How Barrel Strength Leadership turns historic decisions into modern playbooks for high-stakes teams.
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Show Notes:
On Mission Matters, Adam Torres interviews Chris Hossfeld, Founder, Barrel Strength Leadership, on using global staff rides (Gettysburg, Normandy, Market Garden, Bastogne, Italy) to teach decision-making, communication, resilience, and ethics—transforming historical moments into practical leadership behaviors leaders can apply immediately.
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About Chris Hossfeld
Chris is a veteran with over 27 years of military experience and degrees in Political Science, Military History/Political Science, and Strategic Studies. He served as a leader across the institutional, force-generating, and operational forces, including four combat deployments. His experiences include leading an 8-person staff up to a 1,200 multi-national organization. His final job in the Army was teaching at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, PA, where he spent time honing his staff ride thoughts and insights on the Gettysburg Battlefield. Following his retirement, he has worked at The University of Texas at Austin, supporting world-class faculty in developing more context-aware proposals that conduct national security research.
Check out his website: Barrel Strength Leadership
Full Unedited Transcript
Christopher Hosfeld
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to Mission Matters dot com and click on Be Our Guest to apply. All right. So today I have Chris Hossfeld on the line. He’s founder of Barrel Strength Leadership Chris welcome to the show. Great. Thank you for having me Adam. All right Chris. So lots to talk about today. So we’re going to get into experiential leadership. Um explore through staff rides globally. So I understand you’re working with leaders worldwide and going on these trips. And they’re learning real time in locations. And we’re going to get into into that content what that’s been like and also how you got started in this. But just to get us kicked off, we’ll start this episode the way that we start them all with what we like to call our Mission Matters minute. So, Chris, that mission matters. Our aim and our goal is to amplify stories for entrepreneurs, executives and experts. That’s what we do. Chris, what mission matters to you? Well, I spent twenty seven years as an Army officer where I led from the small unit all the way up to the enterprise level across different parts of the Army, including teaching at the senior professional military education level, and now also reviewing emerging technologies and innovations. And my core belief is that leadership is dynamic, personal and something to develop in others. I always hated one to one thousand person PowerPoint lectures or trust falls, and all of my successes come from those leaders that invested in me and the subordinates I invested in. So this is about experiential, immersive, leader development, mentorship, and team building events on important battlefields across the globe. Amazing. I love bringing mission based people on the line to share why they do what they do, how they’re doing, and really what we can all learn from that. So good to have you here. Um, first thing first, uh, barrel strength, leadership. The name of the company. Where’d that come from? So, um, in in the Army, there’s a couple of different things. One, uh, we may enjoy a good beverage. So I believe and one of my favorites is unfiltered or barrel strength. Is it a cast? Cask strength is the same thing. It’s the same thing. Ah, I, I had a feeling, but I’m like, wait a minute, maybe this is some other fancy, uh, military term. I know it’s it’s really the same thing because. So it’s undiluted, right? It’s not filtered. It’s not watered down. It’s full of character. Yeah. I think that leadership is the same thing. But also, what does the barrel of a rifle do? It provides direction and velocity. Yeah, right. Uh, and so pairing the two up, I thought was a pretty good thing. And I also believe that sometimes our our greatest insights come over a glass of our favorite beverage. I love it, it’s great. Um, good stuff here. I had to get that one out there because as I was preparing for this, I’m like, man, is this like cask strength? Barrel strength. I’m like, it’s gotta have some play on this. And that’s awesome. Absolutely. So I mean, when you obviously your military background leadership. These were all interests of yours, as you were kind of like thinking about what would be next and founding barrel strength leadership, a lot of different directions that you could have gone in terms of how you were going to create your programs, how you’re going to deliver. I’m not saying one’s right or wrong versus another, but I mean, in general, how’d you come up with this concept? Well, maybe first start by defining what a staff ride is. But then like, how do you know that this was going to be like your niche, like this was going to be your thing. So staff rides are part of what ARM is, is embedded in the Army, uh, in particular in professional military education from it was something I had to do, uh, while I was in college as part of my ROTC program. Yeah, go and visit a battlefield. But what I found in doing that is