Four-Star Leadership for Leaders - Volume II

History has shown that the best way to learn about leadership is to work or serve at the shoulder of a great leader and observe and listen. Problem is, those opportunities are extraordinarily rare for many reasons – few have the privilege of proximity outside of aides and special staff - and impossible for everyone with regard to those who have departed this world. Thus the next best option is books. "Not all readers are leaders," wrote Harry S. Truman, "but all leaders are readers." Some truly great leaders that we could learn from did not write about their experiences – General George C. Marshall is a good example -but historians, journalists and those who had the opportunity to observe them recorded their thoughts, opinions, observations and remembrances. Reading about great leaders is an essential part of your self-development. "You live your profession through reading," observed the late General Alexander Haig. "It's the most important crutch you have. My only complaint is I've been such an operational guy and an activist that I have never had a chance to read everything." General Tom Hill, a former commander of U.S. Southern Command, has been a voracious reader since childhood. He tells those who have the pleasure of seeing his library that he has a simple measuring rod. "If you can't name the last five books you've read then you aren't reading enough." Four-Star Leadership for Leaders is a series of books that contain incisive and inspirational interviews with America's four-star generals and admirals. Each interview is unique and different and contains great wisdom. Much can be learned by reading the thoughts of our nation's great military leaders. "The things I want to know are in books," declared Abraham Lincoln; "my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read."

History has shown that the best way to learn about leadership is to work or serve at the shoulder of a great leader and observe and listen. Problem is, those opportunities are extraordinarily rare for many reasons – few have the privilege of proximity outside of aides and special staff - and impossible for everyone with regard to those who have departed this world. Thus the next best option is books. "Not all readers are leaders," wrote Harry S. Truman, "but all leaders are readers." Some truly great leaders that we could learn from did not write about their experiences – General George C. Marshall is a good example -but historians, journalists and those who had the opportunity to observe them recorded their thoughts, opinions, observations and remembrances. Reading about great leaders is an essential part of your self-development. "You live your profession through reading," observed the late General Alexander Haig. "It's the most important crutch you have. My only complaint is I've been such an operational guy and an activist that I have never had a chance to read everything." General Tom Hill, a former commander of U.S. Southern Command, has been a voracious reader since childhood. He tells those who have the pleasure of seeing his library that he has a simple measuring rod. "If you can't name the last five books you've read then you aren't reading enough." Four-Star Leadership for Leaders is a series of books that contain incisive and inspirational interviews with America's four-star generals and admirals. Each interview is unique and different and contains great wisdom. Much can be learned by reading the thoughts of our nation's great military leaders. "The things I want to know are in books," declared Abraham Lincoln; "my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read."

The son of an Army Air Force fighter pilot, Bob Ancell was born in Phoenix, Arizona, in October 1942. He traces his direct lineage to Edward Ancell, his great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather who was born in Oxfordshire, England and moved to Orange County, Virginia, before the American Revolution. His career has been primarily in the media. He was a disk jockey in Santa Fe and Albuquerque prior to joining KOB Television in 1966, where he spent six years as a reporter, photographer and editor of the 6 PM and 10 PM Eyewitness News. He produced a number of half hour documentaries on subjects as diverse as the New Mexico State Prison, the space shuttle and Astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell, a native New Mexican. One of his documentaries, “The Thief on the Street Where You Live,” earned first place awards from United Press International and the New Mexico Broadcasters Association. Ancell was commissioned as a public affairs officer in the Naval Reserve in 1971. His annual two-week tours of active duty included service at U.S. Atlantic Command in Norfolk, where he wrote a major speech for Admiral Ralph W. Cousins, the Commander in Chief; in the office of the Chief of Information in support of Secretary of the Navy John Warner’s program for the Navy‘s 200th anniversary; aboard the battleship New Jersey during her re-commissioning; and with the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery in the opening weeks of Operation Desert Storm. In 1984 Ancell was recalled to active duty as a lieutenant commander in the Navy Reserve and ordered to New Orleans, where he headed recruiting advertising and marketing. The following year he was released from active duty and joined Resort Condominiums International as publisher of Endless Vacation and oversaw its redesign and launch as an international travel magazine. First published in New Mexico Magazine at the age of eighteen, Ancell is the author or co-author of more than 200 articles in magazines, newspapers and journals and six books: co-author, with General Edward C. Meyer, of Who Will Lead? (Praeger, 1995); co-author, with Charles T. Jones, of Four-Star Leadership For Leaders (Executive Books, 1997, revised edition published by Tremendous Life Books, 2011); author of The Biographical Dictionary of World War Two Generals and Flag Officers (Greenwood Press, 1996); The Tremendous Power of Persistence (to be published by Tremendous Life Books) and Four-Star Leadership for Leaders – Volumes II, III, IV and V (to be published as e-Books in 2012-2015). He is listed in the latest edition of Who’s Who in America and resides with his wife, Dr. Christine Miller, in Norfolk, Virginia.