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Having Influence that Echoes

One interesting aspect of hosting The Military Leader is that I get to see the website’s viewership stats. Unlike counterinsurgency, online writing has a clear way to measure results. Google Analytics provides detailed reports on the number and locations of visitors, time spent on pages, number of shares, and lots more data that I don’t get into. (Here’s a post about The Military Leader data.)

What’s neat is when people discover and share some of the older posts, causing a spike in that page’s traffic for a day or two. This happened recently and I found it fascinating that thoughts I had months ago were continuing to provide meaning and value for people. The metaphor to leadership hit me like a truck.

Leadership That Echoes

In his search to be a great leader, the young centurion sought out the Republic’s veteran warrior. Looking up from his labor, the sage spoke:

“I know not what beats beneath your tunic, but what I saw in a leader from foot soldiers to proconsul is thus:

One who makes drill bloodless combat and combat bloody drill…
One who disciplines the offense and not the offenders…
One whose heart is with the Legion and whose loyalty is to the Republic…
One who seeks the companionship of the long march and not the privilege of position…
One whose commission is assigned from above and confirmed from below…
One who knows the self and, therefore, is true to all…
One who seeks to serve and not to be served…

This is the one who leads best of all.”

LTC Jeffrey Spara (USA)
Military Leadership: In Pursuit of Excellence (Boulder: Westview, 1996), 71
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5 Must-Have Conversations for Military Leaders

I learned an important lesson on the first day of my new command in a headquarters company in 2007. I had already commanded a rifle company and thought that I had pretty much honed the skills needed to succeed again. (Maybe I was giving myself too much credit?…a topic for another post.) The change of command ceremony concluded and I walked into my new office to find my First Sergeant waiting. He said, “Sir, do you have a few minutes?” “Of course,” I replied.

What followed was one of the most enabling and professionally developing exchanges I’ve had in my entire career. Yes, this First Sergeant is exceptionally talented and would teach me more about leadership than any other NCO I’ve worked with, but the conversation was powerful because he and I synchronized how we would lead the company together. We discussed everything from combat to family readiness to weight control. We spent hours together that day and set the tone for success because we got aligned from day one.

Today, I think back on that experience and realize that I would’ve been a fool NOT to have had that conversation, and that there are actually a few more areas in the military leader’s life where a frank and honest conversation is necessary to enable success.

Conversation

Command Sgt. Maj. Frank A. Grippe, command senior enlisted leader for U.S. Central Command, speaks with soldiers of Apache Company, 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, on a foot patrol in the Panjwaâi district of southern Afghanistan, Sept. 22, 2012. Grippe visited the soldiers as part of his visit to Regional Command (South). Link to photo.

The discipline which makes the soldiers of a free country reliable in battle is not to be gained by harsh or tyrannical treatment. On the contrary, such treatment is far more likely to destroy than to make an army. It is possible to impart instruction and give commands in such a manner and such a tone of voice as to inspire in the soldier no feeling but an intense desire to obey, while the opposite manner and tone of voice cannot fail to excite strong resentment and a desire to disobey.

The one mode or the other in dealing with subordinates springs from a corresponding spirit in the breast of the commander. He who feels the respect which is due to others cannot fail to inspire in them respect for himself; while he who feels, and hence manifests, disrespect toward others, especially his subordinates, cannot fail to inspire hatred against himself.

– LTG John M. Schofield, 1879

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Leaders Hold the Dominant Terrain

“Remember that when an employee enters your office,
he is in a strange land.”  -Erwin H. Schell

Erwin Schell’s quote is partly about your physical office, which can be a foreign and scary place for everyone you lead. But the statement is also about how you wield power when your people enter the domain of your influence.

When you’re the recognized leader, you automatically hold the dominant terrain at the outset of every engagement. Of course, this is especially true in the military, where command authority is the ultimate trump card and rank is clearly displayed on our uniforms. Your people know who is in charge – you don’t need to restate it.

What will outlive your professional accomplishments is the way you enable individuals to feel capable and powerful, despite the obvious fact that you hold ultimate authority.

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8 Myths About HRC Assignment Officers

Some officers serve half their career before speaking with their Assignment Officer at Human Resources Command. Commonly heard beliefs include: “If you get on Branch’s radar, they’ll send you to Korea”; “Just lay low and let your commanders speak on your behalf”; and “I plan to stay with troops as long as I can, so I don’t need HRC’s help.”

I’ve worked as an Assignment Officer for almost a year and I recommend against holding on to such beliefs. Further, I think most people hesitate to engage with their Assignment Officer because they really don’t know who is on the other end of the phone. Hopefully this post provides you some clarity about who is helping you navigate your career.

HRC Assignment Officers

The U.S. Army Human Resources Command (HRC) has completed its Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) move to Fort Knox, Ky. Currently, HRC’s new home in the Lt. Gen. Timothy J. Maude Complex employs about 3,300 military, civilian and contract workers. The nearly 900,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility is the largest office building in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Photo by Robert Stevenson, Fort Knox Visual Information. Link to photo.
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Rangers Get a Legitimate Voice in New Book

Ranger

Rangers from Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment and a multi-purpose canine pause during a nighttime combat mission in Afghanistan. Courtesy U.S. Army. Link to photo.

“Violence of Action: The Untold Stories of the 75th Ranger Regiment in the War on Terror”

Veterans often feel underwhelmed by accounts of war that carry a tone of glory-seeking or inaccurately represent the reality of combat. Today’s media landscape affords any veteran the opportunity to publicize his/her thoughts, and only a few of those accounts will be widely lauded. Almost none will be so highly regarded that they serve as a literary memorial to those who served.

Violence of Action: The Untold Stories of the 75th Ranger Regiment in the War on Terror will be one of those books. And I want to recommend a review of the book on Task and Purpose, made by a colleague of mine whose prose grabs the heart of the book and does it justice.

Here are some excerpts, but read his review here:

Glory abounds in this piece of work, but it presents as a byproduct of raw honesty; it lacks the familiar omnipresent undertone of self-aggrandizement. Rather, Violence of Action transcends the pettiness that, truthfully, turns so many veterans off from reading first-hand accounts from other “warriors.” Glory here goes to the unit that produced so many fine Americans, their parents, their families, and their hometowns. Rangers don’t seek glory, and only relish it among one another, no books required.

Violence of Action has more healing power than any prescription. This book belongs on the bedside table of so many service members and veterans — Rangers or otherwise — when they wake up in the middle of the night, because there is a story in this book that will help them reconcile. It is so very hard to relate combat experiences to others, even veterans from other wars. Yet it is vital to relate and to connect with those who have shared, suffered, and lost on the same ground.

Read the rest and be sure to leave your comments on the page and on Amazon.

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