U.S. Naval Academy

By Harry Hirschman, Loree Hirschman, and Jason Santamaria
Wharton MBA Students (WG 2001) 

“We develop leaders morally, mentally and physically” – So goes the mission statement of the United States Naval Academy and the order of the three tenets is no accident.  The military holds itself to higher moral standards than society at large, and the people in charge of the leadership curriculum at the USNA start with the moral and ethical aspects of leadership, followed by leadership theory and physical training.  

A small group of faculty and students from the Wharton School’s MBA program visited the Naval Academy recently to find out more about how they teach leadership to America’s future Navy and Marine Corps officers.  Admiral Hank Chiles retired from the Navy after more than 30 years in the submarine force.  Even without his four stars, he commands respect and admiration from his students and staff.  It is the kind of respect that comes to a person who has “been there, done that” but lets others discover for themselves the lessons he already knows.  Forceful and scientific in his approach, yet compassionate and non-judgmental – the personality of the program flows from him.  He believes in teaching from the original works of primary philosophers such as Aristotle and Kant.  

The leadership program at the Naval Academy consists of an undergraduate and a Master’s program.  Midshipmen (undergraduate students) have classes in leadership and ethics each of their four years at the academy.  Practical applications in leadership are provided every day through duties and responsibilities within the Brigade of Midshipmen.  Company officers are Navy and Marine Corps Officers with three to five years of experience who are on the staff to shepherd the midshipmen through their Naval Academy experience.  Company officers earn a Master’s degree from the Naval Academy’s leadership program before assuming their duties.  In a change from past policies, not all company officers are Naval Academy graduates themselves.  Participants agreed that this will make the academy less insular over time, one of the major criticisms of the school. 

Part of being an effective leader is relying on those being lead.  The Academy’s program addresses “followership” nearly as much as leadership.  Two chapters in the freshman textbook are devoted to followership and many other courses discuss topics such as “lawful orders” and when an order MUST be disobeyed.  Military and civilian examples of failures in followership and their tragic consequences are discussed freely, the massacre at My Lai and the Jonestown mass suicide among them.  

Each member of the Wharton delegation sat in on a sophomore ethics course to see firsthand how things are done.  One class was taught by the Assistant Commandant, Captain Bowle, an aviator with 25 years of experience.  Most of the Academy’s senior staff also teach in the classroom.  The 20 students sat at tables arranged in a “U” with Capt. Bowle at the open end.  His demeanor in the classroom was relaxed and non-authoritarian.  The first five minutes of class were reserved to discuss current issues such as the Florida election recount and the USS Cole bombing.  There was no shortage of opinions in the room on any given subject.  

This day’s lesson plan was quite full: a discussion of term paper topics chosen by students (“The Ethics of the Iran-Contra Affair”, “How Could Tailhook Happen in an Ethical Organization?”); an exercise on applying the Weinberger Doctine (a set of six criteria established by secretary of defense Caspar Weinberger for the commitment of U.S. troops abroad) and “Just War Theory” to fictional 1939 negotiations between U.S., British, and German delegations role-played by students; and a discussion of “proportionality” and “utilitarianism” as applied to possible U.S. responses to the terrorist attack on the USS Cole. 

Any concerns about whether the military environment stifled sharing or the range of opinions were quickly laid to rest.  Regarding proportionality in the U.S. response to the attack on the USS Cole, opinions ranged from “None – it’s the cost of being the only superpower” to “Kill them all and let God sort it out.”  A similar range of opinions was expressed on the pre-World War II role-playing exercise.  When students voted which side they would take if they were President Roosevelt, given the constraints of the Weinberger doctrine, they had a difficult time justifying a vote for the British.  All this was very consistent with the quest for knowledge at any institution of higher learning, yet the emphasis on leadership through ethical and moral decision-making was unmistakable.  Every student was keenly aware that they would face difficult decisions in their military careers as soon as they graduated and each student struggled to form a moral and ethical framework on which they could rely.  

The Academy’s leadership program functions on several layers – students, faculty in-training, and sitting faculty.  Though they have been teaching leadership for over one hundred years, the program is still a work-in-progress – much like Wharton’s leadership program.  Admiral Chiles experiments with new ways of bringing old concepts to life.  

Note:  Harry Hirschman can be reached at hirschmh@wharton.upenn.edu, Loree Hirschman at Loree.Hirschman.wg01@wharton.upenn.edu, and Jason Santamaria at santamaj@wharton.upenn.edu.  Information on the U.S. Naval Academy’s Department of Leadership, Ethics, and Law is available at http://prodevweb.prodev.usna.edu/LEL/index.htm.