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Develop Your Leadership Practices with  Cmdr. Kirk Lippold

In this episode, you'll hear Lippold's leadership lessons on the following

• Perseverance
• Leadership after Cadetship
• Develop Leadership Practices
• Mental Resiliency
• Details about the USS Cole Attack
• The Leadership Flipside of Trust: Risk
• During a Crisis, KISS
• Giving Back

TRANSCRIPT: Develop Your Leadership Practices with  Cmdr. Kirk Lippold

00:00:03:22 - 00:00:32:04
ROY: Welcome to this 33rd episode of the VMI Leader Journey. I'm your host, Major Catherine Roy, communications and marketing manager for Virginia Military Institute, Center for Leadership and Ethics. Today's guest is Commander Kirk Lippold, U.S. Navy, retired. He was the commanding officer of the USS Cole when it came under a suicide terrorist attack by Al Qaida in the port of Aden, Yemen, on October 12th, 2000.

00:00:32:06 - 00:01:02:22
ROY: During his command and during this crisis event. He and his crew distinguished themselves by saving the American warship from sinking. Lippold was our closing speaker for the 14th annual VMI Leadership and Ethics Conference titled Leading during Crises Culture Conflict Collaboration held this past October 30th and 31st. We discussed his leadership insights that he's gained over his career that would be share worthy for our core of cadets.

00:01:02:22 - 00:01:30:15
ROY: In this episode, we've titled Develop Leadership Practices. If you're not already following us, please hit that subscribe button so you can learn more about the content that we publish as it becomes available and help us with our ratings by hitting the like button and letting us know what you think in the comments. Now to today's episode. Develop leadership practices.

00:01:30:15 - 00:01:58:22
ROY: Welcome. Commander Lippold, thank you so much for being with us here today. You're going to be our closing speaker for the annual Leadership and Ethics conference. This year's theme is‚ ”Leading During Crises,” which is a highlight of our annual leadership theme, ”Adapting to Complex Situations.” So, if you could just orient our audience on a little bit about your background and maybe some thoughts on leadership.

00:01:59:00 - 00:02:23:22
LIPPOLD: Sure. Well, first, I would like to say thank you for inviting me to come down to VMI to speak. It's a true honor for me, but I was the commanding officer on USS Cole on October 12, 2000, when it was attacked by Al Qaeda terrorists in Aden, Yemen. My career started out when I graduated from Carson High School and went off to the Naval Academy, graduating in 1981.

00:02:24:00 - 00:02:51:11
LIPPOLD: When I graduated, I picked surface warfare as my specialty, served on tank landing ships, guided missile cruiser. A little bit of a unique point in my career early on that I was the commissioning operations officer on USS Arleigh Burke, the Navy's first Arleigh Burke class destroyer. I was operations officer, but that truly gave me some of the in-depth background and knowledge about how the ship was put together, how that class of ship work, how you would fight it.

00:02:51:13 - 00:03:10:17
LIPPOLD: And having actually had the honor and privilege of meeting Admiral Burke himself. You know, great motto for the ship was, “This ship is built to fight. You'd better know how.” So it was really, really kind of a formative moment in my career. I was executive officer on a cruiser. I had gone to Navy postgraduate School, gotten my master's degree.

00:03:10:20 - 00:03:35:08
LIPPOLD: I'd gone to the Army's Command and General Staff College so I can talk two up, one back with the best of the Army folks, which is always fun and made lifelong friends out there of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Worked for the secretary of the Navy as he's as his administrative aide for both secretaries Dalton and Danzig, and then was privileged enough to get command of USS Cole, took command in 1999.

00:03:35:10 - 00:03:38:18
LIPPOLD: And that began my journey as the captain of that ship.

00:03:38:20 - 00:03:46:12
ROY: Excellent. So, talk to us a little bit about your undergraduate training, what it was like to be a cadet and etc..

00:03:46:12 - 00:03:47:18
LIPPOLD: A midshipman.

00:03:47:20 - 00:03:49:18
ROY: Okay. A midshipman.

00:03:49:20 - 00:04:06:17
LIPPOLD: Well, the one thing that I'll say is when I arrived at the Naval Academy, I had come from a high school that truly had not given me some of the in-depth preparation. I mean, we didn't have even have calculus back then. So when I.

