What D-Day Teaches Us About Leading Through Uncertainty
By: Colonel John Fenzel (USA, Ret.)
June 6, 2025
Summary
On the occasion of the 81 st Anniversary of D-Day (June 6 th ), this article draws leadership lessons from the Allied invasion of Normandy, reframing D-Day as a case study in building trust, clarity, and alignment at scale. Through historical examples—from Eisenhower’s quiet presence to frontline improvisation, it illustrates how complex operations succeed not through perfect planning, but through shared purpose and disciplined preparation, long before the execution begins.
Today, June 6, 2025, marks the 81st anniversary of D-Day. Through the years, I’ve walked the beaches of Normandy many times. Each visit leaves me with something new—rarely tactical, but always human. The more I’ve studied that day, the more I walk the ground there, the more I’ve come to understand it not simply as a military operation, but as an enduring study in leadership under extraordinary pressure.
Before the first landing craft touched the shore, Dwight D. Eisenhower faced a challenge every leader today will recognize: aligning a diverse, highly capable, and deeply fragmented coalition around a common purpose.
On June 6, 1944, the Allied invasion of Normandy brought together an enormous coalition under a single command, at least on paper. In reality, Eisenhower was leading five nations with separate agendas, conflicting chains of command, and long memories. The senior officers around him were experienced, independent, and often skeptical of one another. Below them stood more than 150,000 troops from across the globe, trained in different systems, speaking different languages, and carrying different assumptions about what came next.
Eisenhower had to hold this alliance together with trust, discipline, and a shared sense of purpose
strong enough to carry them through the storm. While coordinating strategy; Eisenhower also focused on creating emotional alignment between personalities, organizations and nations. He cultivated trust through a genuine presence, consistency, and moral clarity that came to define him. The essence of leadership is to get others to do something because they think you want it done and because they know it is worth while doing —,” he once said. “That is what we are talking about.”
That principle of quiet integrity is what allowed him to effectively lead across national boundaries, personal rivalries, and enormous institutional resistance. Eisenhower understood that success in a high-stakes operation didn’t come from the plan alone. It came from how people showed up for one another before the plan even began. That lesson holds.
Today’s leaders face a different kind of battlefield—global initiatives, remote teams, cultural divides—but the pressure is no less real. They still deal with people as much as they do plans. And what’s often overlooked, even at the most senior levels, is that no matter how well-designed the strategy, trust doesn’t just come along with it. It’s built beforehand—in the conversations leaders have, in the clarity they offer, and in whether their teams believe the mission is worth the effort.
Global initiatives, integrations, distributed teams—these efforts often falter not because the strategy is flawed, but because the people who we ask to carry it forward are misaligned, disconnected, or unconvinced. Trust doesn’t scale automatically. It must be designed—and earned.
Execution and trust aren’t mutually exclusive. This article considers how leaders can do both: how to shape conditions for alignment before execution begins, and how to lead in a way that fosters the kind of trust that holds under pressure. Eisenhower’s example offers us a wonderful historical reference as well as a contemporary blueprint for leadership that moves people, unites institutions, and endures in any crucible, however extreme.
Alignment at Scale Requires More Than Strategy
On the night before the invasion, Eisenhower had already done the hardest part at the top. He had convinced his British counterparts—men like Montgomery and Leigh-Mallory—that the plan could work. There had been sharp disagreements about the timing, about the weather, about whether the risks were too great. But the order was given. The landings would go forward. Then Eisenhower left his headquarters and went to see the men who would carry it out.
At an airfield in England, paratroopers from the 101st Airborne were loading gear and preparing for the flight across the Channel. Eisenhower walked among them quietly. He did not talk about objectives or maps. Instead, he asked them to gather around. “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em!” He asked about their hometowns. He asked which baseball teams they followed. They were short conversations. On the night of June 5, 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower had already made the final call. The invasion would proceed. He had resolved disputes among senior British commanders, accepted the weather forecast, and signed the order. But before the operation began, he drove to the airfields to visit the men who would jump into Normandy.
At one stop, he approached a group from the 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Among them was O’Neil Boe of Company B. Eisenhower asked him where he was from.
“I said, ‘I am from Louisiana,’” Boe later recalled. “He said, ‘Frog country.’”
