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The Military Leader

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Simon Sinek’s Advice for the Military’s Sexual Assault Problem

by John Gassman

Simon Sinek is an ethnographer who has written two books on leadership: Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action and Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t. His books are a study of leaders in action and he often uses military examples to illustrate his points. (In fact, Major General Jimmie Jaye Wells at US Army FORSCOM is using Leaders Eat Last as a part of his Professional Reading Program Forum.)

Simon Sinek is also a TED contributor and his two recorded talks are powerful tools for military leaders. His first talk, recorded in September 2009, is about How Great Leaders Inspire Action. If you haven’t watched it yet, stop reading right now and go watch it. If you ever found yourself looking for a way to explain why commander’s intent is so important, this is the kick-starter you wanted.

His more recent TED talk, titled Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe, holds a mirror up to military leaders and offers some fantastic insights into trust, safety, and teamwork. If you’re looking for a way to talk to your leaders about sexual harassment, equal opportunity, or suicide prevention, this can be a powerful tool to start the conversation.

Simon Sinek

“We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”
     ~ Omar Bradley

“Opportunity is missed by most because is it dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
     ~ Thomas Edison

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How to Leverage Digital Leader Development

by Mike Denny

As an Army National Guard officer, I get infrequent opportunities to connect in person with my junior officers. To hold effective leader development sessions, I learned that I have to engage outside of our 63 days together a year. But in the past few months, I felt that I was not effectively developing a cadet or my staff Lieutenants, many of whom are relegated to assistant to the assistant duties.

Luckily, some talented and more seasoned officers posted leader development content that caught my attention, particularly Lieutenant Lessons…Continued and Iron Major’s Survival Guide. I shared these articles with my officers and gave them a simple homework assignment:  write a one page essay outlining their views on the articles.

(It may sound asinine to tell Army officers to write a simple report, but as often discussed on #CCLKOW and #MILPME on Twitter, the ability to write coherently and simplistically is dying art in the midst of today’s PowerPoint decision making methodologies.)

Then, Joe Byerly provided inspiration with his Company Command Article on developing a team through a digital LPD. Digital leader development typically refers to professional products stored on mobile devices for easy access, and but also represents the methods leaders use to connect external enablers to the unit (videos, speakers, or directly by phone or Skype).

I took action to develop our own. Here is how we did it.

Leader development

Sgt. 1st Class Jason Wright, Observer Controller, HHC Joint Multinational Readiness Center, coaches, teaches and mentors Canadian Soldiers from I Company, 2nd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment during practice for a live fire event Wednesday during Cooperative Spirit 2008 at JMRC near Hohenfels, Germany. Cooperative Spirit 2008 is a multinational Combat Training Center rotation intended to test interoperability among the American, British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand armies (ABCA). Link to photo.
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Forging Adaptive Leaders Through Crucible Training

by Chris Ingram

Are your teams capable of adapting to a rapidly changing environment? Do you have the best people in positions of leadership to deal with chaos? There are two ways we find out: in combat, or before. To answer these critical questions about our teams and our leaders, we often use a historically successful model: the crucible training event.

To do this, at the Company, Battalion, Brigade, or even Division level, crucible training must be well-defined, include the proper mix of participants, and evaluate the right set of skills in a way the challenges individuals and grows adaptive teams.

This is a guest post by Army Infantry Officer, Medium blogger, and Military Writer’s Guild member, Christopher Ingram. Connect with him on Twitter @chrisgingram.

training

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18 Ways to Mitigate Off-Duty Risk

Last week’s post, “The Leader’s Role in Preventing Off-Duty Risk,” tackled the varying perspectives surrounding the issue of how far leaders should involve themselves in subordinate lives to prevent off-duty risk. Too much involvement, and resentment and mistrust develop. Too little involvement, and potentially destructive problems grow unnoticed. Leaders hold passionate opinions on all sides of the discussion, but it’s a safe conclusion that this area is truly the art of leadership.

Today’s post is all about The How, the methods that leaders on every side of the discussion can use to achieve their intent. The mindful leader will devote time, organizational energy, and cognitive space to figuring out how to engage his or her people in this critical area of leadership.

Risk

ROTC cadets take a break from Leader Development and Assessment Course training to engage in a question and answer session with Lt. Gen. Benjamin C. Freakley, commander of U.S. Army Accessions Command and Training and Doctrine Command’s deputy commanding general for initial military training, July 19, at Fort Lewis, Wash. Link to photo.
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The Leader’s Role in Preventing Off-Duty Risk

Ah yes, the age-old question:  How involved should leaders be in the personal lives of Soldiers to prevent risk?

I posed a question on Twitter that led to a discussion about mitigating off-duty risk. How can leaders protect Soldiers while still providing them autonomy? Why do Soldiers need protecting at all? They’re adults, right?

risk

Every time I’ve witnessed a discussion on this topic, passionate people express valid points stemming from very personal beliefs about leadership. This post will examine the Twitter exchange and the next post will provide methods leaders can use to creatively mitigate off-duty risk.

To spend a few minutes with people is simply not productive. If one wants to get anything across, one has to spend a fairly large minimum quantum of time.

The manager who things that he can discuss the plans, direction, and performance of one of his subordinates in fifteen minutes – and many managers believe this – is just deceiving himself. If one wants to get to the point of having an impact, one needs probably at least an hour and usually more.

And if one has to establish a human relationship, one needs infinitely more time.

Peter F. Drucker
The Effective Executive (New York: Harper, 2006), 29
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How Do You Spot a Leader?

The leader must behave differently than those they lead. They are in position because their ability surpasses those around them and they can be counted on to make a difference. Leaders display elevated influence.

Now look inward, and analyze your own leadership traits in light of these questions:

If an outsider were to look in on your organization without explanation or even the capability to hear what was going on…would they be able to tell that you are the leader? What traits would they be looking for to explain who is in charge?

Leader

Soldiers from the 2nd Combined Arms Battalion, 34th Armor Regiment, 1st Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, race for first place during an annual Physical Training Competition on Fort Riley, Kansas. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Robert DeDeaux, 1st Infantry Brigade, 1st Inf. Div. Public Affairs. Link to photo.