A Navy Admiral’s Bronze Rules: Managing Risk and Leadership

A Navy Admiral’s Bronze Rules uses case studies to explore the inherent risks of leadership and the tools available to those who nevertheless wish to shoulder those responsibilities. Real world examples are used and inevitably expose hitherto unrevealed history. The latter includes a secret of the Yom Kippur War, the background of the 1986 bloodless revolution in the Philippines, how Admiral Bud Zumwalt was such a unique Chief of Naval Operations, why our National War Plan suddenly had to be revised during the Reagan years and what spurred President Clinton’s anti-nuclear proliferation success.

Rear Adm. Oliver sketches the problems a leader will routinely (and not-so routinely) face. He invites the reader to consider the attributes which will help best prepare them for future challenges. These thirty case studies demonstrate that few real leadership problems will yield to a one-hammer solution. No matter how good a practitioner may become with one leadership style, one knock-them-dead ability seldom serves to get a leader all the way through their problem or conflict. Adm. Oliver thus provides a range of tools for different personalities and situations. The potential leader thus has a range of solutions to fit the problem as well as an individual’s personal comfort zone.