Eisenhower moved among the soldiers, asking about their homes, their lives. He turned to another paratrooper and asked if he was scared.
The soldier said no.
Eisenhower responded, “Well, I’m scared.”
Eisenhower was there to be seen, to listen, and to carry a share of what the men were about to face. He did not speak about the mission. He met them on their terms, where they stood.
On that flightline. Eisenhower knew the odds. That night, as he spoke to those paratroopers, he carried a handwritten note in his pocket. If the landings failed, the note said, the responsibility would be his alone.
Leaders today may not routinely face life and death decisions, but the lesson holds. Trust and alignment are not built in strategy sessions, plans or charts. They’re forged in presence, humility, and a willingness to shoulder the risk alongside those asked to carry it out, and when a leader stands close enough to be noticed.
The men who climbed aboard those planes did not know everything about their mission or where it would ultimately lead. But they knew their commander had come to see them. They knew he trusted them. And they saw clearly that he carried the weight himself and still had time for them.
Boe’s unit, Company B, started with 300 men. Only 52 survived the Normand campaign.
The Leader Sets the Tone for Trust
In the spring of 1944, Dwight Eisenhower stood at the center of a command structure that extended in both directions. He reported to political leaders at the highest levels, and beneath him were generals from five different nations—each bringing their own experience, national interest, and point of view. His responsibility was not only to plan the Allied invasion of Western Europe, but to hold together the coalition that would carry it out.
One of his most complex relationships was with Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Churchill was wary of the operation, shaped in part by his experience with the failed Gallipoli campaign during the First World War. He knew what could go wrong in an amphibious assault.
Eisenhower didn’t try to force the issue. He communicated clearly, stayed patient, and kept showing up with the facts. He earned Churchill’s trust not by imposing control, but by demonstrating steadiness under pressure. Just before the invasion, Churchill reviewed the plan and said, “I am hardening towards this enterprise.” The message was simple. He was ready to proceed because he trusted the man responsible for making the call.
While Eisenhower maintained confidence at the top, he also worked to unify the Allied command beneath him. Senior officers disagreed often and sometimes bitterly. One of the most difficult disputes involved the plan to bomb the French railway system in advance of the invasion. Eisenhower believed it was essential to slow German reinforcements. British air commanders opposed the idea, citing the likelihood of civilian casualties. Churchill shared their concern.
Eisenhower did not confront Churchill directly, but he made his position clear. Speaking to others in Churchill’s circle, he said, “If I don’t have complete command of all air operations, I will go home.” He knew the remark would reach Churchill, and he knew Churchill well enough to deliver the message in a way that preserved his standing. Eisenhower had no interest in public confrontation. He wanted a decision, and he got one. The bombing campaign was approved, and the coalition remained intact.
Leadership at this level demands more than control. It requires consistency, personal accountability, and the discipline to communicate directly, especially when disagreement is unavoidable. Eisenhower understood that trust within an organization reflects what leaders model themselves. He demonstrated it above and below. That was the difference.
Clarity Is the Currency of Alignment
On the eve of the greatest invasion the world had ever seen, no one was asking for more detail. What they needed was clarity. General Eisenhower had to make sure that men from five countries, speaking different languages, wearing different uniforms, and fighting for different flags, all moved with one purpose. He couldn’t afford tangled messages or elegant plans. Everything had to be simple enough to survive the noise of battle.
So, the mission was stripped to its bones. Montgomery, who would command the ground assault, laid out his orders on a single page. Eisenhower gave every soldier a letter of his own. He called it “the Great Crusade,” and told them plainly: the world was watching. But even the best-laid orders needed a green light from the weather. That came from a quiet place called Blacksod, on the western coast of Ireland. There, a young woman named Maureen Sweeney read the barometer every few hours, just as she’d always done. On June 3rd, 1944, the pressure dropped hard. She logged the numbers and passed them up the line.
Her report made its way to England, where Eisenhower’s team watched the skies and considered the cost of delay. If they launched in a storm, paratroopers might drown, gliders might crash, ships might capsize. On June 4th, Maureen’s second report confirmed more roughweather. But on June 5th, the storm broke. A narrow window opened. Her readings said go.
They did. And because they did, history turned.
Maureen later said, “That was the forecast that made the difference.” She wasn’t trying to change the world. She was doing her job. But her accuracy, her routine, and her clarity traveled all the way from a wind-blown lighthouse to the desk of a general—and then across the Channel.
That’s how alignment works. It moves when people know what they’re doing and why it matters. It holds when leaders cut through the fog and give their teams all that they require to make critical decisions.
At Maureen’s level, it was the quiet discipline of simplifying what matters most—then ensuring it reaches the people who need it, exactly when they need it. When complex operations fail, it’s rarely due to strategy alone. Failure tends to show up in the middle, after the plan is underway, when decisions need to be made quickly, and when communication invariably begins to strain under pressure.
In April 1944, the Allies conducted Exercise Tiger, a full-scale rehearsal for the D-Day landings. It revealed what happens when assumptions replace preparation. A series of miscommunications led to landing craft arriving during live-fire exercises, and a separate German E-boat attack resulted in hundreds of American deaths. In all, 749 servicemen were killed—many due to gaps in coordination, unclear communications, and ambiguous authority.
The mistakes forced a full review of procedures and communications.
In hindsight, a pre-mortem might have prevented the post-mortem.
On D-Day, plans didn’t last long. The truth is, most of them didn’t make it past the beach. What mattered was how the men adjusted when the situation turned against them—and whether they understood what the mission was really about.
At Utah Beach, on the far Western edge of the invasion, the landing was off. Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr.—son of President Theodore Roosevelt—was the only general to land on the first wave, and found his unit nearly a mile from the intended drop point. Rather than shout or issue frantic orders, he looked around, turned to his men of the 4 th Infantry Division, and said, “We’ll start the war from right here.” In providing that simple directive, he likely saved many lives.
Meanwhile, at Omaha Beach, things were far worse. The Germans were dug in and ready. Machine guns raked the shore. Mortars and artillery dropped in close. Landing craft were shredded before the ramps dropped. For hours, soldiers lay pinned down on the sand. By mid-morning, General Omar Bradley, watching offshore, was close to calling a full retreat.
Then something changed. The battleship Texas, already near the shoreline, edged in closer—danger-close. Her big guns opened up, pounding the bluffs above the beach at point-blank range. Smoke and fire rolled through the German positions. This direct and high-risk action shattered key defenses and opened paths for the infantry to advance.
Colonel Charles D. W. Canham, commanding the 116th Infantry Regiment of the 29th Division, rallied his men with a stark order: “They’re murdering us here. Let’s move inland and get murdered.” Officers and NCOs rallied their scattered men and pushed inland, turning disaster into momentum.
Both moments reflect what happens when alignment holds. Leaders at every level understood not only the plan, but the purpose behind it. They adapted to changing realities, made decisive calls, and acted with the mission in mind—even when conditions demanded improvisation.
That’s what real preparation looks like. Not just knowing the plan—but rehearsing the failure points. Talking through what might go wrong. Building enough trust that when it does, people don’t freeze. They step up.
Each of these stories reflect the lesson that leaders who expect clarity in the middle of uncertainty must invest in it before it arrives.
Alignment Is the First Victory
D-Day did not succeed on June 6 because every element went according to plan. It succeeded because, long before the landings, trust had been built, clarity established, and cohesion forged across national lines, command structures, and individual units. Leaders at every level knew the mission and understood the intent behind it. When the chaos of combat stripped away assumptions and disrupted orders, that alignment held.
The same is true in business today. Global initiatives and major transformations rarely fail at the point of execution—they fail earlier, when teams are unclear on direction, uncertain about one another, or unprepared for adversity. Alignment isn’t a phase. It’s the groundwork. And in high-stakes moments, it’s the first victory you must secure.
Before you launch, pause and ask:
Does my team understand not only what we’re doing, but why?
Do they trust each other—and do they trust me?
Have we fully explored the risks, rehearsed the breakdowns, and built the confidence in order to adapt when necessary?
On this 81 st Anniversary of D-Day, the Allied victory reminds us that before the first boots hit the beach and drop zones of Normandy, the war for alignment had already been won.
John Fenzel is a retired senior Army Special Forces officer, keynote speaker, CEO of John Fenzel The Heroes’ Path Foundation. He has served abroad in times of peace and war, and in national security roles at the Pentagon and White House. An author and educator, he writes about leadership, trust, and legacy across all domains.