00:04:06:17 - 00:04:07:23
ROY: Arrived, so academically.

00:04:07:23 - 00:04:45:18
LIPPOLD: Academic off, I was a little bit behind the power curve. And unfortunately, while I did well in high school, I was not prepared for some of the rigors. So I was, you know, 22,000 miles plus from home. I was lonely. I was unfocused, I was immature. So academically, I struggled my entire time there. But if I were to take the four years I was at the Naval Academy where I struggled to get through and graduate to become a naval officer, the one word that I would say it defined for me was going to be perseverance.

00:04:45:20 - 00:05:02:14
LIPPOLD: Excellence. In other words, putting your nose down. And you just sometimes it's, you know, a lot of people say if you're not having fun, you're not doing the right job. There are always going to be days, no matter what you do in life, where you're just going to have to gut it out. You're just going to have to persevere.

00:05:02:14 - 00:05:16:04
LIPPOLD: When you're just going to have to say tomorrow's going to be a better day. But in the meantime, you've got to get through today. And that's really what the Naval Academy taught me. And that would carry through my entire career.

00:05:16:06 - 00:05:36:12
ROY: So what was the switch? You know what? You said you were a good student in high school. Is that something that just came naturally And then you realized, hey, if I'm going to get through this, I've got to buckle down or what? What happened to help you to find that perseverance and just dig deep?

00:05:36:14 - 00:05:58:03
LIPPOLD: I think that, you know, like, like a lot of people that go to a great institution like the Naval Academy, there is clearly going to be some family pressures that you you know, you've been given a unique opportunity in life. Don't blow it. And and I really sat down and I didn't want to disappoint my parents, my family.

00:05:58:04 - 00:06:21:14
LIPPOLD: I didn't want to disappoint myself. I knew this was an incredible opportunity. And that's where I said, you just have to do this. I mean, I will never forget sitting on the field at Navy Marine Corps Stadium the morning of graduation, literally pinching myself and looking at my roommate saying, I cannot believe I'm sitting here. I don't know how I've been able to do this.

00:06:21:15 - 00:06:26:01
LIPPOLD: And he's like, shut up. Just, just get the diploma and let's get, let's get out of here.

00:06:26:01 - 00:06:27:02
ROY: Stop being sappy.

00:06:27:02 - 00:06:57:11
LIPPOLD: And that I begin my journey. And I would actually start when I went to my first school. I excelled at the division officer course. And when I graduated, I graduated on December 3rd. I'll never forget I was so excited to get to my first ship that I drove from Newport, Rhode Island, down, spent the night that night with a friend, and then I reported to what, my first ship the next day.

00:06:57:13 - 00:07:27:04
LIPPOLD: Yeah. I wanted to get the journey started. I wanted to get my career going and I just embraced it when I went aboard the ship. I wasn't about fancy, I wasn't about flash. I was about let's let's get engaged, get to know your division. Get to know your equipment, get involved, make sure that you learn from your chief petty officers those critical E-7 and above that can really teach you, you know, you're not expected to be a technical expert.

00:07:27:06 - 00:07:56:02
LIPPOLD: You're expected to be a leader, but you want to be confident enough with what is going on in your division and the people you're working with so that you can understand it. Because don't forget, you're going to take that technical information that you get from those sailors or troops that are that are working for you. But you have to relay that up the chain of command so that your chain of command, who has a lot more of experience and has been where you are before, that you in fact, are getting a good grasp on it.

00:07:56:04 - 00:08:19:14
LIPPOLD: And in doing all that, you learn that art of listening to your people, taking care of your people, that’s your job as a division officer, and then learning at a young age how to lead your people, truly lead them and realizing that you can talk about leading in an academic environment, whether it's in VMI or whether it's at the Naval Academy.

00:08:19:16 - 00:08:34:06
LIPPOLD: That's all well and good. And you can talk about leadership in that, in that, you know, here within the Corps of Cadets. But it's different when you get out to the fleet or when you get to a squadron or an army unit.

00:08:34:08 - 00:08:35:01
ROY: In what way?

00:08:35:02 - 00:09:07:23
LIPPOLD: You're because at that point, you're leading for real, because lives are at stake. There are true hazards out there. There are dangers out there. There are procedures and processes to follow. And that everything then is there's no more games, there's no more lightheartedness, there's no more pranks. You're getting focused. And less than a year after I arrived on my first ship, we're parked off the coast of Beirut, Lebanon, supporting the Marines artillery battery above the airport as the Marines were part of the multinational peacekeeping force.

