General Wilkie and General Whitecross,
Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule
and for talking to me about women in the armed forces.
Just to give you a background, in a landmark ruling in 2000
the German armed forces were opened up, allowing women to serve in all branches.
As of today, the proportion of women is at a good 12%.
The main purpose of this interview is
to offer future female military leaders in the Bundeswehr
encouragement and some perspective
from a senior female military leader like yourself.
Before I go into the more content-oriented questions, I would
kindly ask you to introduce yourself
with your past and current positions.
Sure, I’m delighted.
My name is Lieutenant General Chris Whitecross.
I'm with the Royal Canadian Air Force from Canada, I’m a Canadian officer.
I’m an engineer by background and by schooling and occupation.
And I’m currently the commandant of the NATO Defense College here in Rome, Italy.
I joined in the early 80’s,
and I spent the first 20 years of my career in communications.
I also served in a number of training roles.
And then from the middle of my career onwards,
I was predominantly employed in operational roles
and I spent about four and a half years
as the commander of the Australian Defense College
and concurrently, I took up the role as Head of Joint Enablers.
So, I think I was sort of punished for being effective,
because they kept labouring me up with appointments.
[Laughs.]
But they were all enjoyable and all quite different.
Thank you.
First of all, I just finished 38 years of service.
I joined the military really right from University.
So, I pretty much grew up in the military,
from the age of 19 right to today.
But my motivation for joining military
right at the beginning was
… my father was military, my uncle was military,
my grandfather had seen service,
all of my brothers
were in the reserves,
and I liked what they
personified.
I joined the Cadet Movement, which is an international youth movement
that you're probably aware of.
And it resonated with me.
It resonated with me in terms of
the lifestyle, the culture, the background,
the structure and the hierarchical way that they did business,
and I just really wanted to give it a go.
I was at Queens University and I was walking down the street, literally,
I saw the recruiting centre and I walked in.
And that’s 38 years ago.
To be really frank,
I was incredibly naive when I joined the army.
I didn't have a particularly good understanding of what was involved.
I’d been at University studying to be a physical education teacher
and someone had spoken to me about it, so I went along to the recruiting agency
and like quite a lot of people I joined for
the sort of patriotic reasons,
for something that I thought that I could contribute
not only to the nation but also to help people.
But if I was to suggest it was a long and detailed search
and that I had landed on my feet that would be totally incorrect.
And indeed, after about
3 months in training to be an officer
I disliked it so much that I tried to resign and return to University.
I hadn't told my parents, and when the commanding officer rang my father,
he said: “Look we can leave her here or send her back to Ballarat.”
To which my father said: “Leave her there, she'll like it eventually.”
[Laughs.]
He was right,
and I was completely wrong.
So it took me a little while to enjoy it.
But my experiences were:
It was incredibly challenging, physically and mentally,
you really get to understand your own personal boundaries.
You have an amazing opportunity
to learn about people and about
leadership; particularly learning through
example – in both trying and
not so trying circumstances.
I'm a bit
of an extrovert,
so I really enjoy being with people
and you certainly have plenty of opportunities to do that in the military.
And then the last point I would make is that
I think you'll find your experiences at the different rank levels
can be quite different.
So, what you do as a young officer
versus what you do at the operational level
to what you can do at the strategic level
are quite different.
And sometimes you're actually
better in one level of leadership than you are in others.
Fortunately, I must've been OK to get to be a Major General.
It's a long way from where I started and,
you know I thought I'd be lucky to be a captain!
So, my experiences were generally very good.
I think it would be naive to say that men and women are the same.
I mean, I think ideally we would like to think
that we all do the same things.
And I think we probably come to the same decisions in many ways,
but we come to them from different vantage points.
Men’s and women’s strengths and weaknesses
are fundamentally different in many ways.
I mean we may not be as physically strong
but we're tremendously talented when it comes to team building
and doing things and thinking outside the box and the like.
But I think the strength here is
a military force of men and women,
and it's not just men and women, right,
because gender is no longer binary,
it’s all about diversity and inclusiveness.
Because what it does for you
in the grander scheme of things
in the utopian society really
is: it offers people a far better solution set.
Because now you have a number
of people with different backgrounds,
different languages, different cultures,
different ethnicities
and they're coming together to solve a problem.
And to get different sort of value added in different opinions,
a diversity of opinion,
breeds, I think, fundamentally a far better enabler
to find a better series of solutions to a problem.
So, are the leadership attributes different?
I think in many, many ways, they're the same,
you know the ability to communicate, intellectual,
cognitive ability, and all those sorts of things.
But ultimately, it's about bringing a disparate
group of people together and then having them come to
a shared value system and a shared
common goal and then moving toward that.
