Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.” It’s a line from a U.S. Army ballad famously quoted by Gen. Douglas MacArthur in his farewell address to the U.S. Congress in 1951. MacArthur’s leadership helped the Allies win World War II, and it was the conflict’s veterans who shaped the workplace in the years following SHRM’s founding.
The GIs based their organizations’ structures on their military experience. The result was largely rigid, hierarchical systems that demanded a respect for authority and strictly dictated working styles, hours and promotional structures. The model those old soldiers created has been fading with them—though it hasn’t been completely dismantled—as new generations march into leadership.
