Welcome to How Leaders Lead, where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I break down the key learnings so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. My guest today is Admiral Mike Mullen, the 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He served in both the Bush and Obama administrations and retired in 2011 after 43 years of exemplary military service. I'm telling you, that kind of career gives you leadership wisdom you just can't get any other way. And Mike is kind enough to share it with us today. He's a great American and that's not a designation I use lightly. He's got so many incredible stories to share and in every single one of them, you're going to see how to lead with integrity, how to be accountable, how to speak truth to power, and how to surround yourself with truth tellers when you're the one in charge. Plus, you do not want to miss his insights into what's going on in the world right now in Israel, Russia, and China and what that might mean for the future of our country. So here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours, Admiral Mike Mullen. Mike, it's great to have you on the show and I want to thank you so much for your service. Thanks David. It's great to be with you. It's a topic I really, really like. Well, I know that as I've done my research and I want to talk to you about your time as the Joint Chiefs Chair. But first, I want to take you back. You know, I understand that your mom and dad were in the entertainment business . How'd that influence your perspective on leadership? Well, at the time when I was growing up as a kid, I didn't think much about it. But as I was able to reflect as I became an adult, you know, I took from my family. I was the oldest of five kids. My parents were both depression kids, came from the Midwest dad, from Chicago, mom from Iowa. They went to California to find their dreams and they found each other. Five kids, I was the oldest. And you know, my dad provided for us, worked hard. He was very good at what he did. He was also a great communicator. He was a journalism major, University of Illinois. And he read and wrote exceptionally well, as did my mother. And also in a combination, I think, from my mom and dad, I got a great set of values. And that stood me very well, not just as I became an adult, but as I became an adult. And I was also a great student. And I was a great student. And I was a great student. And I was very, very proud of the leadership. And I was a great student. And I was very proud of the leadership. And I was very proud of the leadership. And I was very proud of the leadership. And I was very proud of the leadership. And I was very proud of the leadership. And I was very proud of the leadership. 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From that experience and just other experiences that you've had, what advice would you give leaders for how to show up when they or their teams fail? That's 11 years you spent. That's a long time to have to recover from something that, you know, that didn't cause any real harm. And one of the questions that's that also gets associated with that is this, what I would call zero defect mentality. Can you make a mistake and survive? And we're all human and we're going to make mistakes. And I've got a lot of time for leaders that provide the range, if you will, for young people, for actually for leaders to fail, it depends on what the failure is. I mean, part of the reason I love the Navy and I love commanding ships was I was accountable. I was responsible for everything, but I was also accountable. And I knew that. And the accountability aspect of it was absolutely critical. And I worry quite frankly that we're living in an environment right now where accountability is fleeting in many, many professions. And I feel exactly the opposite. And then with respect to the failures, it's less to me. It's always been less about the failure. It's about what did you learn? How do you react? Do you get back up off the deck or off the floor? Learn the lessons, become a better leader as a result of that. Hold yourself accountable for your team and for what happened and then move forward. And that's what I was able to do on a couple of occasions. And in both cases, I failed as I mentioned this first time, but I also failed pretty badly as a more senior officer in the third command that I had. And again, I had mentors and in fact, I'd put my resignation letter together for that second big failure. And I had a couple of mentors who were senior to me that thought I had some potential and they basically said, no, you don't need to do that. We need to basically do that. We need to basically watch and see if you learn these lessons. And if you do that, we think you'll be okay. And those are really key lessons to me in my own life that I also try to pass on to young people as we're talking about leadership. You know, you're also a person that speaks your mind and you spoke openly supporting gay military service and you led the repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Act. You know, what made you step out on that issue? What was the drove your leadership on that front? Well, the background on that was in '92, '93 when President Clinton was elected and he wanted to do the same thing and there was a lot of pushback. And Colin Powell, who was also a mentor of mine when I was in the Chairman's job, a friend and mentor, but Colin Powell and the military leadership pushed back, which then generated the law, which was the Don't Ask, Don't Tell law and subsequent policy. Well, in 1993, I'm commanding a ship in Norfolk, Virginia and carrying out my orders. I'm not paying a whole lot of attention to what's going on with respect to this specific issue. But in 2008, when then-Canada Obama was on the campaign trail and said, "If I become president, I'm going to see that that law changes." Well, that got my attention. I'm chairman at the time. I'm the senior military officer in the country. And so I put a small group together to go look at the background, what had happened over the last 15 years, who were the players. Our name is still around. Is there more literature on this, et cetera? And in 2008, again, we're heavy into war in both Iraq and Afghanistan. So that made it that much more challenging to address. And it turns out there actually hadn't been a whole lot of work done on it. The country was in a much different position with respect to gays and lesbians in 2008 than it was in 1993. That said, we were complying with the law, which was Don't Ask, Don't Tell. In addition to this group that I put together, I would do my own sampling, if you will. My own field studies. When I would travel, which I traveled a lot, and I would be with, oftentimes, very, very young people. And I describe it as it was hard to get a meaningful discussion to occur with most of the young groups, because they had grown up in this environment much more so than I had, or most of the people that I had come up through the Navy in the military with. It wasn't a topic that interested them a great deal. They didn't understand why it was such a big deal and why we didn't just get on with it. It was in those focus groups, though, that I really started to hear from those, particularly those who had spent 20 years or 25 or 30 years in the military, what they went through, essentially, every single day, worried about being out ed and basically having to lie about who they were while serving the country. That intensified for me because we're now at war. I'm losing young men and women, actually, they're sacrificing their lives. So what happened out of that is it became an issue of integrity, another value that I just hang my hat on and have for a long time. And that's what got me to the point where I testified that from my perspective, this was very much an issue about integrity, a