00:09:08:01 - 00:09:32:12
LIPPOLD: And we did that for six months. And just to give you an idea of terrorism, we're talking a lot about it today. I was at the US embassy five days before they blew the place face off it in April of 1983. And yet here we are 40 years later and still facing the same dangers. And that fall I would actually lose a Naval Academy classmate at the Beirut barracks bombing.

00:09:32:12 - 00:09:50:02
LIPPOLD: Wow. So you you learn at a very young age that what you do when you choose to raise your right hand and serve your nation, that it comes with risk and rewards. And you have to be very clear eyed about what you are about the career you are about to choose.

00:09:50:04 - 00:10:05:22
ROY: Yeah, it sounds like you're emphasizing that for the cadets that they really need to know their craft and that by knowing their craft, they're showing themselves to be reliable and then taking those leadership leadership responsibilities seriously.

00:10:06:02 - 00:10:28:16
LIPPOLD: Absolutely. Leadership is something that does not happen in the moment. It is something where you have to take all those tenants in keys and traits and you get them both from reading, from studying, from learning, from observing leaders that are here with the Corps cadets, watch them. Then you're going to see good ones and you're going to see bad ones pull the best traits.

00:10:28:16 - 00:10:53:13
LIPPOLD: And then guess what? Would you guess what you do? You practice them because anyone can be a great leader. But what you have to do is on that path is you have to habituate it. In other words, you have to you have to practice those traits, those, those tenets of leadership over and over and over and be very conscious of them until they actually become a habit with you.

00:10:53:15 - 00:11:00:22
LIPPOLD: Once they become a habit and you practice that habit and don't stray from it, then it becomes part of the fabric of who you're going to be.

00:11:01:01 - 00:11:01:14
ROY: Yeah.

00:11:01:16 - 00:11:25:07
LIPPOLD: And every one of us are going to have those moments where we stumble and fall. And when you recognize it, whether it's a moral failure, an ethical failure, or a leadership failure, what you need to do is not bemoan your circumstances. Recognize that you had a failure, pick yourselves up, vow to not let it happen again, and get back to work and work again.

00:11:25:07 - 00:11:27:17
LIPPOLD: That much harder at being a good leader.

00:11:27:19 - 00:11:51:06
ROY: So, do you have a strategy that you learned early on? I mean, we talked this morning a little bit in the law enforcement panel. That training creates that muscle memory. I call it muscle memory, too and we have a lot of student-athletes here, so they can relate to that, that you just practice a motion. You talk about habits developing, practicing routine things to develop those habits.

00:11:51:08 - 00:12:01:08
ROY: Did you have a strategy other than observation and practice? I mean, what advice would you have for cadets for developing those habits?

00:12:01:12 - 00:12:25:08
LIPPOLD: I would say the number one thing is create a journal for yourself and write down. When you observe a leadership trait that you particularly like or that you want to emulate write that. Summarize it into one word. What did you see that individual do then? Write a description of it and then go back every once in a while and just read through them all.

00:12:25:10 - 00:12:46:17
LIPPOLD: Which ones have you been practicing? Which ones have kind of fallen off the plate? Because you're busy with studies, you're busy with life, you're very busy with, Hey, let's go out and have a good time this weekend, all those things. But at the end of the day, don't forget, when you graduate from here, you may be one of those lucky few that raise their right hand and choose to serve our nation.

00:12:46:20 - 00:13:07:20
LIPPOLD: When you go to do that, look back to that journal, because by then you've pretty much taken all the things that you have wanted to be and you're beginning to condense it down into who you are going to be. And what you want to do is refine those and practice them and you continue to practice. Leadership goes over and over.

00:13:07:22 - 00:13:24:05
LIPPOLD: And so when that moment came that my ship was attacked in that defining moment, everything, you know, people have often asked me, what is the one thing that you learned in your career that helped you get through that event? There was no one. thing

00:13:24:10 - 00:13:25:02
ROY: It was like all of it!