And I think men and women may come about that in different ways,
but by putting them together you're going to get a far better solution.
I think part of that goes to the theory around leadership.
There's certainly different leadership styles and different leadership attributes.
I would suggest that leadership 101 remains the same.
For me that's about three things
which is setting the direction,
setting the expectations and setting the environment.
I think a lot of women can lead somewhat differently to men.
Even said, there are different approaches to leadership amongst women as well.
Like one of my best friends, who is a Brigadier,
has a completely different leadership style to mine,
but still a very effective one.
What I would say is that
I think women are much better at the C-words.
They’re good at
compassion and consensus and
collaboration and cooperation.
There tends to be
a little more empathy.
So perhaps what they can bring to leadership roles sometimes
that not all men do,
and I'm not suggesting that men aren't good listeners,
but it's perhaps a more democratic style of leadership
with people being more inclusive.
And of course, one of the things that you can't see is cognitive diversity.
You can see gender diversity
and race diversity.
And perhaps if women are being socialised differently,
they think about things differently
and potentially lead in different ways.
I think if you look across business,
most boards in Australia that have women
are more successful than men.
There's a lot of research out there that
suggests that some of those leadership traits,
that women can have more than men
make them more effective.
The last point I would make is that
I think sometimes women, when they
start out as young leaders, can tend to follow
the rules a little too prescriptively.
I used to be a bit like that
and now I subscribe to the
“rules are for fools and the guidance of wise old chicks.”
[Laughs.]
Which means you work out when they're appropriate
and when they're not appropriate.
And the more rank you get, the more chance you have
to stand next to the big, hairy, difficult questions
and so, if you’ve learned to be more adaptable
and not always follow those rules,
then potentially your leadership style will be highly effective
in the different environments that you could be finding yourself in.
OK.
I would say absolutely.
And I would say even to the units as well.
So let me just break that down a little bit.
I think, for the units, to have men and women in the units,
it lends a different personality to
that units’ structure. And it allows ... I think ...
a better ...
Let me just use an example.
In a unit you have mothers
and fathers, of course,
and I can remember going to Afghanistan or even Bosnia
and somebody saying to me:
“It must be terrible to leave your children behind as a mother.”
And my comment was:
“You know what: It is terrible as a parent
to leave your children behind.”
And I
had that, … I was almost allowed to express that opinion
whereas my male counterparts weren’t.
But by increasing
the number of men and women in a group, I mean the
conversations change and I think the personality changes.
And it’s not any different in terms of
the military capability.
But what it does is: it brings people
closer together.
And it shows a real shareness
of what you’ve left behind and all that kind of stuff.
That’s certainly on a personal note.
But in terms of our engagement with the local population, absolutely.
I mean when I was in Afghanistan,
the culture didn’t necessarily
encourage women speaking to men in terms of strangers.
But in the Canadian context where we had female combat team leaders,
female infantry officers or artillery or armoured officers,
they could actually go into a community and speak to the men and the women.
They could speak to the men, because
the men didn’t feel necessarily
that the women were all that much more different.
But they certainly had an avenue to speak to the women in the community.
And so they were getting a sense of
the human cost, of the decisions that were being made.
They could get human intelligence,
they could understand the social fabric of the communities
and they could really get
a sense of where the battle is going
and to bring them in, almost to embrace
the community a lot more I think in many ways.
And it’s no different than if someone in your unit
speaks the local language.
And so, having men and women
in an organisation I think, it’s just such a force enabler.
It was different in each of the locations that I went to.
When I was in Cambodia in the early 90s,
and I’ll give you an example of the Pakistani battalion
was providing defensive support to the signallers.
And I went to visit our signallers;
I was the adjutant in one of the remote locations.
They had been having some problems with the Pakistani soldiers.
So they asked me to go and represent them and have a discussion. I said sure.
I turned up with a male Sergeant and they weren’t interested in listening to me
even though I was a captain.
[Nods.]
So I learned pretty quickly
that I needed to pass on my points through the male Sergeant.
Now that’s a cultural issue,
and this is one of the key areas I think
that we need to be cognisant of when you go on deployments.
What is the environment that you are going into?
It could be very different
to the country that you come from.
So: How much
culturally aware are you, how do you adapt your style
and your processes?
Certainly, when I was
in Afghanistan as the national commander
for all of our Australian troops,
I was regularly meeting with the minister for defence and a raft of male leaders
from governments and from other countries and I didn’t have any issues
at that stage.
I suppose it depends, quite frankly,
on the circumstances.
That said, in the local area with the female engagement teams,
which we employed from Australia, they were highly effective with the locals.
