And so, I'd like to think I'm a good observer of the human condition of how people operate. And then the other one is reading. So, I Love to read biographies, military biographies, and I think that contributes to it greatly as well. There's a really good quote from Secretary Mattis that I would share with folks. And this was a comment he made in response to somebody said, somebody senior in the Army said, well, you know, I don't have time to read. 

And his comment was, thanks to my reading, I've never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed successfully or unsuccessfully before. It doesn't give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead. And so that gets into that journey as a leader, not necessarily just as an introvert, of what it means to continue your education. And so, for me, it's the trials and tribulations, the things that I went through directly, what I've watched, and then what I've tried to glean through reading biographies and others and see how they've dealt with issues.

Adam: What do you believe are the key characteristics of the very best leaders and what can anyone do to become a better leader?

Lieutenant General Ashley: I think you have to be a great listener. I think you have to be inherently inquisitive to the point, kind of analytic in the way you look at things. I think you have to have empathy. in terms of how you deal with people. And I got ready to go into battalion command. So, I'm reading all these books on leadership to add to those points. And I'm getting ready to go into battalion command. This is what everybody strives for. When you're a lieutenant, they go, what do you want to do? I'm going to be a battalion commander. 

That's what a lieutenant colonel does and leads this team of usually it's probably more than 400 soldiers. And somebody sent me an email and said, have you ever looked at Lou Holtz's leadership philosophy? And I went, no. Oh, you got all these books on leadership and you're taking a look at and he sends me this email, which is a little leadership philosophy. Do your best, do what's right, and treat others as you would have them treat you. And I thought. That's the golden rule. That's the one our parents gave us when we were kids. 

So just think about that for a second. Do your best, do what's right, and treat others as you would have them treat you. I know there's a spin on that third one that's come up as of late, but for me, if you can do that, I think when your head hits the pillow at night, you should rest easy. And when I share that with folks, I would talk to every new cohort of officers coming into DIA. And I would put that on a slide and I would talk about Lou Holtz's leadership philosophy. And then I would also ask him because I like to emphasize the military piece. I said, do you know who Lou Holtz was? And you get maybe one person to go, didn't he coach at Notre Dame? I go, yep, coached Notre Dame, NFL, University of South Carolina. I said, but you know what they called him before? They called him Coach Holtz. Nobody knows the answer. I went, Lieutenant Holtz. You should be a field artillery officer. 

But I challenged them at the end. I said you should take out a three-by-five card. Write those three bullets down and then write Friday on the other side and put it on your desk. And then on Friday, just flip it over and read those three bullets. Have I done my best? Have I done what's right? And how have I treated others that I work with? And kind of grade yourself. and be thinking about who you are as a leader on that journey. And so, for me, that's one of the things I like, the idea of paying that forward, because it's so simple. 

But if you go back to Clausewitz, I think the Prussian who studied the military and wrote on war, said, that even in war, the war is simple, but even the simplest things are difficult. And so, leadership, it's easy. You can boil it down to three bullets and put it on a three-by-five card. But in execution, everything is different and it can be difficult. I think the other thing that I could share is, that you talked about different personalities, people go into positions and you have things that will say, well, that's a leadership position. If you're a battalion commander, you're in a leadership position. 

Or if you're, pick a job, you're in a leadership position, you're a CEO. There are people that go into those jobs that are not leaders. For me, I think leadership is a decision. It's not a position. Now there are positions you can leverage your leadership because you are in charge of something. But for me, I think it's a decision. So somewhere right now in Iraq or Syria, there's a young soldier who has made that decision to be a leader. They might not be in a leadership position. 

And if they embrace that and all the things that we've talked about and that you talked about to all the folks that join you on this podcast, it's putting all that into play. Cause there are lots of folks that think it's just. It's like a golden ring. I'm becoming a commander of something. But they don't really embrace what it means to be a leader. They just think of it as this is a position. And I think that's the wrong approach.

Adam: I really love that. Leadership is a decision, not a position. You can be a great leader without having a title that has anything to do with leader or manager. You don't need to have a business card that says general, CEO, supervisor, manager, vice president, or executive. And if you do have those titles, if you do have those positions, that doesn't necessarily make you a leader. Leadership fundamentally comes down to who you are, and what you do, not a title, not words on a piece of paper.

Lieutenant General Ashley: That's it. And one of the other things that I did that I kind of stumbled into, was one of the jobs I had when I was battalion commander, the mission we had we had three shifts and they were working in buildings. So, we had people working 24 seven. And this is one where I asked my sons who were in middle school at the time, I said, be patient with me on Saturday mornings because I'm going to sleep in. Every Friday night, if I wasn't out with the Boy Scout troop with my kids, every Friday night about 1130, put my uniform back on, I'd go to this building where everybody's on shift. 