00:13:25:04 - 00:14:00:03
LIPPOLD: It was you have that an event of that magnitude occurred when my ship was attacked and I felt that explosion. You literally dip into the well of every experience you've had in life to, number one, survive it and then lead your people through it. And so dipping into that, if you've made those leadership traits part of the fabric of who you are, that's how you're going to be able to survive it, get through it and make those right moral and ethical decisions to lead your, your folks out of that situation.

00:14:00:05 - 00:14:10:14
ROY: Talk a little bit about the mental resiliency. You know, you and I had a casual conversation earlier today, a little bit touched on that. But I think it would be important

00:14:10:14 - 00:14:12:13
ROY: What are your thoughts on that?

00:14:12:15 - 00:14:34:18
LIPPOLD: Well, I would commend them to start looking at some of the books that have been written by the Stoics, you know, by Aristotle, by Seneca, by Marcus Aurelius, because at the end of the day, when you start feeling yourself getting frustrated, let's take a step back and ask, Can I even control what is affecting my emotions right now?

00:14:34:20 - 00:15:01:11
LIPPOLD: Because at the end of the day, the only person you truly have control of is you. You're the one that allows other people to influence you one way or the other. It is other people that you allow to educate you or that you choose to turn away you and you alone. I mean, as I'm really fond of saying, and it's, it's something that a lot of people talk about, but it's still true.

00:15:01:13 - 00:15:30:19
LIPPOLD: There is only one person in your life that is responsible for the decisions you make and the consequences that come from it, and that is you as an individual, take personal responsibility for your life. And when you look at it, when when you when people are feeling those, you know, kind of I'm not controlling the situation, I don't know what's going on, focus on what you can control, focuses on what's within your ability to help shape the environment around you.

00:15:30:21 - 00:15:44:05
LIPPOLD: And then all the other stuff. If you can't control it, let it go. You can't control it anyway, so why get upset about it, right? All you need to do is focus on what you can do to the best of your abilities.

00:15:44:07 - 00:15:53:00
ROY: Would you say that that kind of thinking or that mindset was what you exercised during the the Cole attack?

00:15:53:02 - 00:16:13:20
LIPPOLD: Absolutely. I mean, when the ship got hit that morning, everything that was on my desk that I thought was important for my day ahead of me became irrelevant. And I got what I call the ultimate gift of command. And in that singular moment, I had to only focus on two things What do I have to do to save my ship and what do I have to do to save my crew?

00:16:13:22 - 00:16:17:14
LIPPOLD: Nothing else mattered.

00:16:17:15 - 00:16:30:07
ROY: And tell us logistically, because I don't recall the exact events of I remember the news happening, but where was the ship and what exactly was going on?

00:16:30:09 - 00:16:56:09
LIPPOLD: We deployed out of our home port in Norfolk, Virginia, on the 8th of August, sailed across the Mediterranean or sailed across the Atlantic. We had operated in the Mediterranean for about six weeks. We've been held up a couple of weeks following with our last port visit in Koper, Slovenia. We would go through the Suez Canal on the 9th of October eight and sit at the southwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula.

00:16:56:09 - 00:17:16:13
LIPPOLD: So it's halfway between the Mediterranean and the Arabian Gulf, where we were, the Arabian Sea, where we were going to be operating up, and we were going to actually be operating up in the North Arabian Gulf because operating in that area, we were enforcing United Nations sanctions against the country of Iraq. So, it was about the halfway point.

00:17:16:15 - 00:17:37:08
LIPPOLD: We pulled into the port that morning. We expected to be there for about 6 to 8 hours, taking on a quarter million gallons of fuel. So, you know, the sooner we get in, the sooner we get out, the sooner we can head toward the Strait of Hormuz and report to the battle group commander and get our in-theater briefings in Bahrain with Fifth Fleet headquarters and then go up to the neck.

00:17:37:09 - 00:17:45:19
ROY: So this was a prearranged operation that you were about to deploy on and then, surprise, this attack happens?

00:17:45:20 - 00:17:48:16
LIPPOLD: It is. We were alongside the pier.

00:17:48:18 - 00:17:50:19
ROY: We've been refueling, as you were refueling?

00:17:50:19 - 00:18:11:07
LIPPOLD: We were refueling we'd been refueling for about 45 minutes as part of routine harbor operations. We had had to, we had contracted for three garbage barges to it come out one of the middle of the ship, one by the back of the ship they had left. We're halfway across the harbor when a third boat came out. What we didn't know is al Qaeda had been in the port for over a year.

