24/7: The First Person You Must Lead Is You (Steadfast Leadership Series)
Becky Halstead, retired brigadier general, US Army, is a 1981 graduate of the United States Military Academy. Becky achieved a historic milestone as the first female graduate of West Point to be promoted to general officer. As the senior commanding general for logistics in Iraq, she was the first female in US history to command in combat at the strategic level. In Iraq she was responsible for leading over two hundred multidisciplinary units (twenty thousand military and five thousand civilians), providing supply, maintenance, transportation and distribution support to over 250,000 personnel serving in Iraq. The culmination of Becky’s career came in 2006 when she became the first female chief of ordnance and commanding general of the Army’s Ordnance Center and Schools (equivalent to president of a university). Becky honorably served with the US Army and retired as a general officer in 2008.   Becky has over fifteen years of executive-level leadership experience, developing and training high-performing, complex, and diverse units capable of strategic planning and execution. She has a record of leading change, building successful teams in demanding environments (Afghanistan and Iraq), and creating innovative systems and programs to solve complex problems. In addition to an experienced leader and logistician, Becky is known as a highly effective communicator. She founded her own leader consultancy company, STEADFAST Leadership, with the intent of extending lessons learned in the military to the civilian world. She specializes in inspirational speaking, consulting, and advising, and serves as a member of multiple military, corporate, and nonprofit boards of advisers. Becky was a recipient of the 2007 National Women’s History Project award for “Generations of Women Moving History Forward.” She also served as a commissioner on the President’s Military Leadership Diversity Commission from 2009 to 2010. Becky’s STEADFAST Leadership model was the subject of a 2011 Harvard Business School Leadership Case Study.