Leadership: Sobel and Winters-Part 2

Thank you to everyone who has read my blog lately especially those who have provided feedback (Twitter, Facebook and email).

This is part 2 of my personal view on leadership, focusing on Sobel and Winters of Band of Brothers (BoB) fame.

This part provides a brief intro into the early histories of both men, and how (...IMHO) it may have affected their development as leaders (..or not). As a starter, I have put together a simple table which covers some of the relevant information and shows where there were similarities..

	Winters		Sobel
DoB	21-01-18		26-01-12
Place	Ephrata, PA		Chicago, Il
Religon	Mennonite		Jewish
Military School or equivalent	Lancaster Boys school		Culver M.A, IN
University	Franklin and Marshall		University of Illinois
Served as Enlisted?	Yes		Yes, National Guard
Year	(25-8-41)		(est 1931)
Age entered service	23		19
Means of Commission	OCS		OCS
Married	Yes		Yes
Children	Yes		Yes

 The table shows some areas where both Sobel and Winters had a similar background...areas such as their religious background (Sobel was raised in a strict Jewish household whilst Winters was raised in, what I believe to be, a fairly devout Mennonite family), both attended a form of boarding school (I believe Lancaster Boys school was a boarding school-happy to be corrected), both did well at college/University and both were commissioned via OCS.

The main differences appear to be that Sobel grew up in an Urban environment compared to Winters but I am not sure that has a lot of relevance given he was shipped to Culver Military academy for his formative teenage years whilst Winters spent his at the Lancaster Boys school which was an extension of his Mennonite upbringing. I would think that both offered a rather distorted view of society...What is interesting is that Culver M.A advertises that they 'educate its students for leadership and responsible citizenship in society...'.  I wonder whether Sobel's approach in later life was to try to strictly apply the lessons learned at Culver.

The other notable difference was that Winters 23-24 during his early years with the 506th whilst Sobel was around 30. In normal circumstances I would have given the age difference a bit more emphasis. However, I don't think that it means that much given the personalities and circumstances.

I still believe that social influences have an impact on whether a person becomes a leader or not.

What I am interested in discovering, if it is possible, is why did the two men end up on opposite ends of the leadership matrix. What I have discovered, with a lot of help from a Psychology Doctoral candidate, is that there appears to be some underlying personality issues evident in Sobel that don't appear to be present in Winters. That would include a tendency to control, the lack of empathy, introversion and issues with relationships. What I will say, at this early stage of my blog, is that IMHO those tendencies do not necessarily keep someone from becoming a leader.

In my next post, I will try to dig deeper into the traits of the two men and how they contributed to the events of WW2 and the 506th.

Thanks for reading...