This episode features an interview with General Rebecca S. Halstead ‘81, Founder and CEO of STEADFAST Leadership, a leading consultancy company she founded after serving for 27 years in the Army. She retired from the military as a Brigadier General. Becky specializes in inspirational and motivational speaking, developing leader training programs, leader coaching and mentoring. Becky has provided hundreds of keynote speeches and leadership training to the corporate and academic sectors at both national and international engagements.
This episode features an interview with General Rebecca S. Halstead ‘81, Founder and CEO of STEADFAST Leadership, a leading consultancy company she founded after serving for 27 years in the Army. She retired from the military as a Brigadier General. Becky specializes in inspirational and motivational speaking, developing leader training programs, leader coaching and mentoring. Becky has provided hundreds of keynote speeches and leadership training to the corporate and academic sectors at both national and international engagements.
Becky entered West Point in 1977 with just the second class of women, and was the first person from her hometown to graduate from the academy. She was also the first female graduate of West Point (‘81) to be promoted to General Officer in 2004. Becky served and commanded in combat as the first female Commanding General at the strategic level of leadership in Iraq. In 2007 she received the National Women’s History Project award for “Generations of Women Moving History Forward”.
In this episode of the WPAOG Network Podcast, Becky talks about how she enjoys being a leader and why she sees herself as a role model for both men and women. Becky explains how her time at West Point and in the military provided her with many important skills and experiences that are transferable to the work she does today advising businesses on how to be better. She also gives insight on some of her proudest moments in the military and why it is important to be an honest, open, and direct mentor to help others succeed in the military and life thereafter.
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"You should be comfortable wanting to surround yourself with really good people. I mean, I worked for some bosses who they were intimidated by other people that were good and I'm like, I pray to be surrounded by great people, right? Like, I mean, I'm not intimidated by other people being better, smarter, faster than me. I want them on my team. But I also want people on my team that think differently, you know, I don't want my team to look just like me. And I had a great boss who said to me, just don't surround yourself with little Becky Halsteads. I was like, what's wrong with little Becky Halstead sir, you know? And he says, you think about it, you'll figure it out. And then I did. Because you know, if I were to just choose all women to work for me and you know, all white women to work for me, then I wouldn't get the diversity of thought and experience and culture and all the rest of that. So it's like no pick people who think differently than me to surround me to challenge my thinking, to challenge our way ahead, you know, and then I have to be wise enough and smart enough to discern what's best if I'm the one that's in charge to move us forward." - BG (R) Rebecca S. Halstead
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(01:45) BG (R) Rebecca S. Halstead’s Background
(03:00) Deciding to attend West Point
(05:05) Experiences at the academy
(06:15) Mentorship
(10:30) Significant achievements
(13:38) Early promotions
(15:49) Being a Role Model and Leader
(18:10) BG (R) Rebecca S. Halstead’s proudest achievement
(26:15) Valuable lessons learned
(30:00) About STEADFAST Leadership
(31:10) Remaining active in the West Point community
(38:05) Transitioning leadership
(41:05) BG (R) Rebecca S. Halstead’s book
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West Point Association of Graduates
[00:00:00] Narrator: Hello and welcome to the WPAOG Network Podcast.
This episode features an interview with retired Brigadier General Rebecca S. Halstead ‘81, Founder and CEO of STEADFAST Leadership, a leading consultancy company she founded after serving for 27 years in the Army. Becky specializes in inspirational and motivational speaking, developing leader training programs, leader coaching, and mentoring. Becky has provided hundreds of keynote speeches and leadership training to the corporate and academic sectors at both national and international engagements.
BG Halstead entered West Point in 1977 with just the second class of women, and was the first person from her hometown to graduate from the academy. In 2004, she was the first female graduate of West Point to be promoted to General Officer. Halstead served and commanded in combat as the first female Commanding General at the strategic level of leadership in Iraq. In 2007 she received the National Women’s History Project award for “Generations of Women Moving History Forward”. In the spring of 2022, Halstead was recognized by WPAOG for her exceptional service with the Distinguished Graduate Award.
In this episode of the WPAOG Network Podcast, BG Halstead talks about how she enjoys being a leader and why she sees herself as a role model for both men and women. She explains how her time at West Point and in the military provided her with many important skills and experiences that are transferable to the work she does today advising businesses on how to be better. BG Halstead also gives insight on some of her proudest moments in the military and why it is important to be an honest, open, and direct mentor to help others succeed in the military and life thereafter.
Now, please enjoy this interview between retired Brigadier General Rebecca S. Halstead, and your host Ian Faison.
[00:02:07] Ian Faison: Welcome to the west point ag podcast network. I'm your host. I Faison today. We're joined by Rebecca Halsted class of 1981. Becky, how are you? I'm great. How are you today? I'm doing great. Excited to have you in the show. Uh, today we're gonna chat about, uh, west point. Obviously we're gonna talk about your military service, uh, your post-military career, what you've been doing, steadfast leadership.
[00:02:29] Ian Faison: Uh, you wrote a book and everything in between. So starting off tell us about your current company and what you're doing. So
[00:02:38] Rebecca S. Halstead: after, you know, serving in the military for 27 years, the highlight of being in the military was leading. And so when I retired thought, well, too young to stop working, what do I wanna do?
[00:02:48] Rebecca S. Halstead: And I thought, what did I love doing most in the military? And that was leading teams. So I decided that's, what I wanted to do is continue in the leader development arena. And so I started [00:03:00] speaking on leadership in the corporate sector and it's kind of just grown from there since 2010. It's been a lot of fun.
[00:03:07] Rebecca S. Halstead: A lot of companies, a lot of interface with the corporate sector at some really challenging times. Yeah,
[00:03:14] Ian Faison: indeed. You got out right. As I was graduating from west point, you know, I can tell you that the past. 10 12, uh, 13 years had been, uh, crazy in my life, but they've been crazy for the world. And obviously, you know, the last two, especially challenging and especially, uh, difficult.
