Ken Davis, 54, spent just over 30 years in the military, retiring as a rear admiral in the Navy in 2016. In his last military role, he was second-in-command of public affairs for the Navy at the Pentagon while simultaneously holding a full-time civilian job with Homeland Security in Anniston, Alabama.
There is no place like Afghanistan to show your leadership reflexes. You have to know how to perform on your own, which first means controlling your emotional temperature and making sure you don’t add to the crisis. There’s no live chat support there.
So in 2012 when a suicide car bomb exploded 200 yards away from his office in Afghanistan and shook the walls, Kent Davis (J.D. ’98) did not spring from the chair behind his desk and rush out the door with his 9-millimeter pistol to meet the enemy. He paused and listened for the pitch of the sirens that can give a clue to the mayhem outside. Then he put on his helmet and ceramic body armor, and he kept the 9 mm weapon in its holster.
Kent Davis (J.D. '98) in Afghanistan
This is what leaders do. They follow protocol before they ask you to follow them.
There were dead Afghan security personnel and, even more tragically, dead children who had been walking to school when the car exploded at the base gate. Davis, a captain in Navy Public Affairs and one of the senior officers on the base, helped secure the situation.
“In Afghanistan you are in battle dress uniform the whole time you are there. The body armor is right next to you; you get ready first,” said Davis, who also served in war-torn Somalia. “I learned what we call in the Navy ‘keeping an even keel,’ and that is vital for any leader. As a leader, you cannot freak out, you cannot get overly emotional, you cannot lose your temper with people or the situation.
“People look to you for a sense of calm, and if they see you panicking, they tend to panic themselves. It’s the role of the leader to say, ‘We can handle this’ and make the right decision.”
Davis, 54, spent just over 30 years in the military, retiring as a rear admiral in the Navy in 2016. In his last military role, he was second-in-command of public affairs for the Navy at the Pentagon while simultaneously holding a full-time civilian job with Homeland Security in Anniston, Alabama.
He left Homeland Security to become the city manager of Anniston in 2016. As the chief executive of the east Alabama city, Davis is, as always, near the top of the chain of command. What he has learned is that poise is an essential part of leadership, more essential than barking orders and being overly authoritative.
Here’s what he lives by as a leader:
“When you are leading people, you have to recognize that everyone has something to contribute. You try to recognize the strengths of those individuals and play to their strengths to make them part of the team, asking yourself, ‘Where do those strengths fit into the chain?’
“You have to listen as a leader. You want everybody to feel involved and a part of the organization.”
Davis is well trained to lead the city of Anniston and its 23,000 citizens and the 350-person city staff. While he worked his full-time job for Homeland Security, he was also a rear admiral in charge of 700 reservists. He had to manage the reservists’ training and their possible deployment overseas to places like Afghanistan in this “part-time” job.
“You make a call to a reserve to tell them they are being deployed to Afghanistan, and you are changing their life in a big way for a year,” Davis said.
One of his key jobs in the military was helping oversee 3,000 al-Qaida and Taliban detainees in Afghanistan. The United States was under scrutiny for how it handled these detainees, and the eyes of the world—the United Nations, human rights organizations, international media—were on the United States to see if it could follow the rule of law it preached to other countries.
Davis is not licensed to practice law in Alabama, but his legal background comes in handy. He was an attorney in labor and employment law for King & Spalding for two years before joining Homeland Security. The city manager, he said, is faced with a legal conundrum nearly every week.
“We have an issue with a contested election here in Anniston,” Davis said. “I told our staff, ‘We are a neutral party, do not take sides, treat everyone with respect.’”
Those are the words of a leader.