Significant cultural and organizational change is an enormous leadership challenge for leaders at any level. From 2014 to 2016, I was the commander of the Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade (ARTB), which had oversight of the US Army’s Ranger School. During those two years, I was fortunate to have as a teammate Command Sergeant Major Curt Arnold, a phenomenal senior non-commissioned officer. Together we oversaw the gender integration of the US Army’s Ranger School. Leading the gender integration of Ranger School required all of our leadership, management, diplomacy, consensus building, and communication skills to lead and shepherd the process. There are four lessons that can be drawn from our experience.

The US Army’s Ranger School opened in March 1952. Since then, as the Army’s premier leadership and small unit tactics school, it has produced over 80,000 graduates who emerged from its crucible as better soldiers and leaders. It’s an exceptionally difficult accomplishment – approximately 40 percent of the students who attend the school earn the Ranger Tab. Ranger School is 61 days long and divided into four phases — the Ranger Assessment Phase and Darby Phase both at Fort Benning, Georgia; the Mountain Phase in Dahlonega, Georgia; and the Swamp Phase at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. Ranger School trains soldiers to be combat leaders by using simulated combat missions in different environments while enduring mental, psychological, and physical stress. And Rangers School graduates are imbued with the mantra of “Rangers, Lead the Way.”

In late 2014 the US Army decided to run a pilot program that allowed the first women to attend Ranger School. 19 women began Ranger School in April 2015. After more than 120 days at Benning, in the north Georgia mountains, and the swamps of Florida, Shaye Haver and Kristin Griest met the standard and graduated from the US Army Ranger School on August 21, 2015 (5 years ago tomorrow), earning their Ranger Tab. The impact of the pilot program was immense – it influenced the Secretary of the Army’s decision on the eventual gender integration of the entire US Army.

On January 2, 2016, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter authorized all jobs and units across all the services to be open to men and women. Since then, more than 50 women and several thousand men have graduated Ranger School. In retrospect, Ranger School led the way for the training due to the decision to bring a cohort of 19 women at once. No other training or service chose to use this approach. Four lessons that I took away from leading the gender integration of Ranger School:

1.     One standard — After much heated debate, we were able to build consensus that there would be one standard, the Ranger standard, for all students attending the course. For the Ranger Physical Assessment, the standards for everyone were exactly the same -- 49 push-ups in two minutes, 59 sit-ups in two minutes, a 5-mile run in 40 minutes, and six chin-ups. For the 12 Mile Road March each student would carry the same weight and have to finish it in 3 hours or less. Patrols would be graded the same. Peers would be treated the same. Even haircuts (a shaved head) were the exact same. Setting and maintaining one standard was a critical part of the success of accomplishing the gender integration of Ranger School

2. Leadership from the top to establish a level playing field – Every student who failed in his or her attempt at Ranger School during the Darby Mountain, and Swamp phases was counseled by their company commander, their battalion commander, and finally by myself and Sergeant Major Curt Arnold. Our goal during these counseling sessions was to make the student understand why they failed, acknowledge that they failed, and develop a plan to return to Ranger School and earn the Ranger Tab. Typically, most students who come to the counseling session are sent home. As part of that counseling process, Sergeant Major Curt Arnold and I also had the ability to grant a Day One Recycle, or the opportunity to start the entire course over from the beginning. The previous year we had offered about 20 Ranger students the opportunity to try a Day One Recycle.

On May 29, 2015, eight women and dozens of men came to see Sergeant Major Arnold and me for their final counseling. When Kristen Griest came into the room for her counseling, we reviewed her packet. As I looked at the documents, I realized that based on her performance, had she been a man (remember prior to this no women had attended Ranger School) we would certainly have offered her a Day One recycle. I sent her out of the room and had a discussion with Curt and the other Ranger Instructors present. Sitting in the room we knew that there were significant implications to even offer the Day One recycle. It would have been easy to just send Kristen home. But, if we were going to truly uphold the idea of one standard, the right thing to do was offer the Day One recycle.

We brought Kristen back in the room and asked her to do 49 push-ups. The 49-push-up test was our means to gauge students’ perseverance and make sure they could overcome the highest attrition event on the first day of Ranger School. Kristen did the 49 push-ups to standard. We offered her the Day One recycle and she took it. Later that day we offered the Day One recycle to Shaye Haver and Lisa Jaster (she graduated in October as the third Ranger qualified woman) based on their performance. They did their 49 push-ups and took the opportunity. We also offered it to one male student, but he turned it down.

Leading significant cultural and organizational change takes tough decisions and strong leadership, all the way to the top. For us, this was us leading by example with one standard in action.

3. The importance of internal communications – There was significant resistance to change both inside and outside the organization. To inform and persuade the members of the Brigade, I communicated with the organization a variety of ways – daily emails and phone calls with the battalion commanders and command sergeants major, bi-weekly teleconferences with all the battalion commanders and command sergeants major, in-person visits, and finally Command Sergeant Major Arnold and I did town hall meetings in August (near the end of the pilot program) with every company of Ranger Instructors (this was two levels down from us). We also used a Non-Commissioned Officer Ranger Instructor team from Fort Benning to talk peer-to-peer to Ranger Instructors in the Mountains and Swamps. Then Major General Scotty Miller, the commander of Fort Benning, communicated to the wider Special Operations and Army communities. Even with all that effort, it was clear from the town halls that there was a lot of misinformation out there amongst the Ranger Instructors. If I had to do it over again, I would have done the town hall meetings with all nine companies of Ranger Instructors (two levels down) before the start of the pilot program, at the middle of the pilot, and afterwards, not just at the end. When leading significant cultural and organizational change, getting the internal communications right requires extra effort.

4. The impact of external communications – Our goal during the process was to be as transparent as possible to the Ranger community, the Army, and the American people. I felt this was important to decrease resistance to the change and to decrease accusations of impropriety. To do this, with the support of Fort Benning, the Brigade enabled members of the local and national media to have access to Ranger School at points in time that would not compromise the students’ chance to earn the Ranger Tab. As the leader of the organization, I saw it as my role to communicate the on-going story to the media and took on the responsibility of working directly with Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post, Gayle Lemon of Defense One, Anna Mulrine of the Christian Science Monitor, Richard Oppel of the New York Times, and Chuck Williams of the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. The ARTB also communicated on social media through Facebook posts. I believed then and I believe now that we achieved the goal of being as transparent as possible with the entire process. The transparency helped the organization, the Army, and external stakeholders understand – and to a considerable degree – accept the change.

Since their graduation, Shaye and Kristin transferred to the infantry, led infantry companies in the 82nd Airborne Division, and led soldiers in combat. In addition, they have conducted themselves as quiet professionals and represented the Army and the Ranger community extremely well. Because of their groundbreaking achievement, today women in the US Army have the opportunity to attend Ranger School, serve in the infantry, and serve in the 75th Ranger Regiment.

In 2020, male and female Ranger-qualified soldiers continue to “Lead the Way” both on and off the battlefield. By maintaining the standards of Ranger School and communicating openly with the multiple groups interested in the school’s gender integration, we were able to successfully demonstrate that the military could maintain standards while expanding leadership opportunities to those with the talent, physical ability, and the will to lead soldiers in combat. Leaders who are taking their organizations through significant cultural and organizational change can draw lessons from the Ranger School experience – one standard, leadership from the top to establish a level playing field, the importance of internal communications, and the impact of external communications and transparency.