“I’m responsible for everything that the patients and staff there [Building 18 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center] have to deal with.  I felt that as a command we shouldn’t have allowed this to happen.”

In uttering these words during an exclusive interview with Tom Philpott of Military.com on March 6, five days after being relieved of command of the North Atlantic Regional Medical Command (which includes Walter Reed),  Major General George W. Weightman did something that so few leaders in high-profile cases have done recently – he immediately took responsibility.

General Weightman’s ethical leadership is refreshing given the lack of responsibility expressed by leaders involved in unfortunate situations such as Enron, WorldCom, Abu Ghraib, HealthSouth, and more recent higher profile events.
 
General Weightman could have used his impeccable 38 year record serving patients, and leading and caring for our superb soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen as a potential means to soften the criticism.   He didn’t do it.  He could have defended himself by discussing the eroding numbers and quality of staff members due to downsizing, base realignment of Walter Reed with Bethesda Naval Medical Center, and privatization – while war-related outpatient medical care continued to increase.  He didn’t do it.  He could have used his mere six months on the job as an excuse and the fact that during this short period of time he visited all 15 hospitals under his command in Canada and the U.S., and made visits to four of the five facilities housing outpatients at Walter Reed (exception of Building 18).  He didn’t do it.

Instead, during General Weightman’s March 5 testimony before the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee on National Security, he shouldered the blame.  He was the commander.  Though his own claim of responsibility is debatable given the circumstances and the potential normalization of deviance at Walter Reed that pre-dated his arrival, he didn’t dwell on whether relieving him of command was fair – it didn’t matter, he was the commander.

“Fairness” for high-profile events is seldom a criterion for how good leaders are treated when such events unfold.  Unfortunately, it is simply a case of the balloon bursting on the leader’s watch.  Take for example the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1991 and what happened soon thereafter.  As you may recall, as the result of a terrorist attack, the Khobar Towers incident cost the Air Force 19 airmen, hundreds of injured personnel, the early retirement of a very good commander, Brig Gen Terryl Schwalier, and the resignation of an excellent Air Force Chief of Staff, General Ronald Fogleman.  This occurred in spite of evidence that the commander appeared to take the correct proactive steps at the time to keep his people safe.

In spite of the protests and appeals by the Chief of Staff, General Schwalier was held responsible.  His treatment had nothing to do with fairness; the incident simply occurred on Gen Schwalier’s watch.  He was the commander.  This system of consequences in militaries has existed since the beginning of armed conflict.

Even when the situation involves a concept called “normalization of deviance” the leader is held responsible.  In short, normalization of deviance means deviating from the norm so often that the deviation becomes the norm.  For example, since 1983, Space shuttles experienced critical foam loss during each mission.  Instead of getting to the root cause of the tile damage or foam damage, engineers treated the loss as routine maintenance, though there was some foam loss visually confirmed on 65 of 79 imaged missions from 1983 to 2002.   They normalized deviance.  Consequently, we lost seven brave men and women during the 2003 Space shuttle explosion.
 
I’m not saying that normalization of deviance exists at Walter Reed and other military hospitals.  However, I am saying that the problems didn’t evolve in a mere six months.  Perhaps the silver lining in all of this could be discovering the real root causes and solutions for war-related outpatient care before experiencing greater consequences.  Maybe the outcome is the creation of an outpatient care system that is comparable to the superb inpatient care for war-related injured personnel.

Based on General Weightman’s interview with Tom Philpott, the General isn’t overly concerned about what happens to him.  At this point, he believes “the bottom line is it’s about our soldiers and their families getting better care.”   Leaders of General Weightman’s fiber are rare.  He immediately took responsibility.   In my opinion, he provides an excellent example of ethical leadership while under fire.