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Secrets of Special Ops Leadership
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Secrets of Special Ops Leadership

Dare the Impossible - Achieve the Extraordinary

William A. Cohen
AMACOM, 2005
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Editorial Rating

7

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  • Applicable

Recommendation

The market for "military metaphor" leadership books is saturated, but retired Major General William A. Cohen issues a worthy, if not outstanding, addition to the field. It reflects painstaking work by its highly qualified author, a former special ops pilot who has gathered stories from virtually every field of human endeavor to illustrate his leadership principles. Strong in its depth of detailed and inspirational anecdotes, particularly from the annals of military history, this book is less effective at describing how managers specifically can apply its principles to their daily business lives. This is a routine shortcoming of the genre, which tends to offer more shots than targets. getAbstract.com recommends this book to managers and executives seeking inspiration, rather than specific business advice, and to leaders who enjoy military history and vivid war stories.

Summary

Special Leadership

One of the most famous special ops missions ever undertaken stemmed from the events of June 27, 1976 when terrorists armed with machine guns and grenades boarded Air France Flight 139, taking its 246 passengers hostage.

The terrorists diverted the aircraft to Entebbe, Uganda, where dictator Idi Amin agreed to harbor it. After landing, the hijackers released non-Jewish passengers and kept 105 hostages. They set a 2 a.m., July 4 deadline, saying they would begin executing hostages unless authorities met their demands: the release of 53 convicted terrorists imprisoned in Israel, France, Germany, Switzerland and Kenya. As soon as the hijacking occurred, Israeli commandos began determining how to free the hostages against almost insurmountable obstacles. The aircraft was owned by a foreign airline and the hostages starring into gun barrels were in the middle of a hostile country thousands of miles away. The mere logistics of mounting a mission on such short notice and across such a distance were daunting.

The Israeli special operations unit, Sayeret Mat’kal, decided to dare the impossible. Its assault force took off on July 3, and flew a circuitous...

About the Author

Former air commando William A. Cohen, Ph.D., Major General, USAFR, Ret., is an authority on leadership and strategy. He heads the Institute of Leader Arts, and teaches at Touro University International. A recipient of the U.S. government’s Distinguished Service Medal, he also wrote The New Art of the Leader and The Art of the Strategist.

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