[00:03:29] Ian Faison: So we'll get into a lot of those leadership lessons later on the show. I'm curious, going in the way back machine, why the heck did you decide to go to, uh, a little school on the Sur up in west point?
[00:03:41] Rebecca S. Halstead: Actually, it was not my intention. I thought I would go off to college and be a physical education teacher and coach women's sports.
[00:03:49] Rebecca S. Halstead: That's what I was most excited about in high school. But in 1976, my mom, uh, read in the local newspaper about the fact that the. President of the United States [00:04:00] had said, no, we're gonna let women attend military academies. So my mom was sitting on the couch, reading me the newspaper article, and she says, this sounds just like you.
[00:04:10] Rebecca S. Halstead: And I kind of looked around the room and there was no other you in the room, but me, my sisters weren't there. My brother wasn't there. And I'm like, what do you mean? So she read all about the academies to me. And she said, I think this sounds like you, I think you need to try. And so she was the one who encouraged me to look into the process.
[00:04:29] Rebecca S. Halstead: And so that's what I did. I never expected to get accepted into any of the academies. I did visit the Naval academy. I visited the coast guard academy. I had a friend that went to the air force academy and the merchant Marine academy. I did not know anybody that had graduated from west point, no military in my family, but when I went to west point and visited, I was like, If I'm gonna go to one of these academies, I want it to be west point.
[00:04:58] Rebecca S. Halstead: And I knew that from the beginning of [00:05:00] the process. And so that's what I asked for. And in my senior year I got accepted, which I will be very candid. That was a big surprise to me. I really never expected to get accepted ever. But when I did, I couldn't say no. So many kids wanna go and are trying to go, and then they get told no.
[00:05:21] Rebecca S. Halstead: So I was like, no, I'm in, I'm gonna go.
[00:05:23] Ian Faison: I hear you. That's how, uh, my uncle would say all the time, you can always back out, you know, it's like give it a month. Right, right. Give it two months. That's how they get you. What type of cadet were you at west point? What type of experience did you have there?
[00:05:35] Rebecca S. Halstead: I struggled, certainly academically, no lie there.
[00:05:38] Rebecca S. Halstead: Matter of fact, I'm at west point today and I was at west point last week and I was talking to the cadets, shaking their hands. And I was talking specifically to the brigade staff and several of them, you know, have stars top 5% on their collar. And I touched one of them and I said, my roommate was a star student.
[00:05:54] Rebecca S. Halstead: Top 5%, took me 20 years to get my star . So I definitely struggled [00:06:00] academically. I was a huge. As a kid at home in my high school. But when you grow up from a town with no traffic lights, pretty much can be on any team you enter. There's not much selection there. So I actually thought I was an athlete till I went to west point and found myself instead of playing sports, being a manager on several teams, I wasn't even a really great athlete either.
[00:06:21] Rebecca S. Halstead: My mother always said I was kind of good at everything and not great at any one thing. And so I think that helped me get through west point cuz I had enough. To stay above the line, you know, to pass the test, but it was much more difficult than I thought it was gonna be physically, emotionally, academically, but that's not a bad thing because being challenged is good for you.
[00:06:42] Ian Faison: Were there any mentors that you had from your time, either in the academy or, or after getting out that had a big impact on you? Well,
[00:06:48] Rebecca S. Halstead: I don't think I knew they were mentors at the time. I don't think I really understood mentorship when I was a cadet, but I will definitely tell you that, uh, the superintendent was general good pastor.
[00:06:59] Rebecca S. Halstead: [00:07:00] And I just remember him being such a quiet professional. He talked to us like adults, he treated us like adults, and I could see that he had. Quite a burden of responsibility because he was asked to come back on active duty to be the superintendent and to be in charge of the integration of women into the academy.
[00:07:21] Rebecca S. Halstead: I think I realized more now than I did then in reality, what a sacrifice that was because I know a lot of retired, four stars, and I don't know that. All of them. Would've said, sure. I'd be happy to come back on active duty for part of my pay and be a three star and take on, uh, this political, uh, hornet's nest.
[00:07:41] Rebecca S. Halstead: So he did it with such grace and we loved him. He was our superintendent all four years. I happened to have a dedicated room at west point at the Thayer hotel. And I told everybody general, good. Pastor's gonna be one of the photos I put in that room because when I think about so early in my army career, Of course, I didn't know I was gonna have a career.
[00:07:59] Rebecca S. Halstead: I [00:08:00] just, but when you look back what a testimony of humble, authentic leadership. So yes, I know that that had a big impact on me.
[00:08:10] Ian Faison: That's really cool. I love that. I always felt the same way at west point in very different circumstances, but I always felt the same way that, um, being treated. Like adults being talked to like adults, that those, whether professors or tactical officers or anyone that the more that they treated you like Lieutenant that the more prepared you'd be.
[00:08:29] Ian Faison: And it's interesting that you call that out, cuz I always felt the same way. That it's amazing. What kind of responsibility that you have at the end of the journey, right? When you graduate, you're gonna walk into all this responsibility and I always thought it was so silly. People would be like, oh, it's just a cadet or it's just, you know, whatever.
[00:08:45] Ian Faison: I'm like, what are you talking about in three weeks? You're not. And, uh, you gotta grow up quick and if you're not practicing being very responsible and being an adult, then you're definitely not gonna act like one
[00:08:55] Rebecca S. Halstead: true enough. And certainly there are many times throughout my four years as a cadet that I did [00:09:00] not act like an adult.
[00:09:01] Rebecca S. Halstead: Okay. I was 18 to 22 and very much a kid. I think the difference is we were allowed to do some of that, you know, and of course, acting out at west point is quite different than acting out at any other college. Right? I mean, wow. Maybe you went down to use telephone without permission. So our idea of being a bit rebellious at west point is like nothing compared to a regular college, but we were also able to make mistakes.
