Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

attrition model
,” he explained. “There’s another kind
of leadership. I call it a 
developmental model
. The standards are exactly the same—high—but in one
case, you use fear to get your subordinates to achieve those standards. And in the other case, you lead
from the front.”
On the battlefield, leading from the front means, quite literally, getting out in front with your
soldiers, doing the same hard work, and facing the same mortal risks. At West Point, it means treating
cadets with unconditional respect and, when they fall short of meeting the academy’s extraordinarily
high standards, figuring out the support they need to develop.

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“For example,” Caslen explained, “on the physical fitness test, if there are cadets that struggle with
the two-mile run and I’m their leader, what I’m going to do is sit down with them and put together a
training program. I’m going to make sure the plan is sensible. Some afternoons, I’m going to say,
‘Okay, let’s go run,’ or ‘Let’s go workout,’ or ‘Let’s go do intervals.’ I will lead from the front to get
the cadet to the standard. Very often, the cadet who was unable to do it on their own all of a sudden is
now motivated, and once they start to improve, their motivation increases, and when they meet those
objectives they gain even more confidence. At some point, they figure out how to do things on their
own.”
Caslen’s example brought to mind a story West Pointer Tom Deierlein told me of the even-tougher-
than-Beast training he endured to become an Airborne Ranger. At one point in the training, he was
hanging off a rock face—a climb he’d already failed once—with every muscle in his body shaking in
rebellion. “I can’t!” Tom shouted to the Ranger instructor on the plateau above. “I expected him to
shout back, ‘That’s right. Quit! You’re a loser!’ This guy, for whatever reason, instead says, ‘Yes you
can! Get up here!’ And I did. I climbed up, and I swore to myself I’d never say ‘I can’t’ again.”
As for critics of West Point’s new developmental culture, Caslen points out that the academic,
physical, and military standards for graduating from West Point have, if anything, grown more
stringent over time. He’s convinced that the academy is producing finer, stronger, and more capable
leaders than ever before. “If you want to measure West Point by how much yelling and screaming
goes on around here, then I’m just going to let you complain. Young men and women today just don’t
respond to yelling and screaming.”
Other than objective standards of performance, what else 
hasn’t
changed at West Point in the last
ten years? Norms of politeness and decorum remain so strong that, during my visit, I found myself
checking my watch to make sure I was a few minutes early for each appointment and, without
thinking, addressed every man and woman I met by “sir” and “ma’am.” Also, the gray full-dress
uniforms worn by cadets on formal occasions remain the same, making today’s cadets part of the
“long gray line” of West Pointers stretching back two centuries before them. Finally, cadet slang is
still spoken fluently by West Pointers and includes such improbably defined terms as 
firsties
for
“fourth-year cadets,” 
spoony
for “neat in physical appearance,” and 
huah
for everything from “I
understand you” to “gung ho” to “agreed” to “great job.”
Caslen isn’t so naive as to think that four years of developmental culture at West Point will
reliably turn 2s and 3s on the Grit Scale into 5s. But then again, the varsity athletes, class presidents,
and valedictorians who make it through West Point’s two-year admissions process aren’t exactly the
bottom of the barrel in grit. Importantly, he’s seen people change. He’s watched cadets develop. He
has a growth mindset. “You never really know who is going to become a Schwarzkopf or a
MacArthur.”
Two years after Pete Carroll called to talk about grit, I got on a plane to Seattle. I wanted to see
firsthand what Pete meant when he said the Seahawks were building the grittiest culture in the NFL.
By then I’d read his autobiography,