00:18:11:08 - 00:18:32:01
LIPPOLD: They had been observing when Navy ships pull in, what side they moved to, what boats came out; the boat that came out, contrary to what a lot of press reports had, was not a Zodiac boat that reached across the harbor and rammed the side of the ship was actually a boat that looked just like the other garbage. Barges that turn by the bow came down the side of the ship, came to the middle and detonated.

00:18:32:01 - 00:18:45:05
LIPPOLD: And it was something the Navy had never trained for, expected. It was a waterborne improvised explosive device that blew a 40 by 40-foot hole in the side of the ship. Unfortunately, it killed 17 of my sailors and wounded 37. Wow.

00:18:45:07 - 00:18:50:18
ROY: Quite an impact. So, they had been observing. That's the thing that you don't agree under...

00:18:50:20 - 00:19:06:16
LIPPOLD: Yeah. With what the what we would what the FBI and NCIS team would find out when they came in a couple of days later. And then they went out into town and began to work with the Yemeni authorities who had rounded up some Al Qaida suspects is that's where we learned al Qaeda had been in that port for over a year.

00:19:06:18 - 00:19:30:07
LIPPOLD: That's where we we'd also learned that they had attempted an attack on another Navy ship, USS The Sullivans, nine months before the attack on the USS Cole. So, it was with the same boat. But when they loaded it with the explosives, when they launched it that morning, it was choppy seas. The boat foundered and sunk. Al Qaeda panicked and left, realized no one was tracking them, came back in.

00:19:30:07 - 00:19:50:05
LIPPOLD: Within a day or so. They recovered the boat, the explosives, the trailer, the car. They moved to a new safe house. The boat that came back to us had actually had the explosives built in, so we couldn't even see them. And as it had gone by, the young sailor that was doing the overboard discharge watch to make sure we weren't going to spill fuel as it had gone by.

00:19:50:05 - 00:20:05:12
LIPPOLD: It thought to himself, something's not right. The next thing he knew, he's got a face full of shrapnel. Survived the event. And when they interviewed him at Portsmouth Naval Hospital, what he had thought as the boat had gone by was, boy, that sure is awful clean for a garbage barge.

00:20:05:14 - 00:20:26:10
ROY: Interesting. Well, we talked this morning of the law enforcement panel. He said, you know, pay attention to the details. You know, the things that look a little odd or out of place or that you should correct. And you just think nothing of it. But it's I think in that moment you're almost in a state of shock, like that's just so out of place that it doesn't register.

00:20:26:10 - 00:20:33:11
ROY: You don't have that muscle memory because you weren't aware that someone would be plotting in such a way.

00:20:33:15 - 00:20:46:22
LIPPOLD: We we pulled into back then they were called threat conditions. Now they're called force protection conditions. We pulled into what was going to be a threat Con Bravo Port. And it was actually threat con Delta because attack was imminent.

00:20:47:03 - 00:21:02:04
ROY: So, so, the Bravo Delta is the escalation of the severity. Yeah. So, I was going to ask during fueling are, are ships vulnerable, not only because you're stationary but because of the fuel? I would think.

00:21:02:06 - 00:21:34:16
LIPPOLD: Absolutely. And when it hit, it hit right in the middle of the ship. I think they wanted to break the ship and have it sink at the pier. Yeah. But again, having gone back to USS Arleigh Burke when I built her, they are extremely solid, well-built ships. They are built to fight. And we took that hit. And despite the extensive amount of damage that was interior to the ship, we were very we were able to contain the flooding and control it and get the ship stable in a little over an hour.

00:21:34:18 - 00:21:47:13
 LIPPOLD: I had invested a lot in the training of my crew. Everyone was CPR certified. So that first day we would evacuate 33 wounded off the ship in 99 minutes. And of those 33, 32 would survive.

00:21:47:15 - 00:21:49:11
ROY: Wow, That's impressive.

00:21:49:11 - 00:22:01:18
LIPPOLD: a lot of the key tenants that come up, I think when, when you, when you look at it, you know, a lot of leaders, they talk about trust and trust in your people.

00:22:01:20 - 00:22:03:08
ROY: For that teamwork, cohesion.