[00:09:25] Rebecca S. Halstead: Learn from the mistakes, but learn from the mistakes in terms of understanding what it means by not leading by example. And we're gonna be expected to lead by example when we get out there to be a Lieutenant. And I think some of that forgiveness, even though it might have come with punishment hours on the area or whatever, that it.
[00:09:44] Rebecca S. Halstead: Showed us or demonstrated to us that our soldiers are gonna make mistakes too. So don't throw the baby out with the bath water, figure out a way to develop them out of those bad behaviors and, and tap into their potential. But don't just throw 'em away because they make a [00:10:00] mistake. So I, I think I was very fortunate by the leadership that I saw at west point at a very young age.
[00:10:05] Rebecca S. Halstead: Did you walk hours? I can't tell you that or I'd have to, you know, no, I, you know, actually I, you know, they'll say I can't, if I tell you that I have to kill you. No, I actually, I did not walk hours, but I wanna do the.dot dot. That doesn't mean I, I shouldn't have walked hours. I have, so, oh, no doubt. Yeah.
[00:10:23] Rebecca S. Halstead: Yeah. So. I did sit some hours in my room. You know, if you're on certain teams, you could sit hours, sit some of the demerits off in your room. Yeah. But yeah. So the key there was, if you're not real popular, they may not catch you doing things that you shouldn't be doing. I always feel sorry for my roommates.
[00:10:39] Rebecca S. Halstead: My roommates were star basketball players. So they're pretty easy to identify when they were outta line. Right. I love that.
[00:10:45] Ian Faison: Um, Becky just blended in the background, trying, obviously you've made an incredible amount of firsts being a part of, as you mentioned, the early days of integrating women to the academy, being the first woman [00:11:00] from all the service academies to be promoted, to go commanding combat at strategic level chief of ordinance, like O obviously your career, you've had all these type of.
[00:11:08] Ian Faison: Did it feel like you were making history when that stuff was happening? No,
[00:11:13] Rebecca S. Halstead: not at all. And people can believe it or not believe it, but I wasn't paying attention to those things. I was very focused on doing my daily job the best I could do. Leading my team, the best that I could lead it. And then I was very competitive.
[00:11:28] Rebecca S. Halstead: I wanted my company to win the maintenance award and I wanted my guys and gals to do all that. So I was very competitive, but I wasn't competitive in the sense of, oh, this might get me, you know, name a first. Okay. I specifically remember being a captain, a company commander at Fort Lewis and probably my first.
[00:11:47] Rebecca S. Halstead: True mentor in the army. Outside of some of the west point, folks was my brigade commander when I was a company commander and I loved his leadership. He had a vision for his two years in [00:12:00] command. He had priorities. And so there's a lot. I liked about him. And I end up writing my thesis about visionary leadership because of his example.
[00:12:06] Rebecca S. Halstead: But I remember him coming down to the companies and doing a battalion leader development, and he asked all the company commanders, how many of you. See yourself as being a general. One person raised their hand. And I remember being very shocked by the person who raised their hand, cuz I thought, I can't believe they see themselves as that.
[00:12:26] Rebecca S. Halstead: Cuz I don't see them as that. That's for sure. But, and I also thought how could any captain see themselves as a general that just blew my mind. And so that's when he said, you know, I'm gonna give you some advice. And my advice is this. You always need to prepare for the future. You always need to be planning ahead.
[00:12:42] Rebecca S. Halstead: You always need to be learning and developing yourself as well as others. And he said, so try to think of it like this, think two jobs out. One promotion up two jobs out, one promotion up. And from that day forward, I always carried a steno pad with me since west point and [00:13:00] all my leader notes go on these steno pads.
[00:13:01] Rebecca S. Halstead: And I have every single one of 'em since west point. But in the, starting in that year, in the back of my steno pad, I started putting what I called. Oh four notes, cuz we know as a captain, you're an oh three. So I said, okay, I'm gonna listen to what he said, think two jobs out, one promotion. So in the back of my notebook became my oh four notes and I started to watch majors and I thought if I ever get to be a major, here's what I'm gonna, I'm gonna either not do or do, cuz I, you know, see both when you're watching people.
[00:13:31] Rebecca S. Halstead: So if you look at my steno pads, some have oh four, then I go to oh 5 0 6. Now even as an oh six, I'm not so sure I ever wrote, oh, seven notes. I'd have to go back and look at my notes. Cuz just being a general even at, even when I was in oh six and I already had been a brigade commander, I thought I would retire.
[00:13:47] Rebecca S. Halstead: I'm not so sure. I really thought. I would stay to do that. So I wasn't counting those first ever matter of fact, I didn't even know I was first to make Colonel. Until someone sent me an email [00:14:00] and I was in Germany and they had the list before I did. And they said, Hey, congratulations. You're gonna be the first woman graduate to make Colonel.
[00:14:08] Rebecca S. Halstead: I didn't even know I was being promoted to Colonel, you know, I was like, oh, wow. Okay. What? That was an unusual promotion. That's when they used to have double below the zone for promotions. And so I thought, well, maybe it's just a joke. So I was like, oh, thank you. You. I was like, whatever. So it is just not something I tracked.
[00:14:24] Rebecca S. Halstead: Long answer to a short question.
[00:14:26] Ian Faison: That's really interesting. And I think it's clear that, you know, you were focused on the 50 meter targets, right? It's like you worry about the 300 meter targets when they're a little closer to you, cuz it seemed like, uh, there was enough stuff going on that you needed to focus on the here and now.
[00:14:42] Ian Faison: And I think whether you're in, on the civilian side or on the military side, I think so many people we talk about. A lot is this idea of connecting the dots, but you can't connect the dots until you make the dots and you have to make them, you know, Steve jobs said that not me, but you have to spend time like doing your best [00:15:00] dot making.
