Air Power Leadership on the Front Line - Lt. Gen. George H. Brett and Combat Command

With Airpower Leadership on the Front Line: Lt Gen George H. Brett and Combat Command, Douglas Cox makes a singular contribution to American airpower biography. Books abound on personalities that reach high rank and whose careers culminate in great success. These studies often glean keen insight about leadership style, and some are vocationally valuable as examples of effective command. But the analysis of history's great winners yields something less than a full dimensional sense of leader- ship. The examination of those men and women who do not quite reach exalted status can flesh out the lessons of effective leadership. This is what Cox does here. George H. Brett certainly reached high rank, and only the most cynical and uninformed observer would judge his career a failure. Yet World War II did not propel him along the same career trajectory of a Curtis LeMay or a Hoyt Vandenberg or a Jimmy Doolittle. Why? For all kinds of reasons; some of which were good, some bad, some within Brett's control, and others entirely outside his purview. Through a careful examination of primary and secondary sources, as well as his own acumen as a sharp officer, Cox uses Brett's life to illuminate those factors that at first sped Brett through the ranks and then those variables that appeared to block his further advancement. Cox reminds us of what we often know intuitively but often for- get intellectually: that success has many fathers, including personal luck and fortuitous circumstance. Airpower Leadership on the Front Line pulls no punches regarding Brett's limitations, but it also acknowledges broader factors at play in his career. In the end, Cox delineates those factors that make for successful leaders; and, more importantly, suggests which among those variables are within a person's control and hence worthy of attention and energy. As much as studies of commanders who grabbed the brass ring, this examination of George H. Brett adds Insight into the makings of effective leadership and successful command.