S5:E169🎙️ LIVE with COL Dennis Katolin, PhD, USMC 🇺🇸🦅⚔️

S5:E169🎙️ LIVE with COL Dennis Katolin, PhD, USMC 🇺🇸🦅⚔️

Ethics Wins Wars: Leadership, Trust & Adaptation in the Information Age

 

What happens to our values when everything becomes hard?

And what if ethics isn't simply about doing the right thing—but is actually a source of trust, speed, cohesion, and operational effectiveness?

 

Join me for the next episode of the Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ for a fascinating conversation with COL Dennis Katolin, PhD, USMC—Marine officer, combat veteran, commander, strategist, educator, author, and leading advocate for treating ethics as an essential component of warfighting.

 

📅 Thursday, August 13, 2026

⏰ 8:00 AM PT — San Francisco, CA

⏰ 11:00 AM ET — Washington, D.C.

📍 LIVE on LinkedIn → [RSVP & Join the Discussion]

 

🌟 Meet My Guest

Colonel Katolin has served our nation for more than two decades, including combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and leadership assignments spanning communications, cyber, information operations, education, planning, and command.

He commanded Marine Wing Communications Squadron 28, where his Marines developed the Marine Corps' first Information Maneuver SOP. He also helped initiate and co-author MCDP 8, Information, and his career has taken him from 1st Battalion, 7th Marines to the Deputy Commandant for Information, MARFORCYBER, Marine Corps Information Command, and back to the 1st Marine Division.

 

Dennis is also a third-degree black belt instructor trainer in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program and an accomplished scholar. He holds a PhD from Virginia Tech and graduate degrees from the National War College, Marine Corps University, and National University.

 

His newest book, Strategic Culture, Military Adaptation, and the Information Environment: A Comparative Study, examines how the United States, China, Russia, and the United Kingdom have adapted to an information environment increasingly blurring the boundaries among military operations, political authority, technology, and society.

 

But perhaps his most provocative argument is captured in three words:

ETHICS WINS WARS.

Dennis argues that ethics isn't separate from combat effectiveness.

Ethics → Reliability → Trust → Cooperation → Cohesion → Combat Power.

When trust increases, friction decreases. Leaders can delegate. Teams can exercise initiative. Decisions accelerate. Organizations become more resilient.

That principle applies on the battlefield—and in the boardroom.

 

🎯 What You Will Learn

✨ Why ethics can be an operational advantage, not merely a constraint on behavior.

✨ How trust and cohesion create speed and enable decentralized leadership.

✨ What Dennis calls “moral culmination”—and why leaders should prepare people for physical, mental, AND moral pressure.

✨ Why America's military needs more than values statements and ethics classes—and Dennis's case for an actual ethics doctrine.

✨ What combat in Iraq and Afghanistan taught him about leadership, character, loss, and moral preparation.

✨ Why human judgment, character, trust, and ethical leadership may become even MORE important in the age of artificial intelligence.

 

💬 Join the Conversation!

🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, region, or country in the comments!

🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?

💬 Got a question about leadership, ethics, trust, AI, strategic culture, information warfare, or the future of conflict for COL Katolin? Post it below—we will answer as many as possible LIVE!

⸻

👇 Your Turn:

✨ What are your three takeaways from this episode?

✨ What's one leadership insight you're applying this week?

✨ Does your organization have an ethical decision-making framework—or simply a values statement on the wall?

✨ Tag a colleague, junior officer, emerging leader, veteran, cybersecurity professional, or teammate who could benefit from this conversation. ❤️🙏🏾

 

Mission FIRST. People ALWAYS.

 

#LeadershipAndSuccess #CoachBZ #EthicsWinsWars