And I would walk around. And I would sit down. So, we had soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, all the services were there, but I was an Army Battalion Commander. And I would go over and I would literally go to every room in this building and they were working a collection mission. I'll just leave it at that. And I would talk to everybody. And it was really funny because after doing it for a couple of months, I was on the watch floor and sitting down with a couple of the soldiers. And it's really how are things going? How's the family? Small talk, sports, whatever. And I remember. One time I got up to walk off the floor and there was a Marine officer who said, are you going to talk to me? And I went, yeah. 

So, I sat down and started having a conversation with him, but to hit all the soldiers, it usually took me from about 1130 to about two, two 33 in the morning. And then I'd go home and. All right. Could be gracious enough to let me sleep, and do whatever they needed to be, to be working on, but it was really kind of funny. And although I never mentioned to the other commanders from the Air Force, from the Navy, or the Marines, that I would do this on Friday nights, it made its way back through the ranks to them. Now at one point, you know, they stopped me and go, what do you do on Friday nights? I go see everybody and I talk to them. We have a good conversation.

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

Lieutenant General Ashley: Realize that who you are as a leader is a lifelong journey. You never stop learning. And I'll give you a kind of example that is, I was again, back to getting ready to be a battalion commander. So, you're a lieutenant colonel and you're out at Fort Huachuca, which is where the intel school is. And you're thinking like, I'm going to be a battalion commander. This is going to be so awesome. 

And so, we had an army one star and I'm still in touch with her today, Barb Fast. who said something that just struck me when she said, who you are as a leader. And she's looking at these 17 years in lieutenant colonels. She looks at us as who we are as a leader is about a 75% solution. You will spend the rest of your life on that last 25%. They really resonated with me because so fast forward from lieutenant colonel to two stars when I'm out actually commanding the schoolhouse. 

And I would always look at the after-action reports from the captain's career course and the other courses to see how we're doing. And I ran across a couple of them where we had two captains, separate courses separated by probably half a year, where both the captains said, I don't know why we teach leadership. I know how to lead. And of course, my thought was, you've mastered this in five years. I'm 30 and I'm still a work in progress. I wish you would have put your name on this piece of paper so I could have had a conversation with you. 

But the other part of that is why I know that that comment was so appropriate is I go back to the time that I was at Central Command as a one-star, brand new one-star, right, baby general, and General Mattis, who's nearly 40 years, this storied personality, is the commander. And so, we're at one of our quarterly exercises that we would do. And the way I would tell the story is that so you have this guy who's been with nearly 40 years of service, and you think he's probably at the 99 percentiles of who he is as a leader. But who's sitting on his right? A retired Army four-star by the name of Gary Locke, who retired 20 years before, but he's just this sage individual. 

So, you've got this guy who's a four-star combatant commander running two theaters of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. and all the other responsibilities, but he still realizes he's a work in progress. So, he's got Gary Luck, General Luck, sitting on his right. And as I'm sitting there watching this, and we're going through the exercise, and then General Luck, who's got that nice Southern drawl, looks over, and General Mattis calls him Jim. He goes, hi, Jim. Did you think about it, I'm sitting there like, I can't believe I got to watch this. This is so cool. And the other part about the flag rate level, and I think this gets into, I'll use a sports analogy. If you really want to be a good tennis player, don't play somebody you can beat. Play somebody that can run your butt around the court. If you really want to work on your leadership, be around a bunch of really good leaders. 

And when you make a flag officer, you get exposed to all these senior guys. You're like on this 45-degree glide path of learning who you are as a leader. And then you get exposed to these guys and it's like best practices. And it just, it starts leaping forward because you're just seeing so many good things of how people deal with issues, how they make decisions, how they lead. And it's absolutely priceless. There are just so many tremendous people who wear our uniform and are civilian leaders as well. That part has been a real privilege. Can I get one last story in for you? 

Sure. You always get the question, so with all the responsibility you have in the military, how do you balance it? Right? So, whether it's your leadership position or whatever. And I think when somebody says balance, that's a binary, it's like a seesaw. It's the wrong way to look at it. It's how you orchestrate everything that is your life. And so, when you think about how you balance your private in your personal life, that's not it. It's how you orchestrate everything that you are, whether it's you're an officer, whether you're a dad, you're a spouse, or you're a son or a daughter. So, when you think about who you are as a leader and everything that you are, it's really about orchestrating everything in your life. And it's like writing a piece of music. And what I would say is everybody has to write that piece of music themselves. And when they play it back, they have to like what they hear.

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

Lieutenant General Ashley: Adam, thanks. I appreciate it greatly. Thank you so 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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