value that we cherish as an institution. And yet we're asking young people to sacrifice their lives, risk their lives, and lie about who they were. And that was really the turning point for me and actually as it turned out, that was a turning point in the debate. Have you ever wondered what David is thinking as he interviews our guests each week? Or have you been interested in hearing David's take on some of the questions that he asks his guest? Well, I do, and I know a lot of you do too. My name is Koolah Callahan, and together with David, I host the three more questions podcasts that airs every Monday. These episodes are just about 15 minutes, and in them, I asked David three questions that dive deeper into the themes of his episode with his guests. David shares incredible insights and stories from his career leading young brands, and all of his answers are super practical and inspiring. Like this great insight, David shared in one of our most recent three more questions episodes. I think the first thing that you drive home is the importance of competence. You really try to teach your people that they need to know their trade. They need to know their job. They need to know what it is that needs to be done to get to excellent performance. And then once someone is competent, then you can say, "It's time to be confident. It's time for you to make decisions based on the competence that you have." But decision making without competence is rarely right. So it's a combination of driving competence and confidence, and that's how you make quick decisions. Get the three more questions podcasts in your feed each Monday and dive even deeper into the episodes you know and love. Just subscribe to How Leaders Lead wherever you get your podcasts. In 2007, you were nominated by President George W. Bush to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And now you're overseeing 2.2 million men and women in the armed forces. As a Navy guy who needed to understand the Army and all the branches of our military, how did you go about building your know-how? Well, it was a big challenge. I mean, I'm in two wars. Obviously, in their ground wars, and I'm a sailor. And I don't know how else to attack that except get on the ground with them. I mean, I think it was within 24, 48 hours. You know, I'm on a flight to Iraq and Afghanistan. And one of the things that you learn in the Navy on a ship is you're with your troops all the time. I mean, you've got three or 400 of them. They're never that far away. And part of my style was to be out and about some call it management by walking around. But I was always tried to be on, you know, with my troops in their spaces so I could understand what they were being asked to do. So I could understand was my guidance being accurately executed. And then literally I did that my whole life. Well, that's essentially what I did is a Navy Admiral that's now the chairman. That I've got to make sure these young men and women have what they need, when they need it. I need to understand the situation as best I can on the ground. And so I spent a lot of time in particular with the Army, the Navy and the Marine Corps in the same department, if you will. But I didn't know the Army that well. And it wasn't just me. It was my wife Deborah that when I would, I mean, I would travel overseas and be on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan to learn as much as I could. But we also traveled around the country to various posts that we had never been in. Mostly Army posts to learn the same kind of thing. And while I would visit the troops, Deb would visit families. And again, there were families who never saw their husband or their wife again because they were killed. There were many, many that were wounded. So we did that. And back to my risk profile. When I was ahead of the Navy, I made a conscious decision to be gone out of DC about 25% of the time. It's always risky, you know, not being at a meeting. Because things can happen that you don't really get to vote on as vociferously as you might if you were sitting in the chair or sitting in the room. I upped that from 25 to 40% when I was chairman for the reason that I just described. To figure out what in particular my Army was going through and how to address the issues. So that was normal in terms of my leadership style, but obviously different because I'm in a new organization. I would have Navy friends ask me, I was doing it so much with the Army and with the Air Force as well that my Navy friends would say, are you ever coming back to us? Are you going to ever visit a Navy base again? I felt a requirement of the job. But to understand the 2.2 million men and women that I was leading, I needed to know what they were up to and could I and I was making decisions every day that affected their lives. And I wanted to get those decisions as close to right as I possibly could. You know, one of your key leadership tenets is promoting healthy debate. Can you tell me about a time when a president was going to make a decision or made a decision that you really pushed back on and as an up and coming leader, what's the best way to present an alternative point of view? First of all, you have to know what you're talking about. You have to study it to make sure you really know the facts. In many cases, for me, it was facts on the ground. You need to know the history specifically. And then you have to figure out what's your responsibility for, what's your best recommendation? What is sometimes misunderstood is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is in charge of nothing. Basically, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is an advisor to the president, to the National Security Council, to the secretary and an advisor to the secretary of defense. And so you essentially are tasked to give your advice in a healthy environment in which you find yourselves, that advice you give privately in meetings that either in some cases, very small meetings with the president, two or three or four of us. But in most cases, it's at the National Security Council where these major issues are debated. And then what happens is the president makes a decision. Whatever that decision is, then you march off really as if it were yours kind of thing. It's an incredibly challenging environment for any military leader, particularly because you're working in a political environment, which is what the White House is and what Washington is in so many ways. The challenge, and it goes back to my upbringing, part of me has raised to tell the truth and to be pretty straightforward. And I talked about communicating and actually being pretty public in some of those communications. I think Bob Gates in his book called "Duty," which I haven't read, you know, cover to cover. I've read parts of it because I'm not a big Washington, D.C. book fan. But I think, you know, basically somewhere in that book, Bob said that I, in my public persona, you know, I ticked off both the Bush and the Obama administration equally, which, from my perspective, that was mean I had it about right. But this was also what I would call the scars of Vietnam. I mean, we went through a lot in that Vietnam era and in that war, and that was the first war I was in, and all the challenges that the country had back then, in which case, you know, I wore those scars my whole life. And some of that was nobody knew, first of all, we blamed the military for the war, the country did. And secondly, there was an awful lot of people that, you know, we didn't know, we hid what was going on from the American people in many cases. And I was a believer in our big believer in our democracy, and I wanted to make sure the American people understood as much about what we were doing as we possibly could. Obviously within classified, you know, unclassified boundaries, but I wanted, I mean, Deb