This may seem a little odd, but in my book, we should all celebrate June 25 as “Bad Management Day,” a day when we ponder all the terrible management decisions made each year by so many overpaid, puffed-up egomaniacs like former Chrysler head Bob Nardelli and current Tribune CEO (and foul-mouthed journalist hater) Sam Zell.

Why June 25? Well, it’s because one of the worst management decisions of all time was made back on June 25, 1876, by one of the most puffed-up egomaniacal executives of all time: Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, who made a fateful decision that day to engage more than 2,000 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors with only about 210 members of the 7th U.S. Cavalry along the Little Bighorn River in southeastern Montana.

Of such terrible management decisions is history made. So it was for Custer, who paid for his bad decisions with his life—and the lives of his men—in a battle now remembered as the Battle of the Little Bighorn, or “Custer’s Last Stand.”

How bad was Custer’s management decision-making that day?

Let us count the ways:

1. He wouldn’t listen to others: Custer was told to hold off on any attack and wait for reinforcements that were being led by Brig. Gen. Alfred Terry, but impatience got the better of him and pushed Custer to act. Terry and his reinforcements arrived one day after the battle, on June 27.

 2. He didn’t have proper respect for his competition: Custer was guilty of hubris, just like so many modern executives. He grossly underestimated the number of Indian warriors facing him, downplayed their talents and failed to understand the technological advantage the competition had. While Custer’s troops were generally armed with single-shot Springfield rifles, the Indians mostly had repeating rifles. A little less ego might have helped Custer to better respect what he was up against.

3. He focused on the wrong issue: Custer’s focus wasn’t on fighting and defeating the Indians who were itching to fight him at the Little Bighorn. His misguided concern was that he needed to trap them and prevent their escape. That’s why he split his forces into three parts, diluting his overall strength. The other two units of the 7th Cavalry, led by Capt. Frederick Benteen and Maj. Marcus Reno, survived a fierce two-day fight that ended when Terry’s reinforcements arrived.

4. He was badly outmanaged: Custer was overmatched by Indian leader Sitting Bull, who lured him into a fight on his schedule, in a place of his choosing, with a much superior force. And Sitting Bull had an able field lieutenant in Crazy Horse, who executed his leader’s plans to perfection.

5. He had incredibly bad luck: Benjamin Franklin said that luck is when preparation and opportunity meet, and that is certainly true for Sitting Bull at the Little Bighorn. The flip side is that Custer had the misfortune of deciding to engage the largest single concentration of Native American warriors ever assembled on the North American continent with an undersized and outgunned force that he stupidly split into three parts.

That’s not just bad decision-making, but also terribly bad luck.

With a couple of better management decisions and a couple of changed elements, perhaps Custer would have survived the Battle of the Little Bighorn. History would be very different had that happened.

That’s what we should keep in mind today, on Bad Management Day. Sometimes, in business and in life, there are only a couple of decisions separating glorious success and unmitigated disaster.

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