[00:15:00] Ian Faison: Like you said, being the best company commander, you can be having the best orderly room, you know, whatever, making sure that you're doing a great job right now and not focus with your head in the. You
[00:15:10] Rebecca S. Halstead: know, and people would be like, isn't that exciting? And I would be, well, do you think it's exciting? I think it's a little scary, right?
[00:15:16] Rebecca S. Halstead: Especially, uh, with an early promotion, because what I realized is that I'm gonna take on responsibility with less experience as my peers in many cases. And so for me, it was okay. I gotta focus harder. I gotta prepare harder. because I don't have the same experience if I'm going into this promotion or this command earlier than my peers.
[00:15:37] Rebecca S. Halstead: And so I just took it as additional responsibility, additional burden of responsibility. So that always kind of outweighed the excitement of it. And as I tell people, you know, the ceremony lasts an hour, the responsibility lasts a lot longer. So did I, I enjoy the moment. Of course, I enjoyed the moment I enjoyed the announcement.
[00:15:57] Rebecca S. Halstead: I enjoyed the ceremony, but then [00:16:00] time to get to work.
[00:16:01] Ian Faison: Yeah, sure thing. Huh? I love that. You know, looking back on all this stuff now, do you feel like a trailblazer, you know, do you, as you've mentored other people, other women, I mean, is this something that like. You know, looking back that, did you create a path that other people could follow or did you kind of make your own path and then say, Hey, there's tons of other paths here that people can kind of pursue?
[00:16:23] Rebecca S. Halstead: Well, first of all, I always consider myself a role model for men and women, because I consider myself a role model as a leader. I recognize that I am. Specifically a role model for women because they don't have many women at, at these levels to look up to. And so I'm happy to be that role model, but I do think of it for everybody.
[00:16:41] Rebecca S. Halstead: I, I don't know that I still think of myself as a trailblazer. I let my parents enjoy that. You know, like, oh, you can feel good. My parents, right. I let my friends feel good about it, but it kind of makes me smile inside. But it isn't something that I. Talk about, or like when people introduce me, when I [00:17:00] speak, they say, oh, your bio is so long.
[00:17:02] Rebecca S. Halstead: And I said, you know, what, how about you do this? Why don't you just introduce me based on how you know, me, you know, like, or how we met, because it's the relationship that's more important to me than the achievement. Lots of people have long bios and list of things, but it's the relationships that, that actually matter.
[00:17:18] Rebecca S. Halstead: And I also recognize that in some cases I was able to get these milestones. I was at the early entry of women into the opportunity, but there were women that went ahead of me, men that went ahead of me that helped open those doors. I remind people all the time that it was a male president that made the decision, we're gonna open the academies to women.
[00:17:40] Rebecca S. Halstead: It was a male superintendent that says we're gonna do it professionally. I served for 27 years. I had 51 different bosses. They were all men and I turned out. Okay. so it's really about what's on the inside. That matters. So, even though I know I am a role model to women, it's just, it's always nice to see someone in your likeness and say, if they did it, I [00:18:00] can do it.
[00:18:00] Rebecca S. Halstead: Right.
[00:18:01] Ian Faison: I think that's amazing. And I totally agree. I also think that it's really easy to look at like a list of achievements as like achievements and not dig into the details which I'd like to do here now of some of the things that actually you did on the ground and the work that your teams did, you talked about, you know, just being a leader, uh, and how much you enjoyed that.
[00:18:22] Ian Faison: What were some of your proudest achievements? I know from a logistics stand. You were the tip of the spear on some extremely innovative stuff. When globalization was becoming a, a much different animal logistics and distribution processes changing super rapidly, what were you the most proud of, or a couple of things that you were most
[00:18:41] Rebecca S. Halstead: proud of?
[00:18:42] Rebecca S. Halstead: Well, I mean, certainly my year in Iraq, I tell people from 2005 to 2006, being in charge of logistics on the ground, you know, we had 20,000 military men and women in our organization. We had 5,000 civilians. We had over 3000 Iraqi soldiers that were doing transportation units. [00:19:00] That year is the highlight of my military career because of.
[00:19:04] Rebecca S. Halstead: It's one year on the ground, but it's probably easily five years of knowledge, five years of advancement in technology. You're going 24 7. It's amazing how our military at that time was the greatest transformation since world Wari. So to be leading that transformation effort. In many ways, the way we were organized, the way we supported the fight, the way we tracked our supplies, you know, asset visibility, the way we did our inventories, you know, we went from just in time logistics to it's okay.
[00:19:38] Rebecca S. Halstead: To have. Some inventory, but you're gonna do it by class of supply based on the fight versus everything at a certain, you know, 30 days of supply because we don't want waste and all that. So it was very exciting to be part of that. And it really does play into globalization. You know, we were on a global team, we had a Polish military, we had Korean military, we had British military, we [00:20:00] supported the Marines and the army and the air force and Rocky units.
[00:20:05] Rebecca S. Halstead: So. I think it's just a wonderful case study on how you can very quickly put together a global team. I hadn't met any of my global peers, uh, general officers until I was on the ground. So how do you quickly develop a relationship and teamwork and understand. How they need to be supported because every one of 'em needs to be supported differently.
[00:20:24] Rebecca S. Halstead: So that's all very transferable to what I do today. When I'm talking AB to the bigger industries and say, you know, wouldn't it be nice if all of our customers wanted it the same way? How much easier would it be to do your business? But they want it different ways and they want it packaged differently.
[00:20:42] Rebecca S. Halstead: They want it under different timelines. But I can tell you that the military training that I had as a logistician. There's none better. You know, when I mentioned my first mentor, right? When I was a young captain, if, if you had a 20 ton crane go down and the cranes were older than I was [00:21:00] right. We had old equipment and that crane go down, he'd wanna know what day did it go down?