and I went to innumerable funerals. We also made, you know, many, many trips to Dover where the, for the distinguished transfer of the remains of those who were killed in particular in Iraq and Afghanistan, and spent time with those families. And I wanted these families to not just think about this big machine, if you will, it is the military, but there's a human face, humans behind it, and to put a face on that, all of which I learned quite frankly from Vietnam. And again, sometimes that didn't work out as well as one, either administration would like from their perspective, but it's what I was going to do. And I thought was really important, you know, in that job, particularly during the war. That's very sobering, and it's also great to hear how compassionate you were to do that as a leader. And, you know, I would also imagine in a job like you had that it would be hard for people to bring you bad news. You know, how did you go about as a leader encouraging people to bring you the facts? Well, I know that's a huge issue, and you hear this, the phrase is truth to power, you know, easy to say, tough to do. Everybody always wants to have the boss smiling. Nobody ever wants to tick the boss off, you know, that kind of thing. And yet, so I mean, I had known that forever. And what I tried to do when we talk a little bit about this earlier was be out and about enough, particularly with the troops. And the young ones were pretty good about telling me like it was. If I'm with a helicopter, an army helicopter mechanic that doesn't have parts to keep the, you know, the Apache helicopters going in a combat zone, they're pretty open and they'll tell me this is what I need. Now, the chain of command doesn't like that a lot, but that's the kind of feedback I'll take and then figure out as a leader how to fix. And I won't cut off anybody's head, you know, en route to doing that, if you will. But at the same time, I was pretty persistent and relentless, if you will, in terms of sticking with what needed to happen in the system to solve that kind of a problem. I would another area that was not uncommon was the medical area where our field hospitals, if we could get you, if you got wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan, and we could get you to the right level of field hospital within the hour, your chances of surviving were 95%. And so did we have the right number? Did we have the transportation? Did we have the people, those kinds of things? And finding that information out when we're short, you know, can be very, very difficult. If you can imagine, and I tell this story about, there's this little anti-room outside the Oval Office, and I watched a lot of people that were going to be very strong with the president about telling him something. I used to describe it as that famous door into the Oval Office, what nobody knows is above that door is, you know, Tinker Bell. And as soon as you walk in there, Tinker Bell hits you with the gold dust, and you're just not as tough as you thought you were to tell. The most powerful person in the world, here's exactly where it stands. So I know that's a challenge. I think all leaders have to have, you know, people around them, usually at least one, if not a couple, who will close the door and say, "You got this exactly wrong." And I was blessed to have a guy named John Kirby, who was my public affairs officer for 10 years, and is now in the National Security Council. You see him frequently in the Biden administration. But when he was in uniform with me, he's the one that would close the door and say, "You got that completely wrong." And I expected that. That's never easy medicine to take, but it was really important medicine to have. And it was, I had actually two or three that would do that fairly routinely. And I had a very diverse group of advisors, which I depended on, one for that truth and two for different opinions. I feel very strongly that for major decisions, the more diverse views I have as a leader, the better decision I'm going to make, you know, when it comes down to the really, really tough consequential decisions. You worked for two presidents. You first worked with George W. Bush, and you remained in the role when President Obama took office. Tell us a story about how you briefed Obama on what he was inheriting. Obviously, he comes in as a new guy. He wants to meet with you. How did you describe what was going on at the time and if you could share that conversation, it should be great. Well, he called within, I think, two or three days. He has a staff call within two or three days. He's in Chicago, and he asked me to come out and see him and just meet with him. And so I did that. I basically just took one aide with me and went to Chicago and met him and met actually Rahm Emanuel, who I think had just been designated as the future chief of staff. And we got basically, it was just then President-elect Obama and myself, and one of his trusted aides, a guy named Mark Lippert, that I knew pretty well. Mark was a reserve lieutenant commander, I think, in the Navy Intel. So I knew Mark a little bit as well. And he basically was a note-taker. But what President Obama said, what I remember President Obama saying at the beginning of the meeting was, "Okay, I've caught the bus. Tell me what's on it." And I said, "This bus is loaded completely." And then we started to kind of go through what was on the bus, which was an awful lot. And we had a really good long, two or three-hour conversation about all the national security challenges, if you will, that were certainly part of my writ. And that was my initial. It wasn't the first time I'd met him. I'd met him one time as a senator, really just in passing. But that was the first time I ever really had a conversation with him. I got to ask you, tell me about your leadership role in taking out Osama bin Laden. And if you could, please tell me about that historic photo of when you 're standing right next to Obama when all this was going on. When people asked me about what was the best day you had as chairman, it was the day we killed bin Laden because of the justice that brought a really evil guy. And we had been looking for him for over a decade. And like many things like that, that had been in the works for months in terms of the planning, et cetera . And back to leadership style, I had been out at one point in time. I'd been out for a full dress rehearsal where we actually had built a compound very similar to where bin Laden, it turned out bin Laden was, and washed a rehearsal there. And I, at the end of that rehearsal, I went up in shook hands with roughly 50 seals, who were the seals that were going to go in. I wanted to meet each one of them. I wanted to know that looking in the eye, I wanted them to know that they had the confidence of their leadership. And again, I wanted to have seen enough to be able to brief the president on my confidence level that they could carry off this mission, because we hadn't had a final briefing on that yet. There'd been many rehearsals, but that was the final dress rehearsal. And so then the moment came, or that day came, which was a Sunday, as it turns out, we had delayed the operation 24 hours. And we had actually all of us had gone to this major gala event every year called the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday night. And the president had made the decision the day before, I think Friday morning. So the whole thing was rolling. And the only reason anybody, particularly Admiral McCraven, would be in touch with me at that point, is that something went wrong. And I knew the scenario and I knew what was moving, et cetera. But we all went to this dinner Saturday night, and everybody was aware that the thing was moving. And as a friend of mine said, later on, you must, you know, you're not somebody I really want to play a lot of poker