And I think part of the secret sauce for that
is that, a lot of the locals felt
far less threatened
by having women
coming to talk to them and finding out what their issues were.
They were more forthcoming in discussing or even having
the opportunity to engage with military
members.
And of course, in some countries
where you go to, they are war-torn,
people have been terrified.
The last thing they really want to do is sit down and talk with male soldiers.
So I think there can be some really interesting opportunities
from that perspective.
The obvious one
is the non-military,
the people on the ground that are affected by the hostilities,
predominantly women and vulnerable people:
So women and children, the elderly,
are more apt to go see a woman in uniform sometimes than a man.
For a whole bunch of reasons, I am sure that you’re aware of.
They could be frightened,
they could be embarrassed, I mean just a whole slew of reasons.
Having that ability to be able to speak to someone in uniform
and to know that their concerns are coming into the decision-making construct
of the operational planning …
Let me just use an example:
I am an engineer, right. Engineers and bridges is a great example.
Say there’s a freedom of movement issue in the
local community.
If we only dealt with the operational necessities
of being able to create a bridge in an area
that would allow the military forces to go do what they needed to do.
That would not necessarily meet the needs of the community.
So by being able to engage with the community, being able to speak
to the vulnerable populations, to the women, to the mothers,
to the children even and to
understand where they need that particular bridge
to be built, so that they can go to the medical clinics, they can go to the shopping,
they can go to the mosque or they can go to their churches,
all of that sort of things, or the schools,
that can actually be put into the
operational planning.
That actually leads to better engagement with the local population,
better relationships with them.
I mean just a whole slew of positive attributes
that come out just from that one little decision-making, because we
engage the local community.
I would say that
in many ways women who are afraid,
having that ability to go speak to another woman,
particularly a woman in uniform, or even
a woman in uniform who has some authority,
I think will give them the ability to feel as though their voices are being heard
and that they are going to be taken care of.
I think women make unique contributions all the time.
But of course,
there are factors that sit around that socialisation piece that I was talking about before.
We’ve had, to the best of my knowledge,
two female generals running UN Peacekeeping missions,
we currently have an Australian military policewoman
in Cyprus.
Sometimes I think
those less assertive leadership styles
can be very valuable in an environment
where people have been traumatised.
Or living through incredibly difficult circumstances.
Some of those democratic leadership styles and tendencies I talked about before,
I think can be incredibly useful.
But sometimes it comes to evaluating those styles differently.
And when is the most appropriate time to be a caretaker or taking charge?
In Peacekeeping operations,
you need to lead with empathy
in those types of environments. They are somewhat different.
Perhaps there is a natural advantage for women.
It’s difficult because you can’t generalise.
I know some women who have no empathy whatsoever.
So, each to their own circumstances.
You know,
inspiring is an interesting word,
because in many ways its self-motivating, right?
I mean, I joined the military because
I wanted to do something that was above me,
I like to say “service before self.”
I wanted to do something that was, you know, it might sound a little bit trite,
but I wanted to serve my county, I wanted to do good.
I wanted to go into areas of the world where I know
that I could effect change or act as a sort of positive influence.
So inspiration, it comes from the person.
To inspire people to join the military,
first of all you have to have strong leadership,
you need to be able to go out there, you need to be able to communicate:
What does the military do for the construct of society?
What would that give you
in terms of personal satisfaction and personal awareness?
And also, to really speak about the opportunities
that being a military member will give you.
And from that you hope that you garner enough
that the people feel inspired themselves
to be able to actually take that one step
to learn a little bit more about it and to possibly sign up for it.
You know, there is a fallacy out there that I think around the world,
particularly in western nations, where women don’t really
understand where they fit in the military construct.
And that’s unfortunate.
In the Canadian construct, of course, all occupations are open to women.
Now that wasn’t necessarily the case when I first joined.
But I knew that I could do something that would make me feel good about myself
and about my country in the construct that I was at.
Now, militaries all over the world
are opening up more and more occupations to women.
And we need to get that message out.
It’s not just about being an infanteer
or being a fighter pilot.
It’s also about being
a dentist or a lawyer or an engineer
or a vehicle tech.
The options
are just numerous.
So it’s really education. It’s inspiring leadership
and it’s really engagement at all levels of society.
I think there's plenty of ways we can do that.
I would start with just simple things like sending role models to schools.
Some young women think they “can't be what they can't see“.
I personally dislike that saying.
I think if that was the case
we wouldn't have Angela Merkel and a raft of other wonderful women,
who've led across all sorts of different areas
because they've been the trailblazers.
But it needs to be visible.
Great campaigns, by advertising, excellent recruiting campaigns.