[00:21:06] Rebecca S. Halstead: How long did it take you to order the part? How long is it gonna take to get the part in when the part is in, how long is it gonna take to fix and get it back to who needs it? So details matter. And we paid a lot of attention to that. and although technology is great. If the technology's not giving you those details, then the human dimension needs to give you those details.
[00:21:25] Rebecca S. Halstead: Cuz I don't know about you, but if I take my car in to be serviced somewhere and they can't talk to me about the eaches, the parts, the labor, the money, then I, I don't have a lot of confidence in that, uh, company. So I love taking what I learned in the military, sharing that with the corporate world and saying the better you are at that, the more productive you're gonna be as a company.
[00:21:48] Rebecca S. Halstead: My highlight was probably a rock hardest year of my life, but most rewarding to see innovative courageous soldiers. Figure out how to make things happen when we had [00:22:00] not trained on it yet we had equipment. First time we ever saw it was in a rock, you know, that's when we were up, armoring all the vehicles.
[00:22:06] Rebecca S. Halstead: Right. So, yep. Wearing equipment that we'd never worn before, but needed it to save lives. You know, things like 96% evacuation rate on the battlefield medical. If we'd had those kind of rates in Vietnam, can you imagine the difference in the outcome? And you talked to any soldier that survived an I D or an RPG or whatever, if they survived it to be able to go back and hug their family again.
[00:22:33] Rebecca S. Halstead: They were, they were way okay. With an injury to do that versus to die on the battlefield because we ate 'em fast enough or treat them and triage them fast enough. People don't understand. We'll bring a C 17 in for one soldier to save that one soldier's life and get them back to Germany and back to the states.
[00:22:52] Rebecca S. Halstead: So that's also in, in its own way, very rewarding because that's how you keep soldiers inspired and motivated to go out [00:23:00] the gate and take on the enemy. They know how hard we're working as leaders in the military to make sure that they get to go home.
[00:23:09] Ian Faison: Yeah. I, I deployed as a Bri eight S one in 2011, TF, Afghanistan, and.
[00:23:14] Ian Faison: and I remember I'll never forget it when I was ripping with the old BS one. And, uh, he is like, Ian, there are rubber balls and there are glass balls and yeah. Anything to do with casualty operations is a glass ball. Sure. And, and those are the things that stick with you forever. But I, I think that people, to your point about casualty operations is like, that was something that was literally being rewritten.
[00:23:36] Ian Faison: Completely changed how that had ever been done in history. The way that our army takes care of that stuff is so detailed and so nuanced and having so many professionals from everyone, from transportation, logistics, and obviously all the medical. Piece to that, uh, dealing with all the different types of hospitals and, and Germany and all the personnel pieces with that.
[00:23:58] Ian Faison: It's crazy stuff like you said. And I [00:24:00] can't even imagine back when 2005 to try to figure this out with a brand new war,
[00:24:05] Rebecca S. Halstead: like you said, I'm not a big zero defect person. I grew up in the zero defect, eighties, you know, you made a mistake, you're gone, you know, cuz that was an easy way to keep the yeah.
[00:24:12] Rebecca S. Halstead: Sizing of the army. But when it comes to casualties, it is a zero. Because a family's only gonna get that letter once the family's only gonna get that call once and you can't get things wrong. You know, there wasn't a packet that went forward from me that I didn't read every piece of that packet because I know how hard it is at that Lieutenant captain level.
[00:24:34] Rebecca S. Halstead: They don't have the same technology down there that I had at the general officer level. They do a handwritten note. You gotta be able to read that handwritten note, but if you're using a computer, you better not be cutting and pasting from the last letter that you wrote. General officer. Are given autograph machines, you know, so that an auto pen is what it's called.
[00:24:50] Rebecca S. Halstead: So if you're not available to sign something, it could be signed for you. And even though I was authorized that, and I had one, I don't [00:25:00] believe I ever used it, but if I did use it, it was only allowed to be used if an like an award needed to be correct. Right. And the, you know, war was already approved.
[00:25:08] Rebecca S. Halstead: Let's say there was a misspelling on the certificate or something, then it could be done. But on a letter, a personal letter that had to go to somebody never ever, you know, and I signed over 7,000 awards in Iraq alone. So you're being an S one. You know what the that's all about 7,000 awards came through my.
[00:25:25] Ian Faison: Our brigade commander and bris, our major, we sat there every week. We had our committee and we sat there signing wet, signing
[00:25:30] Rebecca S. Halstead: everything. Yeah. So you understand the magnitude of that, but a personal letter, that's gonna go to a family member. I signed them myself. If I can't take that time as a leader to do that, then shame on me.
[00:25:40] Rebecca S. Halstead: So that's just the way I felt about it.
[00:25:42] Ian Faison: I'm curious, having seen the world as it is now, supply chain, the modern commercial industry, you know, Amazon being a completely different animal than back when it does, was in 2005, FedEx, DHL, all that stuff, obviously with everything going on in [00:26:00] Ukraine and, and the pandemic.
[00:26:01] Ian Faison: And. Ever given and all these things, it seems like the world perhaps is rapidly changing. I mean, I guess it's always changing, but as in kind of this unique situation, I suppose, you know, back in 2005, also an extremely unique situation as well, but I'm curious, like any parallels, uh, between then and now, or lessons that you learned back then that apply to today.
[00:26:22] Ian Faison: Well,
[00:26:22] Rebecca S. Halstead: as I mentioned earlier, I think, you know, details matter, right? And this whole concept of following up on things, you know, is very, very important in the distribution world, which is all those things you just named are, is all about order, shift, time, distribution, people, order something they'd like to know what the status is and they wanna get it.
[00:26:37] Rebecca S. Halstead: And I think that we, we, the military help them. Develop a lot of their good systems. And but people say, yeah, but you're not as good as FedEx. You're not as good as, as Amazon. I said no. And here's the reason why, cause the address keeps changing. If you're out there and you're a company commander and you order something, but then you get told your mission just changed.
