Leadership at the Edges: Lessons from General Charles Jacoby

Jan 30, 2025

Rich Price

Rich Price

How does a retired 4-star general distill the lessons of 30+ years of military service into imperatives for success? Through decades of leadership at the highest levels—commanding NORAD, U.S. Northern Command, and shaping strategic policy—General Charles Jacoby (Ret.) has sharpened his ability to assess an organization’s health in an instant. His lens? Four core leadership imperatives: teamwork, discipline, accountability, and respect.

This week, we had the privilege of engaging in deep and thought-provoking conversations with General Jacoby during his visit to BETA Technologies. After reading his 2018 book, Agility: How to Navigate the Unknown and Seize Opportunity in a World of Disruption (co-authored with Leo Tillman), we were eager to connect him with Kyle Clark and the BETA team.

As part of BETA’s monthly speaker series, BETA Bytes of Knowledge, General Jacoby delivered a powerful talk titled "Empowering to the Edges." His theme was on leadership that enables agility—where teams, not just top-down command structures, drive execution.

The Power of Intent: Leadership That Empowers

A core insight from both his book and his talk is the importance of “Commander’s Intent”—a leadership principle that extends far beyond the military. If an organization can clearly communicate not just what they aim to achieve, but why it matters, decision-making can happen at the edges, closer to the action. This allows teams to operate with speed, autonomy, and agility—critical in high-stakes environments, whether in battle or in business.

Leadership, Jacoby emphasizes, isn’t about micromanaging every move. Instead, great leaders provide clarity of intent without being overly prescriptive.

Reflecting on moments of failure in his own leadership, General Jacoby shared:

"If I’m honest with myself, when I pull at the thread of failure, it usually traces back to flawed guidance that I provided."

Leadership That Inspires

Quoting General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jacoby distilled the art of command:

"The essence of leadership is getting people to do something because they know it is worthwhile."

This requires more than just setting strategy—it demands inspiring people, fostering alignment, and ensuring teams are genuinely in favor of what’s ahead. Whether leading soldiers in battle or innovators in aviation, the principle holds: People perform at their best when they understand the purpose behind their work. And, critically, when they feel respected and supported to actively compete to win.

Twice during our 48 hours together, General Jacoby referenced John M. Schofield’s 1879 address to the Corps of Cadets:

"The discipline which makes the soldiers of a free country reliable in battle is not to be gained by harsh or tyrannical treatment. On the contrary, such treatment is far more likely to destroy than to make an army."

Asked for an example from his own career of a leader that embodied what Eisenhower and Schofield describe, General Jacoby talked about General John Abizaid (former commander of CENTCOM). Jacoby reported to Abizaid alongside other fiercely competitive and ambitious officers, including General Stan McChrystal. “One thing I drew from Abizaid’s leadership was that we never, ever competed with each other, instead we competed against the standards that we all agreed upon.”

Leadership as the Driver of Agility

Few of us will ever bear the responsibility of leading 135,000 soldiers in Iraq, as General Jacoby once did. But in the battles we fight in our own industries, the same truth applies:

🚀 Agility is the ultimate differentiator.
🏆 Leadership is the key to unlocking it.

As Jacoby put it:

"Agility is the key driver of evolutionary fitness, superior performance, and enduring relevance."

For more, read Agility