with, because obviously I didn't say anything, nobody said anything. So Sunday comes around, and it's midday, and I just tell Deb, I'm going to go into the office and over the White House, which was not a totally uncommon thing on the weekends. And then the operation, you know, got underway. What that photo captures more than anything else. And that's not the actual situation room. That's a little anti room off the situation room. And everybody was jammed into, which for months, when asked, and there's a, there's a fun YouTube clip of myself on David Letterman, not too long after this, a couple months later, and Letterman was beating me to death to say, what were you looking at him back then it was just too highly classified. Nobody said what it was. But what was clearly a video of the operation and that where I ended up right behind the president was, was the corner, I, you know, was the only open slot. When I finally, I was almost the last one in the room. And I think what the photo captures morning else is just a level of intensity that, that existed, you know, in that operation. It was an extraordinary operation performed by extraordinary individuals. And a couple things about one is I thought the president made a courageous decision to go because we didn't have a smoking gun. And if you go back and pull his poll numbers in, in May of 2010, as we were coming up for another election, or he was coming up for another election. They weren't that good. And so I think it was a bet the presidency back to risk leaders taking a risk. And it was a bet the presidency decision. And to give the president credit where credits do, he actually directed us to put in an additional helicopter just as backup and then it turns out we lost a helicopter. And that additional helicopter was the one that provided the transportation for about half the seals, you know, out of the compound during the at the end of the operation. And then it turns out, obviously it went exceptionally well. And we brought a guy to justice who had killed, you know, almost 3000 Americans and we've been on the hunt for a long time. That was such a great moment for the world and certainly for all of us Americans and thank you for the role that you played in that. It is kind of a month later you're on the Letterman show for goodness sakes. What was, what was that like? When people asked me, you know what, okay, what was your best moment? It was killing bin Laden. But the other, the book end of that story was, I think, just a few weeks later, we lost 38 troops in Afghanistan with a helicopter that had gotten shot down, nine of whom I think was nine of whom were actually Afghan soldiers. But not too long after that, you know, I was burying 13 seals in Arlington that were on that helicopter. And you know, I describe it, you know, sort of the Lord give it on the Lord take it away. And in fact, we had gone to a big event up in New York, put on by Robinhood every year to raise money. And we were at a table and my wife and dad was sitting next to Letterman. This was a week after we killed bin Laden. So it was pretty exciting. Tom Brokaw was there. It was going to interview me on stage, you know, all of that kind of thing. But what we took away was there was an opportunity with Letterman because he's, you know, he sees three to four million Americans every single night. And there was a lot that we could sort of, back to sort of the public relations piece that we could talk about our military through Letterman. And so, so literally the next week his staff called and said, Letterman wants to have you on. Well, not too long after that we had that tragedy. So we waited several weeks before I went on Letterman. And then it turns out, I didn't know, I mean, I'd been on shows before, not his. I didn't really know how long I was going to be on. And then it turns out I was the only guest. I think he had Betty White do the top 10 at the beginning. And then there was someone at the end that did a short clip, but I was on that. I was basically the only guest for the show. And to give him credit, and you know, he's a very successful guy. He really did his homework. And we had great fun with it. And part of that was also though, to get the word out to the four million people who may not know a whole lot about us as a military and our families to get that word out on that path as well back to the communication piece and the public relations piece and the connection with America. So it was all, it all sort of came together with Letterman. Obviously your parents were great communicators. So you were born with some of that talent. And you obviously believe in the importance of communication as a leader. How did you get so good at it yourself? Well, you do it a lot. I mean, back to, I added terrific public affairs officer . And then you just start to get exposure. But I can remember, I mean, before I took the Chairman's job, I was the head of the Navy. I was the Chief of Naval Operations for two years. And before that, I'd had two other four-star jobs. And those jobs always require some amount of public relations and exposure. But what happened, you know, if you're head of the Navy, your audience is, it's a critical audience, but it's a pretty small audience. Even in war, which we were, it was a relatively speaking, a pretty small audience. But it's one that I tried to engage. And I also did it very publicly. I was probably the only senior officer you'll ever talk to. If you talk to others that I actually really enjoyed going to the Hill and testifying because that was an opportunity again to tell my story about my Navy or the, you know, all the services when I was Chairman. Recognizing that the stars of the show or the people on the Hill, but at the same time, I'd have an opportunity to message the military, to message the American people, to message the critical people who make decisions about our military on the Hill. So again, it, you know, it was a great opportunity in that regard. But when I moved from the head of the Navy, and I moved with, again, with John Kirby to the Chairman's job, this is now. I'm going from a very small audience to a global audience. And I've been around the world. I mean, I understood a lot about the international audience and other countries as well. So you're going from, let's say, AAA ball to what I would call, you know, the major leagues at that point. And you did it a lot. We engaged a lot and individual leaders make choices about how much they want to engage because it can be pretty uncomfortable. But I chose to do it. And actually, I was working for a great boss and Bob Gates who felt much the same way that communication was really critical. And we would do press briefings in the Pentagon almost as often as we could either weekly or biweekly. But I would also do them by myself. I always took press on the plane, you know, on the trips with me for the same reasons so they could see what I was seeing. And then, you know, they could ask me about it. And that created challenges, that uncovered problems. But I was willing to address those and take the risk, if you will, of certain stories coming out that might be seen in a negative way to have that. I mean, one last story on that. I can remember one of the real, one of the real difficult moments for the government, Senator Reed, I think, is the majority leader at the time. And I'm in Afghanistan, one of the guy named Jim Nachoshevsky, who was an NBC reporter in the Pentagon. They were about to shut the government down again. And Micksershevsky asked me, and I've got a thousand troops right in front of me, whether if we shut the government down, the troops were going to get paid. And my understanding was that was not the case. And in fact, that went straight to the Senate, you know, live, got to read. And he basically made the adjustment to make sure whatever they were going