[00:26:56] Rebecca S. Halstead: You're gonna move from Eastern or rock to Western or Iraq. And you're gonna go on, you know, your address [00:27:00] just changed. I, I would submit to you that. FedEx DHL and Amazon and all the rest of them. They don't have the problem with the address changing constantly. So that will never be quite that efficient, quite that effective, but we can share.
[00:27:13] Rebecca S. Halstead: A lot of our processes together. And I think that we did, I think that they learned a lot from us, candidly, you know, when kids, I say kids, but when soldiers and leaders get out of the military and then they go and they, you know, I have a lot of friends that left the military as logisticians and they work for these companies.
[00:27:29] Rebecca S. Halstead: That's a good thing, right? Hire that veteran because they already have that up here. They already have the training and they can really help these companies do a better job at it. But I, I think the thing that's changed the most, Ian, is that. The expectation of imediacy. If I order cat food on the, or dog food on online, I'm kind of expecting it in 72 hours.
[00:27:51] Rebecca S. Halstead: And when I don't get it, I'm like what is going on? So we have created this mentality that everything is instant and not [00:28:00] that's bad because the companies that can do it great for them, but in the bigger strategic picture. When you look at supply chain and you think about all those ships out there with all those containers on it, they're all backed up.
[00:28:13] Rebecca S. Halstead: And what we just went through with that, it bothers me immensely to hear a fairly high leader in our government say, well, we're not too concerned about once it opens up, the ships will come in and the containers will go out and they're not too concerned about the priority of that. And that really raised the hair on the back, on the back of my neck, because.
[00:28:36] Rebecca S. Halstead: As you may remember in a. A lot of our supplies came through Turkey across the ho Bri gate up in the north. And the way it was was kind of first come first serve if you're the first truck at the border, you're the next one that goes across the border. And when they would close that border, you could get 2, 3, 400 trucks backed up.
[00:28:56] Rebecca S. Halstead: I've got aerial pictures of hundreds of trucks backed [00:29:00] up at the border because the little dispute we decided to close the border. And the problem with that is as your supplies go. The first 10 trucks might be, I don't know. You name a supply, not one I need, I need what's in truck 20 and 30 and 42. So it bothered me to hear that because if, uh, We ought to be prioritizing supplies when we have a, a, a catastrophe like that, where they're all backed up.
[00:29:28] Rebecca S. Halstead: And if a mill van comes off and it's got, what are we in now right now with the, the baby formula, right? It should all go to one store in one state in the country we ought to be able to in this day and age, have asset visibility in our country to make sure. Certain communities are not being left out.
[00:29:47] Rebecca S. Halstead: That you're not a second class citizen or second class business. Anyhow, I could go on about that, but I think we have a lot more work to
[00:29:55] Ian Faison: do. Yeah, no kidding. How are you, uh, staying in the fight? Uh, [00:30:00] obviously you're doing speaking engagements. Uh, you have your company steadfast leadership. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
[00:30:05] Rebecca S. Halstead: Well, I'm a, a company of one, so don't be too impressed. You know, it's just me. I do very little consulting, but I do a little consulting and. I'm. Gonna be serving on a board pretty soon, but most of my work is on speaking on leadership. So I'm somewhat of a plug and play for leadership conferences. I do a lot of work with Thayer leadership right there at west point.
[00:30:27] Rebecca S. Halstead: They're just a wonderful premier leadership organization. They bring in clients into west point. They give them the, uh, really the history of west point, the Bino do model. And then a lot of us that are retired, come in. Speak on leadership, teach on leadership. So that's been very exciting and rewarding, but I'm a plug and play in that regard to teach and people share I'm a storyteller.
[00:30:51] Rebecca S. Halstead: So I tell people stories about the good, the bad and the ugly. It's not just about success. It's about how I messed it up and you know, how I failed and how I [00:31:00] failed forward as John maxilla would say. And so to share those experiences, to try to help other people on their own leadership journey.
[00:31:09] Ian Faison: In what ways is west point still a part of your life?
[00:31:12] Ian Faison: How do you stay involved in the community?
[00:31:14] Rebecca S. Halstead: I'm sitting at west point right now in a hotel room at the tha. So I come to west point quite often with the Thayer leadership because we are right out right there at the gate, my personal staying in touch with west point. Usually revolves around. Um, I still know some of the folks on the faculty cadets that I, I maybe sponsored or, you know, I, because I try to do a little bit of volunteer work.
[00:31:34] Rebecca S. Halstead: Like quite often, I I'll go speak someplace and I say, you know, I'm gonna be there for a day and a half. So if you want me to go like speak at a high school or a college or something, you know, maybe we can, we could fit that in just a way to give back. And so it's been amazing to me, how I found that kids who maybe heard me speak at their high school, then I'll get a text message or a email that says.
[00:31:54] Rebecca S. Halstead: I decided to go to west point. And so I'll meet 'em here for lunch or dinner and get the inside on what cadet [00:32:00] life is like now versus when. So that's kind of how I do it. I'm not, you know, super involved with my own community where I live because I travel all the time. But. A lot of parents reach out and say, you know, would you talk to my child about west point what their options are?
[00:32:16] Rebecca S. Halstead: What's the difference between ROTC and west point? So a lot of one on one with that sort of like coaching, just to see what the child might want to do by giving them a little bit of my experience in that regard, I've had a chance to talk to the cadets a few times and different classes and all, and I talked to this, uh, one group.
[00:32:33] Rebecca S. Halstead: It was really funny. I mentioned to this group that I was two. Oh. And go when I was a cadet 2.0, barely passed, but graduated in on time. And when it was all over, this kid comes up to me and he says, general Halstead, you have given me hope. And I said, well, that's good that leaders that's what leaders do leaders create hope?