We've tried all sorts of different campaigns in Australia.
Look, it is difficult to attract women compared to men
because it's a very physical, particularly in the army.
It’s a very physical role and
does include combat
and that doesn't appeal to a lot of girls.
They certainly haven't been socialised at home
to be brought up like that and it can be quite competitive.
Part of it is breaking down the stigma and the sort of,
what I'd call the “Hollywood B-grade movie versions”
of what people think
military service is and
how that impacts on women.
Send people around to the schools, share your stories,
be transparent about what the
opportunities are.
Particularly so that
you can get those experienced leading
at a much earlier age.
Once you become an officer
or an NCO, then you can in just about any other
organisation,
certainly in Australia, and I know that to be true in many other countries.
If we're talking about leadership, why not use that as one of the
real TICE tests for people.
If you want to have a career this is a great opportunity for you to start.
Invariably, if you can get people to join much like myself, they'll stay.
And then,
if you're fortunate, you'll get the ones who really weren't suited
because they hadn't done enough research
or they just realised later on it wasn't what …
they will self-select
not to be there.
The final point I’d make is I think it's great if you can mentor people
through that recruiting process
and also talk about the systems that you have in place to assist people to succeed
once they've enlisted.
Get rid of some of those terrible views that people have about
what the initial training is because that puts a lot of people off.
You have about 12%, I think, in Germany
and the Australian Army had 12% for a long time.
We had to do a concerted recruitment campaign
and a lot of work on retention programmes
to get up over the 16 or 17%.
Yes, it takes a lot of effort
but the rewards are amazing.
It's worth making ourselves a little more attractive
or a bit more sexy for people to come and join the army.
[Laughs.]
I like to think that
there are a couple of attributes that, regardless if you’re a man or a woman,
that will do you well in a military environment, and in fact any environment.
I would say that number one, absolutely the number one is humility,
is knowing that you're just a part of a very large organisation
that is meant to be doing good.
And your part is important,
it's fundamental to the success of the mission
but you are really a small part of the greater whole.
I think humility is particularly
underrated and that we really need to impress
that upon many of our young leaders
and young members not just at the military but other organisations as well.
Humility is a big one. But I think the ability to communicate
and I'm not just talking about reading or writing or social networks
and all that, but the ability to listen to people
in a very rigorous way so that you
truly get the sense of what they're saying.
And that you're able to mirror that back.
And then you're able to address the issues on a very fundamental and personal basis.
The ability to communicate, to understand who your audience is
and to really be able to interpret whether or not your message is getting out.
Because it is one thing
to tell people to do something
but if they don't believe it, they don't understand it and they can't back it,
it's very difficult for them to rise to the occasion that you need as a military leader.
I would say communication and humility are two of the biggest traits
that I would really impress upon people going into military service.
Ah look, I’m a redhead so I can't just have one single piece of advice.
How about I have one with three parts?
Okay, fine.
The first part would be: You've got to be professionally competent.
And you need to understand your profession.
You need to understand all of the aspects, the operational combat part.
You can't just be a communicator and not understand
the broader workings of the army,
if you intend to be promoted.
I think as a female officer, I like to call it maintaining the femininity tightrope.
You’re sort of balancing between being a woman
but being accepted as a leader, and that can be really difficult
when you first start out.
But for those women who think it's a good idea
to act like a man and talk like a man and swear
and whatever, they'll probably do
what you've asked people to do,
but they won't respect you as a leader.
It's a tricky thing
to find out where your natural
position is as a woman leader
in what is generally a masculine sort of
aggressive leadership environment.
There's certainly been research by a lot of different organisations,
including the British Psychological Society that goes to this issue.
If you're hard-nosed like that you're less likeable and generally less successful.
Not that leadership is about
being liked,
but it is about setting standards,
maintaining discipline and leading from the front.
I think those characteristics need to be at balance.
For women potentially more difficult than for men sometimes.
And then the last point I'd make is:
There's nothing more beautiful than a confident woman.
As a leader, learn to accept that you're going to make mistakes.
Deal with when things don't go right.
Don't overthink them and crack on.
Because I can tell you: Plenty of other blokes are faking it
until they make it. So I think women can do the same.
Thank you so much for taking your time to do this interview with us.
It was really enjoyable.
I wish you a very pleasant and nice evening, thank you very much!
Thank you and I hope I didn't speak too fast.
You know what normally happens is: we design the system for men
and then we try and retrofit it for women as opposed to design it specifically for women.
We're only just starting to do that in the Australian Army for some of our combat equipment.
And we've had women in roles like the one I did in Cambodia for nearly 30 years.
So hopefully you'll be faster than us.