to do, the troops were not going to get paid, particularly when you're fighting two wars. You know, having served with both, what was the biggest difference between Bush and Obama and how they led? Well, there's a fun story associated with that. After President Obama came in, Secretary Gates and I went on, we went on separate Sunday morning shows. And both of us, not surprisingly, got asked that question, you know, you've been with President Bush, and how you're President Obama, what's the difference ? I demure in answering that question, because it's just not too good to compare presidents publicly. And for some reason, Bob Gates answered the question, and he's an incredible guy. But he had served mostly with Republican administrations. I mean, served with both. But certainly he was there. He came in under President Bush. Whatever his answer was, the White House was not happy with it. And we lived next to each other. And I went over on a compound near the State Department. And I saw Bob, that was Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon, I went over to talk to Bob about something. And I said something along the lines of what were you thinking? He goes, I have no idea what I was thinking by answering that question. What is important though, in my time, and actually Bob's time as well, I came into the Bush administration in the middle of the Iraq surge. The Iraq war had been going on. This was, you know, since 2003, I came in in 2007. It hadn't gone well for President Bush and everybody that was associated with it. And they had expended a tremendous amount of energy on the war itself. So it was at the end of the administration. And they were, you know, the whole administration was tired. The war was tough. And then, you know, you bring in a brand new president Obama who's got a different worldview. And, you know, both of them highly, highly principled individuals that wanted to do the best they could for the American people. There's no question about that. They just had different worldviews. But President Obama comes in with hope and change. It's all the energy that's associated with that. So it's a totally different environment. Now, obviously President Obama over time was dealing with what was on that bus, which was a lot. And it's a job that has just extraordinary pressures and extraordinary challenges that sometimes, you know, I actually scratch my head how anybody could actually do it. And I so many would want to do it. But they obviously handled themselves differently, but two patriots and dedicated people that wanted to get it right for the American people. Now, I may have this wrong, but my understanding is you were actually vetted as a potential vice president for Michael Bloomberg when he was running. You know, was that a job that you were necessarily excited about? And, you know , when you think about being the president, which could be a possibility in that case, is that a job you would really love doing? This was in 2016 when Mike was thinking very seriously about becoming a third party candidate. And it turns out with a third party candidate, or if you're going to have a third party slate, if you announce that you have to announce both positions president, obviously in Mike's case, he would be going for president and he needed a vice president to go with you. Because you're not having a convention. You don't have a party. You know, all that kind of stuff. I knew him when I was chairman back in 2007 2008, I think I'd met him and we'd become pretty good friends, because, and this is another leadership issue because people in those leadership positions actually need friends, you know, people that are actually in leadership positions that understand what they're going through. But we'd become pretty close friends and I was on his philanthropy board. I've been on his philanthrop for a few years and I still am as we speak today. And so he asked if it would be okay if he would vet me and I said yes, thinking he was vetting three or four people. It turns out he was only betting one and I carry with me. I have it home. I don't have it with me. I carried with me for quite a while. 27 pages of questions that the quote unquote friendly lawyers put together to vet me. And I wasn't one. I wasn't an unknown person. Totally. I mean, I was unknown politically. I understand that. But when you go through that, the 27 pages from the friendly lawyers, you know, that in and of itself becomes prima fascia evidence why people won't go do this . And it was a pretty difficult conversation to have with Deb in my family, not that we weren't geared to serve but we know we've done it for 43 years. We had sort of just gotten organized as a family. I've got kids and grandkids I want to spend time with. And I understand that environment. I'd be right back in it. And also what I also learned. Well, a couple things. One is that world is not us, if you will. It's not the military. And I had a long conversation with Colin Powell about this who was looked at very seriously after the first Clinton term to do the same thing. It isn't who we are. Value base is a little different. And then secondly, it was less about whether I or I thought Mike could do the job because I'd seen the job done with the caveat I talked about earlier. It was not an impossible job, but it was, were you a member what I would call of the tribe. And if you were not, you know, if you didn't grow up in the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, they would essentially make sure you didn't have much of a future. So in the end, Mike made the decision to not come in as a third party candidate so I didn't have to make the decision. Yes or no. But it was a difficult conversation to have in our family as well. I served in the military service for 43 years. How do you know it was time to step down and move on. Well, legally you have to. There was an expectation, you know, when I was coming up through the ranks, I had no expectation I'd be a flag officer, much less come up through the flag community from one to four stars. And had I commanded just three ships up through the time I would have been a Navy captain or equivalent as an army colonel. And the Navy said, you're not going to get promoted and there are ways that you know you get that message. I would have saluted and said, thank you very much. I've had a blast. And that would have been, I was at about the 22 or 23 year point, and I'd have gone on, you know, with the rest of my life. Obviously thought I had a future started putting me in positions to get promoted. And so, you know, it became, you know, a different outcome in that regard. But you are, you are legally, you can only be in these flag positions. I'm sorry, flag pay grades. One star, two star, three star, four star for so many years. And you have to go. So if you don't get promoted, it's time to go and you know that. So when I went in as the head of the Navy in 2005. My plan was to retire in 2009. And we had been called to that job from over being overseas in Italy, where I was in a NATO job, a four star job over there. With every expectation I'd be there two or three years and retire. I got called to be the head of the Navy and then two years in. And this is a, this is a leadership lesson as well. I was reasonably attuned. I thought I was to what was going on. I'd been there two years. It had been going pretty, it had been going well as the head of the Navy. We were in these wars. I was really deep into trying to figure out how to be the best member of the joint chiefs I could as a head of the Navy. Deb was deep into family programs and family issues and things were going pretty well. And I go see Bob Gates on a Thursday afternoon. And I walk in and this is in May of 2007. And it was, it was on a topic that I wanted to talk to him about. But I walk into his office. And the first thing I noticed is