[00:32:53] Rebecca S. Halstead: And I said, how did I do that for you? He. Because you were 2.0 and go, and not only did you graduate, but you [00:33:00] made general. And he says, you know, I'm struggling academically, but you've given me hopes. I was like, Hey, touchdown, that
works.
[00:33:06] Ian Faison: What's your secret then? Because clearly, if grades don't matter that much, you gotta figure out a way to graduate.
[00:33:12] Ian Faison: But after that, what was your secret to an illustrious
[00:33:15] Rebecca S. Halstead: career? I don't think anybody's ever asked that quite that way of me. The secret sauce is. If you're a person who truly cares about other people and authentically humbly care about other people, and you truly believe that, you know, define your success by how you help other people be successful.
[00:33:38] Rebecca S. Halstead: Then I, I think that's pretty huge because when I think back to the teams that I was on people that worked for me or peers, or even my bosses, most of the folks that worked for me would say I was one of the hardest bosses they ever worked for. You know, I was very demanding, but I was never demeaning. And I think it's okay to be demanding.
[00:33:58] Rebecca S. Halstead: I tell 'em, I'm not, I [00:34:00] never apologize for high standards. High standards are gonna keep us alive for a business. High standards are gonna keep you competitive. They're gonna keep you above the line and profit. And if you take care of your people, We've had, we, we do have a huge divide between what the top leadership of companies make and what the person on the factory floor makes.
[00:34:20] Rebecca S. Halstead: And I think just like in the military, I was always an advocate for tightening that gap because I never felt like I was more important than my soldiers. Did. I have more responsibility? Yes. Was I more important? No. More important, just had more responsibility. So we do pay for that responsibility and that, and there should be a difference, but that gap could be closed.
[00:34:44] Rebecca S. Halstead: But anyhow, I think maybe the secret sauce is truly caring about them, their families, their lives, their future, and then telling it like it is, you know, if you have someone that truly, uh, doesn't have the potential, you better have the intestinal [00:35:00] for. To tell them that and certainly try to help develop them.
[00:35:04] Rebecca S. Halstead: And then if they can't be developed, then it's time to let 'em go. Because when you don't do that, you breed mediocrity. And I don't wanna be on a mediocre team. There's too many really strong people out there that. Can make a difference.
[00:35:17] Ian Faison: Yeah. There's a great adage of, I forgot who said this, a famous entrepreneur where it's like, I'm not trying to make as much money for myself.
[00:35:24] Ian Faison: I'm trying to make all the people in my company millionaires, how many millionaires I can make. And I think I always thought of that as. An interesting way of like the military parallel, where if you're the battalion commander or the company commander, who's worried about them being top block or being double BZ or all that sort of stuff.
[00:35:40] Ian Faison: Versus I want to get all of my company commanders to be double BZ, or I wanna get all my platoon leaders to be. The top that's a big difference, right? Is like getting your people successful rather than where, like, if, if they're all doing a great job, like your career's gonna be just fine. If they're all succeeding.
[00:35:57] Ian Faison: And I think it's a great
[00:35:58] Rebecca S. Halstead: lesson and you should [00:36:00] be comfortable wanting to surround yourself with really good people. I mean, I worked for some bosses who they were intimidated by other people that were good and I'm like, I pray to be surrounded by great people, right. I'm not intimidated by other people being better smarter.
[00:36:14] Rebecca S. Halstead: Faster than me. I, I want them on my team, but I also want people on my team that think differently. I don't want my team to look just like me and I had a great boss who said to me, he says, don't surround yourself with little Becky halsteads. I was like, what's wrong with little Becky halsteads sir. And he says, you think about it, you'll figure it out.
[00:36:30] Rebecca S. Halstead: And then I did, because you know, if I were to just choose all women to work for me and all white women to work for me, then I wouldn't get the diversity of thought and experience and culture and all the rest of that. So it's like no pick people who think differently than me. To surround me to, to challenge my thinking, to challenge our way ahead, you know, and then I have to be wise enough and smart enough to discern what's best.
[00:36:52] Rebecca S. Halstead: If I'm the one that's in charge to move us forward. I wanna see people succeed. See the greatest joy of leading is leaving a legacy. [00:37:00] You can't leave a legacy if you're not investing your time and your energy into other people. So often people say, what was your greatest accomplishment? I don't know what they're expecting me to say.
[00:37:11] Rebecca S. Halstead: Probably some first that I don't even know about, but no, the greatest story for me is leaving a legacy and I don't even really know who they all are. I just know that I invested a lot of time and energy in people, and sometimes I'm surprised when. Get hear from someone. And then they remember something that I don't remember, but I'm glad it happened.
[00:37:33] Rebecca S. Halstead: I'm not counting. I'm not counting how many people I mentored and I'm not counting how many people were successful, but I'm gonna invest in you so that we can get the best version of you, whether it's for the military or for civilian sector. I just wanna pull the best out of every person.
[00:37:47] Ian Faison: The biggest transition for me from being a leader in the army and being a leader in the civilian world was when I was in the army.
[00:37:55] Ian Faison: Someone else picked my team. It was like, whatever your soldiers, [00:38:00] whoever came into those wrecks, that was that E seven. That's your N C O I C. Boom, that's it. You don't get another E seven in the civilian world. You get to pick your team. Every single player can be an, a player if you want, if you can pay them.
[00:38:14] Ian Faison: right. That was always been a, a really challenging thing for me was you get a C player and that army part of you is like, I'm gonna do everything in my power to make sure that this person is an, a player. As we all know, like sometimes that just, isn't how it works. Like sometimes you can get a C player to a B, but you can't get him to an a, and if you're trying to run a high performing organization, sometimes that just isn't gonna cut it.
