Are specific types of work or situations more likely to benefit from the presence of “battle-tested” leaders? List a few examples.

In 2008, facing a serious shortage of leadership-ready employeesat the store management level, Walmart decidedto recruit from the U.S. military. The company sent recruitersto military job fairs and hired 150 junior militaryofficers, pairing them with store mentors to learn on thejob. The result: Walmart claims that it’s been able to bringin world-class leaders who were ready to take over oncethey had learned the retail business that Walmart couldeasily teach them. Other organizations that have heavilyrecruited from the military in recent years include GE,

Home Depot, Lowe’s, State Farm Insurance, Merck, andBank of America.

It’s not really surprising to see companies turn tothe military for leadership potential. A long tradition ofbooks and seminars advises leaders to think like militaryleaders ranging from Sun Tzu to Norman Schwarzkopf.And military veterans do have a variety of valuable skillslearned through experience. General David Petraeusnotes, “Tell me anywhere in the business world where a22- or 23-year-old is responsible for 35 or 40 other individualson missions that involve life and death . . . They’reunder enormous scrutiny, on top of everything else.These are pretty formative experiences. It’s a bit of acrucible-like experience that they go through.” Militaryleaders are also used to having to make due in less thanoptimal conditions, negotiate across cultures, and operateunder extreme stress.

However, they do have to relearn some lessons from theservice. Some may not be used to leading someone like aneccentric computer programmer who works strange hoursand dresses like a slob, but who brings more to the company’sbottom line than a conventional employee would.Indeed, in some companies like Google, there is nothinglike the chain of command military leaders are used to.Still, most forecasts suggest there will be an ample supplyof battle-tested military leaders ready to report for corporateduty in the near future, and many companies areeager to have them.