Overview:  Why the Battle of Antietam

The single bloodiest day in American military history, the Battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg, Maryland) serves as an exemplary model for evaluating and analyzing a multitude of leadership practices and characteristics which can be directly applied to the leadership acumen needed for today’s business environment.

On Sept. 16, 1862 Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan and his Union Army of the Potomac confronted Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Sharpsburg, Maryland.  At dawn on Sept. 17, Maj. General Joseph Hooker’s Union corps mounted a powerful assault on Lee’s left flank that began the Battle of Antietam.  Over the course of the day and into the following day, 87,000 Union troops and 45,000 Confederate troops waged vicious warfare.  The Battle of Antietam was marked by heroic attacks, counterattacks and leadership decisions that were of both short-term and long-term consequence.

While the Battle of Antietam is considered a draw from a military point of view, Lee’s army was forced to retreat back to Virginia.  This gave Lincoln the “victory” he needed before delivering the Emancipation Proclamation -- a watershed moment that would forever alter the course of the Civil War. 

Leadership Elements Explored and Discussed

Participants in the Antietam Leadership Experience will be able to understand various dimensions of critical leadership skill which they can effectively and immediately apply to the real pressing challenges of their workplace environment. Those specific areas of competency include:

• Maintaining strategic focus and perspective
• Capitalizing on momentum
• Managing risks
• Decision making under pressure
• Leveraging resources for effective execution
• Ensuring clarity of intent
• Managing conflict
• Creating alignment
• Driving execution and results
• Inspiring others to action
• Capitalizing on opportunities
• Understanding individual vs. team success

Methodology and Delivery

Participants to the Antietam Leadership Experience typically arrive in the afternoon to one of our selected hotels in the nearby area.  In the evening, an introduction and strategic overview of the battle is provided by our lead facilitators.

The next morning begins our first full day on the battlefield where we visit several key spots and discuss the situations, characters and events which shaped this epic battle.  As with all of our battlefield programs, we follow the military staff ride format to walk in the footsteps and stand in the very positions of the military leaders of this long-ago conflict.  By knowing what they knew and seeing what they saw, the experience “comes to life” in the present, and the emphasis in learning is focused on the how and why behind the events and actions in the battle, rather than on the tactics themselves.

During our day on the battlefield we stop and discuss the leadership decisions (or lack thereof) at such key sites as Artillery Hill, Miller’s cornfield, Bloody Lane, Burnside Bridge and Antietam Cemetery.  Along the way, we introduce leadership case studies and situational briefs from such prominent figures as Confederate commander Robert E. Lee, Union commander Gen. George McClellan, Union Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, Confederate Maj. Gen. D.H. Hill, and the leadership and character traits of McClellan, Lee and Lincoln.

At the end of the day, the onsite battlefield portion is brought into focus in an After Action Review (AAR) session at the hotel.  This session makes more explicit the insights gained in discussions on the field and transfers the lessons learned to concrete workplace considerations.

The Antietam Leadership Experience can also be structured as a single day session for companies in the Washington, DC or Mid-Atlantic area.  This requires an early morning departure by bus from the home site and a return either late in the day prior to dinner, or after dinner at the host meeting facility.

The Benefits

Through our exploration and analysis, participants of the Antietam Leadership Experience will take away a number of benefits.  Rich in character-based leadership, this leadership lesson from history provides participants further insights into:

• The role of leaders in shaping the future
• Building and sustaining teams
• Managing processes
• Nurturing learning
• Managing order through chaos
• Effectively communicating and understanding intent, setting clear direction and expectations, and achieving organizational alignment

Additional benefits include:

• Greater Team Cohesion -- In addition to gaining and experiencing new perspectives on leadership, group participants will also derive a greater esprit de corps.  When intact teams participate together and share a common experience, the result is highly impactful and can contribute greatly to achieving organizational alignment. 
• Tailored Customization -- An important benefit to participants and organizations alike is when we customize the content of a program and/or place emphasis on a leadership aspect that has been deemed critical to the participating organization.  By gathering information from pre-session interviews or teleconferences with program sponsors and/or HR leaders, we can focus in on specific events, characters and dynamics of the battle and its leaders to make the program highly relevant and situational to all participants and the needs of that organization.  Additionally, our battlefield programs can be modified to use and integrate a company’s respective core competencies and leadership models. Further, program agendas can be adjusted to meet specific time constraints and desires of the participant companies. 

Who Should Attend

The leadership training principles and concepts presented through the Antietam Leadership Experience can be tailored to meet the needs of the highest level senior leaders to the less-experienced yet rising leaders within an organization.  The Antietam Leadership training experience offers universal leadership themes upon which any leader will find beneficial to his or her career growth and/or organizational aspirations. 

Additional

Recommended pre-reading for the Antietam Leadership Experience is James McPherson's Antietam: Crossroads of Freedom.