THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY OFFICE OF NEWS AND INFORMATION 3003 N. Charles Street, Suite 100 Baltimore, Maryland 21218-3843 Phone: (410) 516-7160 / Fax (410) 516-5251
December 18, 1998 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACT: Glenn Small [email protected]
CIVIL WAR BATTLE PROVIDES MODERN LESSONS IN POLICE LEADERSHIP
Battlefield "staff rides" originated in 1870, when Gen. William T. Sherman used them as a way to go over what had happened during an engagement, to try to get inside the minds of the field commanders and to learn lessons that could be applied later. And until D-Day and the battle of Normandy in 1944, Gettysburg was the most studied battle for such staff rides.
It's still one of the most scrutinized battles, and military officers from around the world walk the Pennsylvania fields and ridges where 172,000 Union and Confederate troops clashed in three bloody and decisive days of fighting in July 1863.
For graduate students in the Police Executive Leadership Program at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the staff ride at Gettysburg has become an annual feature of a leadership course that attempts to give police commanders a sense of what happened there -- what went right, what went wrong -- and why. It's a daylong attempt to reach back 135 years for lessons that can be applied to modern leadership and the complexities of contemporary organizations.
"All the lessons of leadership are there," said Sheldon Greenberg, a former police officer who directs the PELP program in the Johns Hopkins School of Continuing Studies, now in its fifth year. "You had bosses not listening to subordinates. You had commanders who were not in charge of some troops who said, 'I know you're not under my command, but I need you to do this.' You had commanders who thought, for the good of the corps, I'll just move over here, and they left huge gaps in the line."
On a recent afternoon, 25 second-year students in the PELP program -- all working police officers -- surveyed the battle of Gettysburg from the early shots fired on McPherson's Ridge to the bloody assaults on Little Round Top and Culp's Hill to the desperate, gallant assault called Pickett's charge.
The staff ride was put together by Patrick A. Martinelli, a senior faculty associate in the School of Continuing Studies and an instructor in the PELP program, and led by Gary Kross, a licensed battlefield guide.
Bill O'Toole, a Montgomery County police officer in the course, said he clearly saw that much of what the leaders at Gettysburg faced, modern police commanders face. One lesson: "Things never go according to plan. You have to be prepared to react and evolve."
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