00:22:03:08 - 00:22:24:06
LIPPOLD: Absolutely. Yeah. But what people don't also talk about is the flip side of that coin. If you as a leader are going to truly extend trust to your people and not make it just a nice, cute, quaint term that you want to throw out there because it sounds good, go to the flip side of that coin, because when you extend trust, guess what else you as a leader are going to do?

00:22:24:08 - 00:22:47:05
LIPPOLD: You're going to be willing to accept risk on behalf of your people. That's when they do things right and also when they do things wrong. Who's going to be the first one out there? You're the one that's going to take the first shot, not them. Yeah, because if your people did something wrong, the first thing you need to do is take a step back and ask yourself, did they truly understand the job that I wanted them to do?

00:22:47:07 - 00:22:55:05
LIPPOLD: That they understand how how well I wanted it done, the standard of performance and that I truly give them the training tools and time to do that job right.

00:22:55:07 - 00:23:20:22
ROY: So, one of the breakout sessions, we had a class alumnus, gentlemen from the class of 66, he was a career communications officer and he called it a one of the Civil War generals, his corporal. He said, if I could explain the instructions. And the corporal repeated back to me, I knew that he could carry that message and explain it to the rest of the troops.

00:23:21:00 - 00:23:31:23
ROY: But if my corporal couldn't understand it, then I knew I needed to do a better job explaining. And he was not released to share those orders until the corporal got it.

00:23:32:01 - 00:24:04:20
LIPPOLD: I think it goes back to what a lot of people should be practicing, and that's the KISS principle. Keep it simple, stupid, right? I mean, when when we got hit, we pulled in that morning under chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff standing Rules of Engagement, in other words, peacetime, ROE. There were no supplementary measures authorized. That meant the only way I could respond to something is if they did exhibited hostile intent, like aim a gun at me or hostile act actually shot at me.

00:24:04:22 - 00:24:09:07
LIPPOLD: So by the rules of engagement, my hands were somewhat tied.

00:24:09:09 - 00:24:16:09
ROY: So that, so let me get this straight. So, the destruction of the ship and lives lost was not a condition?

00:24:16:13 - 00:24:32:18
LIPPOLD: No, it was not a it was not a it was. It was, it wasn't because of the ROE, but I knew once the blast had occurred, the rules of engagement needed to change. Yeah, well, I'm not about to walk up on the bridge to my operations officer who's up there, and that book is about a three-quarter inch thick.

00:24:32:22 - 00:24:52:16
LIPPOLD: It's classified secret. No foreign, which means we don't share it with even with our allies. It's U.S. only. And I don't sit there and start figuring out what is the new rules of ROE going to be? Keep it simple: Ops, here's the new rules of engagement. If a boat comes within 100 meters of the ship, you get on the bullhorn and you give them one verbal warning.

00:24:52:17 - 00:25:17:03
LIPPOLD: If they do not hear you and it continues to close, you fire one warning shot. And if it continues to close the security teams open up with every single weapon that they have to stop it. We can't afford to let another boat get alongside. If it turns out to be the wrong one, I'll bear responsibility for that. So as a leader, you want to be able to say, I've got your back and I'll take the hit, but we've got to protect the ship.

00:25:17:05 - 00:25:29:22
LIPPOLD: KISS Principle. I'm down to a three-step process now that my operations officer clearly understood for Here's how we're going to protect USS Cole during this vulnerable time in the immediate aftermath of an attack.

00:25:29:22 - 00:25:39:17
ROY: Yeah, Now, well, that's not true. It's extending trust and accepting the risk that you just mentioned. So, what is your role today? What are you doing today?

00:25:39:19 - 00:26:00:19
LIPPOLD: Well, when I retired from the Navy, I didn't retire right after the event. I continued to serve for six and a half more years, retiring in June 2007 after 26 years. You have to remember the job in the military. It's not a job for life. And eventually everyone retires. You get a paycheck for a month every month, and then you go find something that's fun and satisfying to do for the rest of your life.

00:26:00:21 - 00:26:20:03
LIPPOLD: And I just made the decision. I did not want to go into the defense industry, so I chose instead to how can I get back with this event? It was going to be part of the fabric of who I am. I didn't want to put it all in a box, close it and walk away from it. I instead embraced it and said, Take the tragedy of this lesson and give back to others.

