Leadership - need for accurate information (the truth)

Quotes from "Hue, 1968" by Mark Bowden. Page 25

"The truth was bent at every fold for reasons that went beyond propaganda to self-interest, sycophancy, and wishful thinking. In Hanoi there was no pretense of truth whatsoever; 'facts' were what served the party's mission. American commanders, on the other hand, supposedly embraced a more enlightened standard. Accurate information was essential to war planning, and, unlike Hanoi, the United States was dogged at every turn by an independent press. But, in practice, there was every incentive for field commanders to inflate or even invent body counts. It was how their performance was assessed, and it became one of the greatest self-reporting scams in history. Everyone knew it was going on. Some of the more senior commanders discouraged the practice, but it was so widespread-and so hard to disprove-that few if any field officers were ever disciplined for it. No one in a position to know better took the numbers that emerged form this process seriously. But Westy was far enough removed to embrace them. He was the last man up the self-reporting chain. The absurd body counts and kill ratios were proof of his leadership. He sold them to LBJ, who in turn presented them as fact to the American people."