[00:38:37] Ian Faison: And that was for me, one of the most challenging things. I, I still deal with that of just trying to surround yourself with the absolute, most talented people
[00:38:44] Rebecca S. Halstead: possible. And that is challenging, especially if you're the one who, uh, championed that person. And you're the one who hired that person. I mean, I've had people come up to me afterwards after I speak and they say, how do you know when it's time to fire?
[00:38:57] Rebecca S. Halstead: And I would lean into them and say, you already know, I [00:39:00] don't know. You're asking me that for. Okay. And again, clearly they weren't, they were in a situation where they knew they needed to fire somebody, but they didn't wanna do it. And then I had another person come up to me once and said, you know, I have a real dilemma because I championed Becky and I convinced the boss that Becky should be advanced and promoted.
[00:39:17] Rebecca S. Halstead: Now we've advanced and promoted Becky and she wasn't ready. What do I do? And I said, well, since you were part of the equation, I said, I would at least go back and try to figure. . Is there anything available to you to help speed Becky up, right? Like, is there some extra training? Is there some OJT? I mean, you gotta make every effort you can because you set Becky up in this position, but then if it doesn't work, maybe you go to a lateral or something, but you have to take responsibility cuz you are out there championing it.
[00:39:47] Rebecca S. Halstead: And I says, and it teach yourself a lesson in the future. Just because you really like someone doesn't mean they're necessarily ready for that next job. And I talk a lot to people about, I think the army gets this right. We look at performance and we look at [00:40:00] potential. So often in the corporate world.
[00:40:02] Rebecca S. Halstead: What I see is it just look at performance and they tend not to look at potential, but if you ignore potential, there is a tendency to put people into higher positions of responsibility that they're not ready. You're
[00:40:14] Ian Faison: so right. It's funny. I always feel the opposite. I always feel like everyone I hire is on just potential.
[00:40:20] Ian Faison: Yeah. I'm interested in what they've done. And I'm interested in hearing how they did it, but I always like that is my I'm. Like, I'm like, I, this person could be like with this and build this skillset and whatever. And then, you know, like that's, I'm, maybe I'm just an optimist. I don't know. We
[00:40:35] Rebecca S. Halstead: do have to consider that potential piece because it's John Maxwell said your success ended at midnight last night.
[00:40:41] Rebecca S. Halstead: I mean, you know, so don't live on what you accomplished yesterday. And so I think that's a great mentality to have, and, and I share that with people because don't promote on. Promote on what you think they they're capable
[00:40:53] Ian Faison: of. Becky. It's been so wonderful chatting with you before we get outta here. You did write a book.
[00:40:58] Ian Faison: Can you tell us a little bit about your [00:41:00] book? Well,
[00:41:00] Rebecca S. Halstead: the name of the book is 24 7. The first person you must lead is you. So as I entered into the world of speaking, after I would speak, people would come up to me and say, please tell me you've written a book and I for about three years would say, no, I got an outline, but I haven't written one.
[00:41:15] Rebecca S. Halstead: I'm thinking about it. And I think it's, they would ask me that because again, I'm a story. Tell. So they wanted to go deeper. They wanted more stories, more principles, and then deeper than you can go in 45 minutes to an hour and a keynote. So I had kind of, uh, I was speaking in, uh, Cincinnati, Ohio, and it, it just came to me that.
[00:41:37] Rebecca S. Halstead: This is something I need to do in order to kind of deepen the relationship with the people that I speak with. And I didn't want somebody else writing it. I, so I wrote it myself. I authored it myself and published it on Amazon as self-published. So, you know, it's never gonna be a New York times best seller.
[00:41:52] Rebecca S. Halstead: That's not what I was looking for. I'm like, truly, I don't need something else underneath my signature black, but I want it to be real. and I wanted [00:42:00] to capture the things that I learned from my military career and make them applicable to people that are trying to lead themselves and others in the civilian sector.
[00:42:09] Rebecca S. Halstead: And the reason why I did the first person you must lead is you is because as west point teaches us the B O do model. We need to lead by example, and we cannot ask of others to do something we're not willing to do ourselves. And I think so many people think of themselves as not a leader because nobody works for them.
[00:42:25] Rebecca S. Halstead: And I'm like every single person sitting in a seat in front of me is a leader because you have at least one person to lead and that's yourself. And so just from a strategic perspective, I just think we would be better as a nation. We would be better as a world. If more people. Would understand that leading themselves and leading themselves with values and making the hard choices and doing what's right.
[00:42:55] Rebecca S. Halstead: We would have a much better society. And so I just felt like [00:43:00] that was the focus that I needed to have and spend a lot of fun, putting it out there when I speak. That's why
[00:43:06] Ian Faison: I wrote it. I couldn't agree more. Becky, it's been wonderful having you on the show. Thanks again for joining. Thanks to west point AOG for putting this all together.
[00:43:14] Ian Faison: Any final thoughts?
[00:43:15] Rebecca S. Halstead: Well, I guess the final thought I would say is because the association of graduates is put it in this on is that west point was the hardest four years of my life and most transformative years of my life, but I tell everybody no regret. I wouldn't wanna do it twice, but I'm sure glad I did it once.
[00:43:31] Rebecca S. Halstead: And I would encourage other folks to do it as well. If that's what they think they wanna do, if they wanna serve, if they wanna serve their nation. And through that lead for their nation and be part of an amazing, amazing team. I'm very proud of what ag does to help keep Westpoint as a very. Premier and elite school, the kids will want to go there.
[00:43:52] Rebecca S. Halstead: I'm definitely very proud to be part of that. So hope that my example can help others see that. So I, I appreciate the opportunity. [00:44:00]
[00:44:00] Ian Faison: Thanks so much. Take care. Thank you. This has been a production
[00:44:05] Narrator: of the WPA OG broadcast network. Please take a moment to rate and review the show and join us each week for a new episode.
[00:44:13] Narrator: Thank you for
[00:44:13] Ian Faison: listening.