the lessons that we were learning in the classroom started to become very real. And so my last job in the Army was teaching at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Only forty five minutes from Gettysburg. Yeah. And from there, I had the opportunity to do the Gettysburg staff ride every year as part of the curriculum where you take and you kind of dissect the decisions, relationships, the communication, the technology of the day, and look at it through the lens of today to kind of project yourself. What? What are the things that are going to make me or my organization successful? Yeah. And seeing people and my clients now saying things like, I have heard that taking care of your people or knowing your people is important, but until I got here, I couldn’t really put it together. Yeah. What do you think going back to those early days, something that you said. I wanted to make sure I caught that. Like what? What What effect do you think the staff riots had on you, like, personally? Personally, it made history come alive. Right. And so it became this emotional attachment not only to the leaders, the units, the events that happened, but then helped me anchor my thinking about leadership. What information would I need to make a decision? What? I have made the same decision in the same situation. And then that helped me in my military career and in combat when I was doing things. I had a whole new kit bag to reach into. Mhm. Set of tools to be able to think about the situation I was in and what, what worked in the past or examples of what didn’t work. Yeah. Yeah. What’s interesting to me about even just this concept is um, when we heard, when we hear the word a lot like exponential. Um, we think about things like. Or at least where I’m at in Los Angeles. We think about things like concerts, we think about concerts, and we think about different events and different art exhibits and things like that, where you’re kind of like immersed in this experience. And we know that not I won’t say intuitively, but at this point, I think people are pretty adept to it, especially after Covid. Like, we know, like that the in-person experience is something different than virtual and or connecting in different ways. We just know that now. And being in a and now we know kind of the power of a concert and things like that. And if you think about a concert like I can still remember when I, you know, seeing Bob Seger for the first time and I was young, I’m like, come on. I’m like, let’s do it. Come on. So like, if you think about a great concert, if you can remember a great concert, ten twenty you know, I haven’t I don’t have one that I was like thirty years ago. But you know, at some point hopefully I will. But thirty, forty, fifty years ago, people can remember that. Then that’s where my head went when I was thinking about this. Like you, if you could connect that same concept of experience and remember a lesson in leadership because you were boots on the ground in a place where a historic moment happened, like, wow, what could that mean for your business? What could that mean for your the lenses at which you, you know, help and guide your team like it’s amazing. Am I am I missing this? Like I want to make sure I got this. This is exact. That’s exactly what this is about. You may have heard about the battles of Normandy, right? The invasion of France to liberate Europe. Mhm. You may have watched Saving Private Ryan. You may have watched Band of Brothers. Right. The Tom, you know, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg. Uh, and you’re watching the one hundred and first go through Europe. Yeah. Standing there and seeing it, you’re able to connect those emotions you felt in watching the movie. And it suddenly the scale changes for you. Yeah. The impact of those decisions or what happened in that location. Really transform you into. Wow. Okay. This is what has happened before. Yeah. What can I take from that? And it really connects that emotion, which, you know, I think is different than, uh, just just reading a slide or, you know, uh, having someone talk to you. I think it’s just it’s it makes the learning so real. Mhm. And oh, by the way, you’re doing it in an incredible place. France, Belgium. Netherlands, Italy. Uh, Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor, you know, um, those are pretty cool places. Mhm. You know I want to circle back to the places part. But before we do that, um, and I got questions. Trust me. Um, but before we do that, let’s go a little bit further into leadership. I mean, I know you’ve led in some high pressure environments. Um, can you share a moment, maybe from your military and or teaching career that taught you some lessons on leadership? Yes. Yes. Um, my first time really in combat, first few days in combat. You’re you’re now responsible for an area. And we were doing an operation. Um, it’s our first real one. And it starts. And immediately I hear gunshots. Wow. And the thing going through my mind. As the leader of this company, I’ve got one hundred and thirty plus people that I’m responsible for is I’m thinking, oh, my God, I just killed my first soldier. Ah. That’s it. That is what’s going on. And every fiber in my body is telling me to jump on the radio, find out what’s going on, you know, tell me the