The Gettysburg Battlefield Leadership Retreat

Success in government or private industry can be measured in a number of ways and can be impacted by several factors. However, the one decisive factor in any successful endeavor is leadership. Strong and decisive leadership brings all of the other factors together and is the one indispensable component that can make the difference between success and failure - greatness and mediocrity. No matter what organization you work in, you inevitably will be faced with a situation in which you have to make a decision. Whether you are managing four people, forty people, or forty thousand people, the decisions you make and your ability to lead will have a significant impact on those you lead and those you serve. 

The Gettysburg Leadership Retreat will take up to 23 leaders and managers from a variety of industry and get them out of the office and into a totally different setting that will allow them to focus on their leadership challenges by studying real examples in a very different time and place. This is achieved by using the lessons and stories from the American Civil War’s Battle of Gettysburg which took place on July 1-3, 1863.

How You Will Benefit

Why “tell stories” from something that happened more than 140 years ago? The philosopher Edith Wyschogrod has observed that, “for all their importance, neither ethical principles nor moral theories actually motivate anyone. What motivates people are stories, narratives, accounts of situations in which choices must be made and stands taken. Narratives speak to the inner spirit. They link the moral reasoning we do in our heads to the courage and empathy that must come from the heart.” In short, they help us become the people we want to be.

On the battlefield a leader’s decisions take on a white-hot intensity, played out in full public view, with clear-cut winners and losers. The leader in today’s government should look for lessons in this rawest form of competition. This seminar will focus on decisions, many made in the heat of battle, but not to glorify war. It will focus on strategy and tactics, not on the appalling human carnage, which most of these men abhorred. The Civil War was perhaps the critical moment in America’s history. It shaped and defined us as a nation. Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle in the war and a turning point in American history. It is a natural laboratory to study the enduring lessons of leadership, communications and decision-making, particularly under crisis conditions. The “Gettysburg Leadership Retreat” is based on these principles.