Tag Archives: Articles

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Article: “Leadership Lessons from a Three Star General”

“Leadership is deliberate: You don’t accidentally have successful teams.”
Lieutenant General (ret) Frank Kearney, US Army

This short read about leadership lessons from Lieutenant General Frank Kearney is worth a few minutes. LTG Kearney was speaking t0 business leaders at the Thayer Leader Development Group at West Point and explained several of the basic military leadership principles. His thoughts are a good reminder to do the basics, which we sometimes take for granted.

A few of them are:

  • “You have a responsibility to everyone you bring into an organization and that means having the courage to give candid feedback.”
  • Effective communication is a three-part process:  Issue Orders, Backbrief, and Refine Guidance
  • “You have to know what right looks like for each role in the organization.”

This article was originally published by Jenna Goudreau at Business Insider online on May 27, 2014.

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12 Things Good Bosses Believe (Rule #8)

One of the best tests of my leadership — and my organization —
is “what happens after people make a mistake?”

Robert Sutton’s 12 Things Good Bosses Believe continues to provide insight for military leaders. Sutton explains that of his five books on business and leadership, #8 is the most important lesson:

Failure is inevitable, so the key to success is to be good at learning from it. The ability to capitalize on hard-won experience is a hallmark of the greatest organizations — the ones that are most adept at turning knowledge into action, that are best at developing and implementing creative ideas, that engage in evidence-based (rather than faith- or fear-based) management, and that are populated with the best bosses.

The military has a lineage of “no fail” leadership. There are clearly times when error, failure, or underperformance are unacceptable. (On this 70th anniversary, the D-Day landings at Normandy come to mind.)

D-Day Landings

There are also times (I’m sure you can recall from your own experience) when military leaders have exercised “no fail” leadership in situations that were slightly less decisive as D-Day. Unit meetings in garrison come to mind, where I’ve observed a commander routinely rip into the staff for minor (and often unavoidable) deviances from his perfect expectations. What is a person or team to do when they offer their best effort only to be cut down and reminded of their failings?

There are basically three responses to failure:

  1. Nobody notices. In the military, not identifying failure is worse than overreacting to it. Given the importance of our military mission, this typically does not happen in the areas of warfighting. However…don’t forget that “what doesn’t get checked often doesn’t get done.” It’s easy to assume that areas like counseling and property management are “good to go” and not identify a problem until critical system failure.
  2. The team gets crushed. In this case, the individual or team gives it their best but falls short, and the leader gives no allowance for not meeting the standard. Sometimes a leader has to intentionally do so to make a point, but leading without allowance for failure destroys creativity, morale, and learning.
  3. The leader uses failure to grow the team. Provided that failure wasn’t illegal, immoral, or unethical, the leader should use every opportunity to calmly walk the individual/team through a process to objectively capture the facts, identify successes as well as faults, and then extrapolate the appropriate lessons. This leader assumes that everyone is doing their best and wants to learn. And when the leader couples this process with positive feedback for the parts that went well, the result is immeasurably productive.

The effects of having a measured response and using failure to grow will be twofold:

  1. Productivity will increase. The team members will feel inspired to seek excellence, won’t be afraid of failure, and will be enabled to try new methods.
  2. Trickle down effect. Your subordinate leaders will follow the leader’s example and treat their teams in a similar way, which elevates the entire organization’s growth.

Questions for Leaders:

  • What determines how you react to failure? Your mood? The severity of the failure? The frequency of failures?
  • What is your threshold for what is an acceptable failure and what is not? Have you clarified your philosophy to your team?
  • Do you know how your subordinates react to their team’s failures?

Leave your comments below and be sure to share your thoughts with your team.

“12 Things Good Bosses Believe” was published on the Harvard Business Review online leadership blog May 28, 2010.

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Article to Veterans: “9 Reasons Why I Won’t Hire You”

There’s a lot of truth to the idea that our responsibility as military leaders goes beyond training our Soldiers to be good Soldiers. I am of the firm belief that we also have an obligation to make them better men/women, better fathers/mothers, and better citizens that will contribute with a lifetime of service, even outside the military.

Be sure to pass on this article from Business Insider.

The Bottom Line is a tough fact to accept:

Veterans often feel entitled to a well-paying job following active duty and
don’t do enough to prepare for the reality they will face after transitioning.

Here are some takeaways that service members at ALL RANKS could benefit from refining before they depart:

  • You Can’t (or Won’t) Accept That You’re Starting Over
  • You Don’t Know What You Want to Do
  • You Believe You’re Unique (Just Like Everyone Else)
  • You Didn’t Prepare For The Interview

“Thank You For Your Military Service – Now Here Are 9 Reasons Why I Won’t Hire You” by Sultan Camp was published by Business Insider on January 3, 2014.

