GSB Welcomes General Peter Pace, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Four-Star General Discusses Leadership with Students
Praveen Mellacheruvu
Issue date: 5/12/05 Section: GSB News
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The Chicago GSB was pleased to welcome General Peter Pace, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States, last week. General Pace was recently nominated by President Bush for the nation's top military position, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Coming to General Pace's presentation in droves, GSB students showed their eagerness to hear about one of the biggest and most complex organizations in the world from the perspective of one of its top leaders.
General Pace spent most of the day on campus and spoke at two sessions during the course of the day. He even took the time to hang out with students at the Ida Noyes Pub afterward. Kudos to the Armed Forces Group for organizing this visit.
The event began with a pleasant surprise - General Pace went around the room, shook hands, and exchanged names with everyone in attendance. During General Pace's speech, the student community and others got a chance to listen to him touch upon a wide range of issues from the ongoing war in Iraq to leadership.
The formal portion of General Pace's speech lasted for only fifteen minutes of his hour-and-fifteen-minute block, and the rest of the time was left for questions. In his speech, General Pace talked about three things that business school students should contemplate upon returning to the professional arena:
1) Setting One's Moral Compass. General Pace encouraged students to use the two years in school to calibrate what he called the "moral compass." He said that our time in school is one of the best times for us to try to understand where we stand and what is important to us. In describing his own experience determining his moral compass, General Pace cited an event from his military career when one of his fellow Marines was wounded in combat by a sniper from a neighboring village. While his immediate reaction was to call for retaliation against the enemy via an artillery strike of the village, the time called for rational decisions to prevail, and he was able to show restraint. He was relieved to have made this choice, despite his initial impulse, after troops went through the neighboring village and found it to be filled predominantly with women and children.
2) Personal Integrity. General Pace pointed out that there are two things that cannot be taken away from a person: his name and his integrity. Given that, it's important to always keep one's integrity intact. Make sure that your actions are such that when walking out at the end of the day you are still the person that you hoped you'd be when you walked in, he said.
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General Pace spent most of the day on campus and spoke at two sessions during the course of the day. He even took the time to hang out with students at the Ida Noyes Pub afterward. Kudos to the Armed Forces Group for organizing this visit.
The event began with a pleasant surprise - General Pace went around the room, shook hands, and exchanged names with everyone in attendance. During General Pace's speech, the student community and others got a chance to listen to him touch upon a wide range of issues from the ongoing war in Iraq to leadership.
The formal portion of General Pace's speech lasted for only fifteen minutes of his hour-and-fifteen-minute block, and the rest of the time was left for questions. In his speech, General Pace talked about three things that business school students should contemplate upon returning to the professional arena:
1) Setting One's Moral Compass. General Pace encouraged students to use the two years in school to calibrate what he called the "moral compass." He said that our time in school is one of the best times for us to try to understand where we stand and what is important to us. In describing his own experience determining his moral compass, General Pace cited an event from his military career when one of his fellow Marines was wounded in combat by a sniper from a neighboring village. While his immediate reaction was to call for retaliation against the enemy via an artillery strike of the village, the time called for rational decisions to prevail, and he was able to show restraint. He was relieved to have made this choice, despite his initial impulse, after troops went through the neighboring village and found it to be filled predominantly with women and children.
2) Personal Integrity. General Pace pointed out that there are two things that cannot be taken away from a person: his name and his integrity. Given that, it's important to always keep one's integrity intact. Make sure that your actions are such that when walking out at the end of the day you are still the person that you hoped you'd be when you walked in, he said.