his principal horse holder is not there. And so I got something was up here and I, Gates asked me to sit down at this little table next to his desk. And he starts talking to me in about 20 seconds in. I figure out where this is going. But he's going to ask me to, or the president's going to ask me to become the chairman. All of us thought that General Pete Pace, who was the chairman, was going to be there for another two years. At that point in time, each increment was two years long. And typically you serve two, two year tours. So I go into this sort of, it's almost like a movie. One of those movies where you, you can kind of, you know, you can kind of hear the sound and hear him talking, but you're in disbelief at what you're seeing. And then about a minute or a minute and a half later Bob, I can see Bob's going to actually wrap up, ask the question. And I refocus. So it shocked me, you know, so you never really know. You can never be sure you know everything that's going on. And then Deb and I talked about it that night, agreed to do it together. And so that became four more years. But at the end of those four years, that was it. You knew I knew I was going. And I didn't have, we talked about leaving nothing on the field. There was nothing on the field for either one of us. Do you miss it? No. No. I do miss the troops. You know, you miss that in the families. You know, that, that was a real privilege. That was very, very special. My whole life, but particularly in those, you know, in those years during the wars. I mean, it was again never expected. And I do miss that. But no, I don't miss the grind. And I don't miss. I mean, as we're speaking, we've, you know, my successor, a couple of times removed, you know, Mark Millie has just retired. The environment in Washington is as, and it was tough when I was there. It's much more difficult now for any serving chairman. And I don't miss that either. We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Admiral Mike Mullen in just a moment. As you can hear, Mike operates with a clear set of values. And you know, a lot of great leaders talk about the importance of their core values, including Steve Holmes, the non-executive chairman of Windham Hotels and Resorts and Travel and Leisure Company. In my conversation with Steve, he shares more about how to define your core values and then really live them out. If you're the person that people are looking up to, you have to let people know what you believe in. And when I had a chance to do that as CEO, it was just taking what I had done before and putting it into a much larger scale. What I learned early on was there are core values in your life. You have to respect people. You have to go through all the core values. But you have to have those values and then you apply them to wherever you are. And in this case, I became the CEO of an organization and I went around and I explained to people, these are my values and this is how we're going to run the business. There was not a huge change in the way I managed going from one to the other. It's just being consistent, communicating well and letting people know what you stand for because they're looking to you to know how they should make their decisions. And you want to lead by example. Go back and listen to my entire conversation with Steve, episode 112 here on How Leaders Lead. At the time you and I are talking here, you know, Israel is at war with Hamas after unprecedented attacks. How should we be thinking about that as United States citizens and what should we be doing from a leadership perspective from your view. So it's a really dangerous time. My biggest concern right now and the tragedies and just my heart's thoughts, prayers, condolences go out to those who've lost family members and those who, and also those who are being held hostage. And prayers that somehow those who are being held hostage will be okay. My biggest fear right now is that this will break out into a major conflict and spin out of control. So from my point of view, where I in a position of leadership, I would be pushing particularly the intelligence side of the world to understand who was involved in this and do everything I possibly could to make sure that this does not spin out of control into a major war in the Middle East, which would be a disaster. And I'd want to know it from every perspective. I'd want to know it from the Hamas perspective from the Hezbollah perspective from the Syrian perspective from the Iranian perspective from the Saudi in particular Saudi UAE Kuwait cutter perspective, the Middle East perspective, the Egyptian perspective, and I would be spending my time trying to understand that whole aspect of this as best I possibly could to figure out a way for this to not absolutely break out in a way that would be a disaster. It's hard for me to believe in again I'm on the outside I haven't seen the intel. Obviously this was a major intel failure. And I think in time, you know we'll figure that out what we need to do right now is focus on the current situation make sure Israel is fully supported in what they're doing in every possible way and I think our president is doing that I listen to his speech today in this unbelievably difficult situation, and that the state of Israel is preserved for, you know, as the Jewish state and that it is not in any way at risk, you know, over the long term. Part of me is I can't believe, and this was obviously an incredibly well planned and sophisticated operation that had to be planned over many, many months, if not years. But the operational security, the fact that nothing leaked on this, when you have the thousands of people that were involved in this is stunning to me, achieving that objective is just remarkable. And in one way, this is a suicidal mission for this is how I think about it. This is a suicidal attack on the part of Hamas I can't believe Israel won't do everything it possibly can to wipe them out. And that then that is a way that gets tied to Hezbollah and Iran, who I believe is complicit in this even though we have no smoking gun. And that my expectations is that's how Israel will respond. Then how does that situation. How do we think about that at a time where we are at war, we're supporting sorry the Ukraine, you know, who've been so incredibly strong in fighting for their country and we and others in supporting that. And where it goes with respect to Russia, which is very difficult to know. I think in the long run Russia is not going to go away. I think they've been devastated militarily, politically, diplomatically, even economically. But Russia is, you know, is a huge part of the continent. And we need to figure out one of the questions I asked when this broke out a year ago, February was what we're going to do with 140 million Russians and 40 million Ukrainians. The people, the less the politicians. And we're never going to be able to ignore Russia. How does that fit into the future is a is another one of those great and grave questions that we have to answer. And then the extension of that same kind of what's going on the world is the challenge that we've got in the West, the longer term challenge we've got with China. And the Pacific vis-a-vis, I spent a fair amount of time in the last year or year and a half on the Taiwan issue, which is an unbelievably complex, dangerous issue in and of itself. So the challenges are, you know, they just abound and we need leaders back to sort of the, you know, the topic here. We need leaders to take us through these very, very difficult times and leaders that do it together. So all this may seem unrelated, but it is related. And then I come back to one of the things that's, you know, I said many years ago, David, when asked what the biggest threat our country was, I said our national debt, which was kind of a surprise answer. And as I point out to people, that