information. And instead I took a moment to pause, realizing that that might not be helpful right now. Yeah, and I’m still inside screaming. But then I have a nineteen year old come on the radio. Who’s the radio telephone operator? He’s the guy on the radio communicating for his leader, who gives a very clear, concise report in a calm voice. And that nineteen year old calmed me down, allowed me to be a leader. And so that just that just anchors for me the role of patience of a leader. What’s it how do you find that person that’s going to help calm you down? Who’s going to help? Who’s going to help provide you the right type of reporting in the way that matters to you, so that you can make a decision? Mhm. What separates leaders who hold steady in crisis and maybe those who don’t or like who? Who crumble or fail. Like what separates them. I think it’s their ability. And I probably got more failures than I have successes. Um, is that those that are able to clearly communicate what they’re thinking, what they need to make a decision. Mhm. Um, their ability to empower others to make decisions when they aren’t available. Mhm. And their relationship with others. Yeah. Um and and what I mean it’s not only their relationship with their subordinates, it’s their relationships with their superiors and their peers. Mhm. All of that is those that are able to find the right balance of those in the situation. Mhm. I think that is what sets leaders apart when crisis happens. Yeah. Before we get into because I do want to go further into some of these locations and where you’re where you’re traveling to. But before we we do that, I want to talk a little bit more about, like, your process and like how you develop the curriculum that you’re going to actually deliver, like talk a little bit about, again, the process and the actual content that people, um, that people receive as they go to these different locations. So, yes. So the content wise, I’ve, I, I’m a bit of a history nerd. So I, I do research on the battles. I do research on specific actions that will help reinforce either key things, key things that I think leaders should know, um, or to reinforce what my client wants to get out of it, whether they’re timeless principles of leadership or whether it’s something specific that they are looking for, maybe they’re struggling with processes. So I might dive a little bit deeper into that at a location. And so what I do is then I prepare a very short booklet that will have then about a page of information about what happened at that location, maybe some, along with some pictures and maybe a map because everyone learns differently. Some people want to anchor themselves in where it is locationally or connect to the person, or to see it as it was. And then I will put two or three kind of leading questions to that site. And then I then sequence the locations on the battlefield. They may not go sequentially. Yeah. Um, for Gettysburg I do. I call it the Quentin Tarantino version. I start with Pickett’s Charge. Go, let’s go to the end. Uh, and then what are all the things that happened to make this, uh, real? Um, to make this make Lee believe that this is the right answer. Um. For what to do. Um and so I then will then sequence them in a way that they’re reinforcing of each other, that they help build it together. Um, and then have time for us to talk about what it meant. What did you find interesting? What didn’t you expect out of the stops of the day that helped reinforce the lessons? Right. Because I want people to take it and modify it for themselves rather than. Here is the book answer. Mhm. Yeah I see that. And and let’s get into the, the locations. Um because I understand you’re traveling and then I think you, you have one coming up as well in Belgium coming up. Right. So maybe if you want to start with other locations, if you want to dive right into Belgium and the plans for that, like how do you want to take this? But I want to get into some of these locations too. The first location is Gettysburg, so lots of businesses have interest in, uh, the federal government. And so the ability to go there, they’re going to do a big meeting in, in and around there. Or maybe that’s where their headquarters is. It’s not that far away. Um, it’s important in American history. Um, and it’s a very condensed battlefield, even though it takes part over three days. Mhm. Um, the next one that I, I started doing was Normandy, France. Um, I loved, uh, thinking about the invasion of Normandy. Saving Private Ryan came out when I was a young lieutenant, um, made and and important impact on me. But I also served in the eighty second Airborne Division and the one hundred and first Airborne Division’s um, which really gained a reputation in the Normandy invasion. So it connected me to my own personal history. Um, and the, uh, the Netherlands is the next one I’ve done, which is Operation Market garden. You may have heard the phrase it’s just a bridge too far. Yeah, Arnhem. It’s a series of bridges and it’s a failure. It’s a strategic failure, but it has lots of tactical successes. So I think you can learn from failure. And then my next one is Bastogne, Belgium. Many people know about the battle of the bulge or the reputation of the one hundred and first. And I think it is a great opportunity to