Page 194 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

LEADERS KNOW WHEN TO COMPROMISE

from that environment and that understanding, whether it’s a market
environment or a national security environment,” Harvey said. “In the
corporate world there are so many examples of leaders that get disconnected
from the realities of the marketplace, and they make stupid decisions and
issue stupid orders.”
Harvey watched Secretary Brown grow the defense budget in spite of
the Carter administration’s pledge to cut defense spending drastically in
the aftermath of the Vietnam War. “If you ask people when the buildup
of the defense budget started in response to facing up to the realities of
the Soviet Union, everybody would say it started under President Reagan.
But the fact of the matter is that Harold Brown, in what ended up being
a pretty liberal democratic administration, actually got real increases in the
defense budget, and I think it’s because he really did understand what the
Soviet Union was doing,” Harvey explained. “I can remember all the rhet-
oric of the strategic nuclear balance, and even though we were ahead, the
Soviets were catching up. We needed to ensure that we had the strength,
and the numbers didn’t matter. It was the parity that mattered, and Secretary
Brown went after that. I don’t know how he did it—it was amazing, and
in reflection, it was all based upon his understanding of what was really
going on in the environment. You’ve got to give Brown a lot of credit for
what he did there.”
Harvey left his Fellowship and returned to Westinghouse, where he
applied the lessons he learned in Washington to a sterling career in the
private sector. For the next twenty years, he filled a variety of senior lead-
ership roles at Westinghouse, including general manager of the Electrical
Systems Division, general manager of the Marine Division, vice president
of science and technology, president of the Government and Environmental
Services Company, and president of the Defense and Electronics Systems
Group. Harvey retired from the company in 1997 as the chief operating
officer of the Industries and Technology Group. He served on a variety of
corporate boards during the next several years, until the day in November
2004 when he returned to public service in what would become his most
demanding leadership role ever: President George W. Bush had appointed
him to be Secretary of the Army.
As secretary, Harvey assumed responsibility for the Army’s manpower,
training, equipment, communications, budget, and more. All told, over a
million active-duty Army, National Guard, and Army Reserve soldiers as

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