was, I think in 2010, our debt was 10 trillion. You know, it's now 33 trillion and I, it is a huge, huge issue. But if you ask me that question now, I think the number one threat to our country is us and the division that's here and the democracy, which I believe is much more fragile. You know, I took it for granted for 70 plus years. It treated me pretty well. And I think January 6 unveiled to me how fragile it actually was is. And then we have to handle that very, very carefully. And if we're not careful, we're going to lose the democracy that is so critical to us. And I think critical to democratic countries and democratic peoples around the world. You know, it's, it is a dangerous time. There's no doubt about it. And when you think about everything that's going on, you know, now in Israel, combine it with Russia, the threat of nuclear activity, nuclear war, how do you see that? I mean, it scares the hell out of me. Well, it should. It ought to scare all of us. You know, I, I spent a fair amount of time. I mean, in my first job when I was an instant, I was a nuclear weapons officer on my destroyer out of, you know, Long Beach, California. So I've been around nuclear weapons in some way, seemingly my whole life. And I ended up being one of the negotiators for the treaty with the Russians in 2010, which is about to expire expire in 2026. And Russia has walked away from it. So treaties which have been in place since 1972 to regulate control and spec. A sure compliance between the Soviet Union and Russia and us. That's going away at a time where China is now building its nuclear arsenal. And we'll have one. If you believe what's out there publicly that is the equivalent of what Russia and the United States has in about 2035. And so far, China's been unwilling to come in and join the treaty discussions, if you will. I'm hopeful over the long run that they'll, they'll actually see the light in the benefit because these weapons are just, we forget. I mean, because it happened so long ago, but they're the most devastating weapons put on earth. And no one ever wants to see them used. And there are processes and procedures to control them, if you will, in a way so that they are never used. But it's a growing concern. It's been a great concern, obviously, with Russia and Ukraine. Although it appears that President Putin has chosen to not use them. And you never know for sure. I don't trust the guy at all. I think he's the most dangerous guy on earth, actually. But at the same time, it appears in this war with Ukraine. He's chosen not to use them. And I just hope I hope he doesn't in any way, shape or form. And then we've got the leader in North Korea, who continues to develop them. I actually think if he used one that he and his regime would get annihilated as a result of that. So I'm hopeful that somehow he'll see some wisdom there with respect to not using those weapons, which he continues to develop as well. Admiral, as a leader, how would you undo what seems like an inevitable collision with China? I'm watching very carefully the interaction between President Biden and President Xi. I worry a great deal that actually this relationship, I believe, is the most difficult relationship I've ever seen. And that we're slowly coming apart. If they don't lead us to a constructive co existence, if the leaders don't lead us in that direction, then I think it goes in the other direction. And I actually believe it's the most dangerous time since 1962, which was the Cuban Missile Crisis, because of the capabilities that we are developing and the danger of us going to war over Taiwan. Taiwan is increasingly independent-minded. And I'm a big believer in one China policy, but that it be reconciled and resolved peacefully. That's a much more difficult discussion to have right now after what China has done in Hong Kong, where that was "one country, two systems." That supposedly was some version of how it was supposed to come out in Taiwan. Taiwan is having elections this year. They've got election in January. The party in power right now is more independent-minded. They also sit at the center of the economies of the world because of the semiconductor industry in Taiwan. The most critical semiconductor manufacturer in the world is TSMC. They make the most advanced semiconductors. And if Taiwan is in a war, the TSMC goes down. If TSMC goes down, in many ways, the economies of the world go down. So it's a very, very dangerous situation that my expectations are. It's what leaders get paid for. It's to make sure that this goes in the right direction, not the wrong direction. Well, speaking of danger, I've got one more question. And this is all such a sobering discussion here. You mentioned the Israel-Hamas issue was a major intel failure, which is pretty obvious. And Israel is known for being the best in the world at this, or at least a lot of people feel that way. How safe should we feel in the United States? I mean, part of the discussion in Israel right now, or about what's happened is it's Israel's 9/11. And obviously there are differences. But I think they were taken completely by surprise. And again, as we talked earlier, I think at some point in time, that'll get all sorted out and changes that need to be made. If you've been in Israel, even as many times as I've been, I'm always reminded when I go back there that this is a tough neighborhood surrounded by enemies, their whole existence is... ...focused on them taking care of themselves, and they're really good at it. And we have to make sure that they can continue to do that in the future. We've been great supporters of them since 1948, and I'm sure we will continue to be to basically make sure that their future is very robust. But the consequences of this, and the surprise that it generated, the fact that it occurred, I mean, they're going to be longstanding. They'll be remembered for as far into the future as we can think. From a security standpoint, here in the US, one of the things I pointed out as bad and tragic as 9/11 was, we've had tens of thousands of people working since then to make sure something like that never happens again. And those great patriots in our government in particular and in our cities and states throughout, they've been amazingly effective. And so far, we haven't had a recurrence. I would never want to be overly comfortable or complacent with respect to these kinds of security threats. Those same terrorists, we went after an Afghanistan. They still aspire to do us as much damage as possible, and we need to be aware of that. And we need to make sure we do everything we can to make sure that they are unable to succeed in their mission. And in the long run, David, I believe, and I've been through a lot with young people in that part of the world, the young ones that put on suicide best there , they don't have any hope. They don't see much of a future. And I think the world's got to figure out a way to help those developing countries create opportunities for themselves so that young people actually see a future. And have some hope. So instead of putting on a suicide vest and executing as many innocents as they possibly can, rather getting an education and contributing to society to make their own countries better and create a better way of life for their family members. As my parents did, coming out of the depression. One of the things I always do in my podcast is I have a lightning round. And if you got just a minute or two, I'd like you to ask you these lightning round questions real quick and we'll wrap this thing up. Okay. Sure. All right. What's one word others would use to best describe you? Yeah, integrity. What would you say is the one word that best describes you? Integrity. Who would play you in a movie? Walter Mathan. If you could be one person for a day beside yourself, who would it be? Roger Stahle. What's one