Good evening everyone.
Board Chair Warwick and the Huntington University Board of Regents,
Chancellor Ravi and President McCormick,
Distinguished guests,
Faculty, staff, and students,
I'm so happy to be here with you all tonight.
Thank you for this prestigious honour.
I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the Board of Directors and the university for this honour.
Thank you for the work that you all do here at this school.
For the students of this important institution.
For Ontario. For Canada. And even for the entire world.
Huntington's commitment to civic leadership and community service has produced generations of graduates who have gone on to make their communities-and our world-better.
It's a commitment that this institution's leaders live every day.
Leaders like President McCormick, who-on top of his duties here-has given so much of himself to the Canadian Armed Forces, to veterans and their families.
As an Honourary Colonel of the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders, and also as Honourary Colonel of the Irish Regiment of Canada, he's made it his mission to track down and return long lost military medals and other Canadian military artifacts to the families of those who earned them.
Returning those medals-some more than 100 years old-means so much to these families.
It's a deeply personal and powerful way to honour those who have served-and in some cases, those who never came home.
Thank you, Kevin, for your passion, your dedication, and your support of the Canadian Armed Forces.
Speaking of the Canadian Armed Forces, I'm so pleased to see our people in uniform well-represented tonight.
From the 2nd Battalion, Irish Regiment of Canada...
to the local Army, Sea and Air Cadet Corps units...
to the Canadian Military Wives Choir, who did us the honour of sharing their marvelous talent with us.
Northern Ontario has always made a major contribution to the Canadian Army.
I am grateful for your commitment to the CAF and to Canada, and for your service.
Thank you for being here today.
For nearly four decades, I've had the privilege of serving alongside some of the most skilled, courageous, and dedicated Canadians one could ever hope to meet-members of the Canadian Armed Forces.
Now I have the privilege of leading them.
Every experience and opportunity I've had in the Canadian Armed Forces-every team and individual I have worked with-has had such a formative impact on me.
Serving in the CAF has allowed me to develop, grow, adapt, and learn in various situations.
In ways I never could have imagined.
So tonight I would like to share with you a few ideas on strategic leadership I've learned along the way.
This room is full of remarkable leaders from Greater Sudbury and beyond.
Leaders who have strengthened this institution, this community, and our world.
All of you could impart such valuable knowledge on how to build strong, diverse organizations.
On how to lead, inspire, and affect change.
I hope the ideas I share from my own personal experience will be of value to you.
As some of you may know, my background is in science and engineering.
Science and engineering however have great limitations in navigating the complexities of strategic issues. To see the world as a series of complex systems-all interacting, colliding, reacting, and adapting in unpredictable ways.
I found the study of humanities extremely enabling in navigating problems that have no solutions in sight.
Our world is in a state of transition, and it is not possible to forecast how things are going to unfold. The realm of international relations as humans is characterized by its unpredictability and uncertainty.
Whether we're dealing with authoritarian leaders trying to remake the global order to suit their own agendas… or emerging technology that's disrupting every aspect of how we live our lives.
Try as we might, these are things we cannot control.
We can't predict the future and we can't control external situations-the things that happen to us.
So the outcomes will never be guaranteed.
Our world is changing, and we must change with it.
But how do we do that?
How do we navigate a world that is increasingly complex and ambiguous?
A world where the future feels so uncertain.
Here are four simple ideas that have shaped my thinking, my behaviour, and my actions. Simple but difficult as the famous military thinker Clausewitz has put it.
Ideas that now guide me in my leadership as Chief of the Defence Staff.
Think of them as a sneak peak into what's going on in my head.
The first one is: be comfortable with discomfort.
Things go wrong sometimes. Maybe a lot of the time.
Plans don't work out the way we want them to.
People react in ways we do not foresee.
I'm sure you've all experienced this in your own fields.
This is especially true in combat, where adversaries are trying to do you harm.
When I led the NATO mission in Iraq, what began as a capacity-building mission was quickly turned on its head by deteriorating circumstances in the country. Basically over that one year deployment, I had three weeks of normal mission.
We came under attack by Iranian militias, the political climate in Iraq changed, and the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Needless to say, this was an incredibly uncomfortable and chaotic situation-both mentally and physically-and not at all what we had planned for.
Of course, chaos and uncertainty can unfold in any environment. Military and civilian.
And when it does-when things start to go wrong-I remind myself that reality is as it is, not as I would like it to be.
I resist the temptation to label situations as good or bad.
What happens to us is neither good nor bad. It simply happens.
As the famous Greek philosopher Epictetus wrote: "It is not things that trouble us, but our judgements about things."
What matters most is what we do next. How we respond.
Once you are comfortable being uncomfortable, you can begin to move forward.
You begin to see problems differently-see opportunities.
And you're no longer a victim of circumstance, but rather a driver of progress and solutions.
The second idea I want to share is to beware of perfectionism.
Whether you're facing success or adversity, trying to be perfect can be paralysing.
Perfectionism can lead to a fear of failure, which leads to a fear of action.
It can prevent you from taking risks or correcting course when you need to.
And you never want to be afraid to adjust mid-mission.
Plans which can seem perfect one day often aren't the next day.
Since 2015, the Canadian Armed Forces have been providing training to Ukrainian security forces, at the request of the Ukrainian government.
Our mission had to change after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
We have shifted our efforts from Ukraine to other parts of Europe and focused on training new Ukrainian recruits, combat medical personnel, combat engineers and other professionals.
The environment around us changed. Mission requirements changed. So we changed.
We didn't set out to be perfect but rather focused on what Ukraine needed to defend itself and how we could help.
On operations-where every second counts-you simply don't have the time for perfection.
So I focus on progress. On injecting positive energy into the process. On taking steps forward.
The thing about progress is that it's almost always incremental-even when the demands on us are not.
Sometimes it involves steps forward, and sometimes it involves steps backward.
That's okay. That's better than no steps at all.
When we obsess over perfectionism, we fail to see what could be, or if you prefer: perfection is the enemy of good.
The third idea I want to share is this: as a leader, my focus is on always doing my best.
Pretty simple, but
In our high performance-driven society, doing your best can even sound a little defeatist.
But it's not.
I talked before about things we cannot control-what other people think or what our adversaries ultimately do.
The one thing we can always control is ourselves.
Our preparation. Our mindset. And our actions.
And so these are the things I focus on.
Of course, doing our best doesn't mean we don't care about the outcome.
By adopting a mindset where we focus on doing our best, we can protect ourselves against unpredictable outcomes and things beyond our control.
Doing our best doesn't mean we don't care about results.
When we focus on what we can control and do our best, success does not go to our head and failure does not destroy us-because we will know we've given it our all.
The fourth and final idea I want to share tonight is the importance of grace under pressure.
The fact is: kindness is invincible, and anger far from being heroic.
Self-control takes strength and it takes courage.
It's also contagious. It has a calming effect on everyone around us-especially when things go wrong.
The ability to handle pressure with grace creates an environment where creativity, innovation, and problem-solving can thrive-even in the harshest circumstances.
Whether you're in the middle of combat or in another situation entirely, that's exactly the kind of environment you want.
This doesn't mean we don't ever feel tired, frustrated, or afraid.
Those feelings come up in operations-especially in the fog of war, where chaos, risk, and uncertainty are around us.
And they come up when we are transforming an institution, as we're doing in Canada's military right now.
But when leaders keep cool under pressure-this actually means that-they resist the urge to take things personally and instead focus on the task at hand.
When they remain in control of their emotions, they're able to face even the most difficult situations with a clear mind.
These four ideas--being comfortable with uncomfortable situations, avoiding perfectionism, doing one's best and showing grace under pressure--have served me well throughout my career.
In peace and in war.
And today, they are still useful to me in my role as Chief of the Defence Staff.
Some of these ideas I've learned the hard way, through trial and error.
Others I've learned via the study of humanities.
And while I don't always succeed at putting them into practice, they have grounded me and guided me when I needed them most.
I hope they can do the same for you.
Thank you so much for this great honour and wonderful evening.
Thank you for all the important work you're doing. Merci beaucoup.
General Jennie Carignan
Chief of the Defence Staff