delve into things like resiliency, resiliency of the individual, resiliency of the organization. You know, a you know, what does grit mean to you or your organization? And I’m really looking forward to, uh, the new one we’re offering, uh, which is western Italy. Um, let’s go down around Naples, uh, uh, up through people may have heard of Monte Cassino, but up through to Rome. And, and let’s talk about the role of religion in ethics. What does that mean? How does that impact the way we do things? How has it impacted us over history? Mm. Um, how do we look at culture? Uh, uh, in in conflicts. Mhm. Uh, I think they’re very exciting ways. And then oh by the way, you get to eat the food, you get to smell, you get to see it. The temperature’s even right. Is it high humidity versus low. It takes you to a different place. And I find that just so much fun. What are the size of like, the of these groups. Like give me some concept on that like size and logistics. So I think if a group is going to do this, uh, they’re going to pay for, for barrel strength leadership to put this together, they probably need a minimum of about eight people to make it really a viable, uh, thing. But I have done groups up to thirty. Um, you know, where I’m taking, King uh, college students, uh, in uh, Army ROTC or Air Force ROTC or others, uh, to include history and political science majors, um, business majors. Um, so it really depends on what that client wants. Are they developing new managers? Right. Coming from being an executor to a manager, or are they taking managers to becoming executives, or is it something that they want to do where they’re partnering their company leaders with their clients? Yeah, right. Businesses that have clients in Europe? I think that that’s an exciting way to make it a team building and how each think about information, communication, relationships. I, I think that that can be a very powerful tool to, to to taking them to that next step. Um, what’s your favorite part about doing this? About taking individuals and groups, I should say, on the on these staff rides. Like what’s your favorite part about like being involved in this process, the evenings and the end. Believe it or not, the evenings. Because over dinner we’re having real conversations about what we learned. How did it impact them? Yeah, we’re not doing it in a formal way. We’re doing it over food. We’re doing it over, you know, a little bit of time, a little bit removed, and then the second night where they’re like this, then connected me to something you said on day one that I didn’t really get, but now I get it. And then at the end where they’re saying things like, if I’d only had a history professor or a history teacher like you, I would have enjoyed history more. Um, but where they’re saying this is how it mattered to me. Mhm. That’s the fulfillment I get. that is just really so incredible. And it and I learn from each of them because they each bring their own unique perspectives to leadership. Mhm. Uh, and it enriches me and it makes every single one of these that I do just a little bit better. Yeah. Well Chris, this has been uh, first off great having you on the show and learning more about barrel strength leadership. Um, I mean, what’s next? What’s next for you? What’s next for the company? So, uh, next for me and next for the company is two things. I have a, uh, is June, uh, the, um, anniversary, the eighty second anniversary of the Normandy invasion. I’m putting together several opportunities for companies to be able to do that. And I think it’s a great way, um, where you start to see the soldiers and the people coming in, you start to see the decorations. You get the feel of the time frame. Yeah. But also I’m pulling together these stops and my thoughts that I put on my LinkedIn under barrel strength. And we’re going to publish a book that we’re that’s going to take these themes a historical example. Some of my personal like I’m talking about, you know, um, the specialist who’s a great art radio, telephone operator, you know, helping me think through stuff. Yeah. And then asking questions about innovations and technologies and how are they going to impact our ability to make decisions or execute what we want to do as businesses or whatever your area may be? Um, for the future? Yeah. Chris, how do people follow up? How do they learn more about working with you and your team? Well, obviously we’ve got a we’ve got a great LinkedIn. I’m going to start with the LinkedIn because LinkedIn I think is doing really well. Um, Uh uh in in showing that. But I also have a website, uh, barrel strength leadership all one word dot org, um, where you can take a look at the, uh, what I’m offering some of the key things that, uh, I want to present, uh, as well as the pictures and say, well, that’s a place I want to go. Yeah. Awesome. Well, uh, and everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll definitely put some links in the show notes so that you can go on over, check out the website and connect with Chris and his team. And, uh, speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And Chris man, really appreciate you coming on the show. It’s been a lot of fun. I appreciate it Adam, and it’s been a great conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time to have me on.