00:26:20:09 - 00:26:31:05
LIPPOLD: And that's what I do in sharing the story of the attack, but more importantly, the leadership, the crisis management and some of the safety aspects that came out of it like that.

00:26:31:05 - 00:26:57:19
ROY: What is the fabric of who I am like that and how would you say, or can you say that the leadership tactics that you learned as a career Navy officer translated into what you're doing today? Do you still use the same principles? And and then maybe I'd like to wrap up with a little bit about any role you may have in coaching or mentoring the next generation.

00:26:57:21 - 00:27:26:14
LIPPOLD: Well, I every single one of those traits that I tried to practice throughout my career really came into focus and that split-second, after the blast. The reason you habituate them is so that you can make the right decision. When you talk about making that right decision, people love to use the word integrity and a lot of people will say, Well, integrity is pretty easy to define.

00:27:26:17 - 00:28:08:21
LIPPOLD: It's doing the right thing at the right time for the right reason, even if no one's looking. And I will challenge you to say no, that's only ethics. If you want integrity, you're going to make the right moral and ethical decisions regardless of the consequences. Let's be clear. A lot of times people, when it comes to making decisions that involve integrity, they'll be tempted by looking beyond the decision and saying, What's the effect going to have on me and letting that influence their decision. If you've got that moral and ethical compass and it is down-pointing true north, you're going to make the right decision regardless of the consequences.

00:28:08:21 - 00:28:15:04
LIPPOLD: And that's how I looked at taking care of my ship and my crew during those 17 days after the attack.

00:28:15:06 - 00:28:20:08
ROY: That's powerful, very powerful. And do you mentor or advise young people?

00:28:20:13 - 00:28:28:16
LIPPOLD: I've had a tremendous opportunity. I've been for nine years now at the Naval Academy. I give the incoming plebes

00:28:28:18 - 00:28:29:11
ROY: Okay.

00:28:29:13 - 00:28:54:20
LIPPOLD: You're rats here, right? I give them their first lecture on the importance of honor and character in the career that they've embarked upon. And it's one of the greatest things I could have done. I also am an occasional adjunct professor. They're teaching a class in morals and ethics for naval ethics and moral reasoning for naval leaders. So still very much I try to give back.

00:28:54:20 - 00:29:12:00
LIPPOLD: I, you know, take the, any of these young kids. You know, it's an incredible opportunity to serve your nation. Yeah, but it comes with a lot of responsibility as well. But if you truly want to do it, you'll find that you'll embrace it and do extremely well if you throw your heart into it.

00:29:12:02 - 00:29:14:12
ROY: And then you're an author of a book as well.

00:29:14:13 - 00:29:36:16
LIPPOLD: I am. It took me ten years to finally be able to relive that event on the paper. But I did publish a book called “Front Burner: Al Qaeda's Attack on the USS Cole.” The one thing I'm probably most proud of about writing that book that I was far enough along from the event that a lot of the crew and other people were willing to sit down.

00:29:36:18 - 00:29:55:19
LIPPOLD: It is not only documents. The attack from my unique perspective as the captain, but every quote in the book came from an interview that I had done with that person. So, it was also an historic accounting of what happened as well. Nice.

00:29:55:21 - 00:30:05:13
ROY: Okay. Well, congratulations on your book and thank you again so much for being with us today. I'm looking forward to your, to your presentation this afternoon.

00:30:05:18 - 00:30:08:20
LIPPOLD: Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here, and look forward to it. 

Great.

00:30:09:09 - 00:30:37:06
ROY: On behalf of the VMI Center for Leadership and Ethics, we thank the following—Mr. Caleb minus VMI, Class of 2020, for the intro and backing music. Find more of his musical stylings on his Instagram page at minus Official. That's at M-Y-N-U-S official. Colonel Dave Gray, Ph.D., U.S. Army retired director of the VMI Center for Leadership and Ethics.

00:30:37:08 - 00:31:04:16
ROY: And, of course, as always, our podcast guests find this podcast and other key programming information on the VMI Center for Leadership and Ethics website. VMI dot edu forward slash C-L-E. Follow the VMI Center for Leadership and Ethics on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram accounts.

00:31:04:18 - 00:31:16:19
ROY: The VMI Center for Leadership and Ethics educates, engages, and inspires the VMI Corps of Cadets. VMI staff, faculty and alumni, and listeners like you. Thanks for tuning in.