Military and Law Enforcement

McChrystal’s work also navigates the contours of zealots, like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and heroes like Harriet Tubman, the abolitionist who ushered slaves to freedom on the underground railroad. Both leaders, he said, became larger in death than in life. McChrystal said viewing each of these individuals as humans and as leaders, helped his team to “reach a general thesis that leadership has never been what we thought it was. It’s never been the great person theory, list of traits, behaviors. In this complex interaction of factors, the leader is only one part.”