of your daily rituals something that you never miss? Cheerios for breakfast. Something you wish you learned earlier in your life. I wish I understood the value of a diversity of opinions and of people. If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear? Rock and roll. What's something about you few people would know? I'm a great jitter bugger. All right. There you go. Okay. Fantastic. And I've been so impressed with this entire conversation and I've been particularly impressed by the partnership that you have with your wife, Deborah , who you've been married to for over 50 years, 52 years, I think. How do you lead in a marriage to make it work? Well, it's believe me. I mean, there's no chance I would have been anywhere close to as successful as I have been or been in the positions. Been privileged to serve as I have been able to without her. I mean, it's just not even close. And we met, you know, we're in our early twenties. I was 23. She was 22 when we got married. You know, every young 20 something thinks they know a lot in retrospect. You know, we didn't know that much, but we fell in love and were blessed with two great kids and surrounded by great families. I think we moved 23 times. You know, I was gone a lot. So I've got two great sons. And believe me, she's the one that impacted them more than anyone else. And it is that family of peace, which is why we feel so strongly about families , military families. And when I came in the military in the late sixties, I don't know what the number was, but what I was told was it was like 4% of the Navy was married. Each of the service, when I left in 2011, we're about 50% those who were married. The context of families have changed in terms of significant others and partnerships, but you can't do it. Nobody can do it without their family. And so that's why we emphasize that so importantly, but she really is my true nor star in the values piece more than anybody else. And it's been that I think the love and the bonding that's associated with that , that's allowed us to really be privileged in the life that we've led. And we've got again, two great sons, they've got two great spouses, and we've got six great grandkids to keep us occupied quite a bit right now. And we've been very blessed in that regard. That's great. Admiral, what's your unfinished business? Well, I still want to, I still want to contribute as much as I can to the things that I know a little bit about. I mean, the situation internationally right now is hugely challenging. And so I spend some time on that. I am increasingly concerned about the help of our own democracy. I've tried to study that in ways that I didn't think I'd have to before to understand what brings us together. So I speak to that as often as I possibly can publicly and that we need to come together and stop ripping each other out in this divisive environment. My wife and I are involved in veterans issues. We essentially took the focus that we had on military members and families to veterans and families. So we're both involved in 501(c)(3)s that focus on that. Not a ton of them, but a few of them because that space is so critical. And there's huge challenges associated with that. And I don't know if that's going to get finished, quite frankly, but Deb and I agreed that we would engage in that space until we can't. So I'm sure that will remain unfinished even when we get to the point where we can't, but we're going to do as much as we can in that regard with the time we have left. Last question here. What's one piece of advice you'd want to give someone who wants to be a better leader? Back to this course that I teach. I mean, I taught at Princeton for six years and I'm now in my fifth year at the Naval Academy. And I base the course on, you know, it's a pretty confused world. How do I make decisions? How do I live my life? On what are your values? What are your principles? What do you believe in? And to really think that through. And then to use that, what I do in the course is have the students construct a framework through which in which, around which , they can then lead their lives, make decisions, look themselves in the mirror in the morning and make sure that they can continue to do that with a straight face. And I think more than anything else, that's what I would tell leaders today and then stick to those and then have somebody call you on it. Have somebody that would speak truth to power say, well, that isn't very consistent with who we thought you were or who you said you'd be. I'm also fond of saying I have forever in the, well, not forever, but in the last 20 plus years that everybody's a leader. You got to be a good follower before you're a good leader, but everybody's a leader and followers can lead as well. We're desperately in need of great leaders right now to bring us together and continue to evolve, you know, from the great country we have been for, you know , two and a half centuries into the great country we can be for the next two and a half centuries. Admiral, you're a great American and I thank you so much. You know, we both want to make the world a better place by developing better leaders and you've got so much advice and insight that you've you've provided in this time and you 've been so gracious with your time. This has been great. Yeah, thanks. I really appreciate it. Boy, I'm so grateful for leaders like Mike, who demonstrate how the heart of leadership really is service to others. I appreciate him and all the men and women in our armed forces and their families who serve and sacrifice on behalf of our country. We need more leaders like Admiral Mullen, which is why I'm so glad you took the time to learn from him today. And one of the key takeaways from this conversation that I want to point out is the importance of being willing to speak the truth to those in charge. Admiral Mullen talks about that moment before walking into the Oval Office, where Tinkerbell hits you with some magic power that makes it really tough to tell the most powerful person in the world what he got wrong. Now your boss probably doesn't work in the Oval Office, but no matter what, it takes courage to disagree with the person in charge or speak up about the things that aren't working. But if people can't give honest feedback to the people that they work for, then it's just a disaster waiting to happen. Problems will go unchecked, and guess what? They're the kind of problems that always get worse. Now, if you're a regular listener to this podcast, you know this is the point in the show where I pause and offer a simple way you can apply this concept in your own world and become a better leader. This week I want you to take a good hard look at the people in your life who you count as truth tellers. Take a moment to recognize them for a situation where they helped you course correct. And look, if you have a hard time coming up with anyone, then I'll just be the truth teller for you and say that it's time to make that your priority. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is the great leaders are willing to speak and hear the truth. Coming up next on how leaders lead is Walter Driver, co-founder and CEO of Scop ley, which is the number one mobile video game company in the United States. We started saying relatively early on in the company life cycle that we weren't trying to build a company, we're trying to build a learning machine. And that feeling that if we could learn faster than any other company in our industry, ultimately we would come out ahead over time because that knowledge would compound and if we were just learning 3% faster than anybody else, we would end up in an amazing place. So be sure to come back again next week to hear our entire conversation. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders Lead where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO]