Developing Character-Driven Leaders
Quick answer: How do you develop character-driven leaders?
John Fenzel argues that people learn best through experience outside the classroom. Visiting historic places, as on a military staff ride through the Ardennes, moves leaders from theory to practice. Standing where others led and sacrificed gives the lessons depth that a lecture cannot.
Human beings are born to learn. The trouble starts when learning stops feeling useful or enjoyable, and hours in a classroom with poor instruction will do that. Think about your best learning experiences. Chances are someone took you somewhere new and opened a window onto a world you didn't know existed. For John that happened in the spring of 1976, the Bicentennial, when his mother piled him and his siblings into the car to see the American Freedom Train. It had 26 cars pulled by restored steam locomotives, and more than seven million Americans walked through it. For a 13-year-old boy, the nation's history came alive. Years later, as a young officer, his commander announced a staff ride. They went to the Luxembourg American Cemetery, where General Patton lies with more than 5,000 service members, many killed in the Battle of the Bulge. They walked snowy forests like the ones American GIs found in the winter of 1944 and 1945. They stood in the building in Bastogne where General Anthony McAuliffe answered a German surrender demand with one word: "Nuts!" And they visited the site of the Malmedy Massacre, where 84 American prisoners were murdered by Waffen SS troops. That five-day staff ride moved them from leadership theory to practice, and many of them still talk about it nearly 40 years later. Walking Omaha Beach, standing on Little Round Top, touching headstones at Arlington, your life gains depth by being there. As the 250th anniversary of independence approaches in 2026, John asks whether it might be time to bring back the Freedom Train.
Why it matters for leaders: Leadership lessons stick when you experience the place and the people behind them firsthand.
Q: What is a staff ride?
A: A military education tradition in which officers study a campaign and then walk the battlefield to analyze the decisions made there.
Q: What was the American Freedom Train?
A: A 26-car train that toured the United States in 1975 and 1976 for the Bicentennial, displaying historic artifacts to more than seven million visitors.
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By John Fenzel, founder and CEO of Heroes' Path Foundation