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War on the Rocks Interview with GEN Martin Dempsey

War on the Rocks Interview with GEN Martin Dempsey

Hear the Chairman describe how the US will keep the force highly-trained and ready despite the constrained fiscal environment:

The sacred responsibility is to ensure that we never send a man or woman into combat unless they are prepared – best-trained, best-led, best-equipped and prepared to overmatch any adversary decisively, you know. And those words are carefully chosen. You know, we don’t want to just win. You know, we want to win 50 to 1, not 5 to 4 because we should be able to do that, you know; the nation has given us the resources necessary to do that.

Toward the end of the article, he also explains that the phased, structured approach to operations planning may be mistaken:

Once you introduce yourself into an experiment, you change the outcome. And I think that’s true. And that’s somewhat how I’ve watched the use of the military instrument evolve over time, where, in particular in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think we’d have to admit that although we had what we thought was a definable end state and a series of objectives, that when we touched it, it changed it. And when it changed it, we then had to adjust the end state because some of it became literally infeasible and others opened up opportunities.

I think we’ve got to develop strategic thinkers who, although they understand how to – how to identify an end state, back plan, phase – you know, put in these extraordinarily exquisite phases – that’s all important work, but it’s not actually the way it plays out. The way it plays out is once you touch it, it changes and then you’ve got to be adaptable.

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Article: Curve Ball for General McChrystal

Check out General Stanley McChrystal’s LinkedIn article about the abrupt end to his Soldiering career. He discusses his mindset in light of the events. 

Falls closely in line with Powell’s statement: “Never let your ego get so close to your position, that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.”

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140422120137-86145090-career-curveballs-no-longer-a-soldier?fb_action_ids=10202475592943655&fb_action_types=og%2Elikes

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Lieutenant Lessons…Continued

In his 2014 article, Army First Lieutenant Scott Ginther related 20 lessons from his path from West Point Cadet to Platoon Leader in Afghanistan. (Find it here.)

Much credit goes to 1LT Ginther for clearly learning the right lessons as a young leader, and for taking the time to capture and share them with the force. I offer the following thoughts as an addendum to his insights, and intend them to show how the leadership environment changes in the transition from Lieutenant to Commander and Field Grade officer.

Lieutenant

CAPTION
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Article: “Why Aren’t You Delegating?” (HBR)

You seem to work longer hours than everyone else…
You feel totally indispensable…
You feel like you’re the only one who is energized…
You feel like no one else can do as good a job as you could on a project…

You know where this is going…if these statements describe you, you might not be delegating like you should.

Take a look at HBR’s article “Why Aren’t You Delegating?”

If you’re a military staff officer, you already feel overtasked. That’s the nature of our business; the military has far-reaching influence and responsibility that translates into ceaseless action. If you’re a commander, you can protect your unit from unnecessary tasks…to an extent. But there’s never a shortage of due-outs.

Two reasons why military leaders don’t delegate very well:

  1. We Don’t Say “NO” 
    The military has a unique socio-professional quality that makes it difficult for leaders to say NO to anything that ultimately helps Soldiers.  Good ideas flourish in the military, especially because most everyone cares about making a difference. But not all good ideas are worthy of your or the unit’s time. Leaders can help themselves by being draconian about priorities and by actively directing subordinate energy to line up with them. Practice this response:  “That’s a great idea. Thanks for the showing the initiative to suggest it, but it doesn’t support the commander’s priorities right now and we’re not doing it.” (Adjust your phrasing if you’re telling your commander his idea isn’t in line with his priorities.)
  2. We Don’t TEACH
    It is common practice on staffs to assign staff tasks without verifying or teaching the skills to complete them. The leader usually informs the subordinate, “I don’t have time to walk you through how to do it” or “You should be able to figure it out.” Then, when the project comes in for revision, the leader becomes frustrated with its lack of quality and takes over. The process is unfair for the junior and horribly inefficient for the team. Smart leaders will spend time to push knowledge down the chain, which elevates the quality of all the projects, saves time, and grows junior members for their own careers.

Here are some skill areas you probably need to review with your staff:

  • Professional writing and grammar
  • Formatting guidelines for your organization (i.e. Operations Order format, presentation slide format)
  • Email organization and etiquette
  • Tips and shortcuts on the Microsoft Office suite
  • Basic keyboard shortcuts (Copy, Paste, Undo, etc.)
  • SharePoint procedures and shortcuts
  • File sharing and collaboration techniques

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10 Life Lessons and Leadership

Here are 10 Life Lessons we all should pay attention to.

http://markmanson.net/10-life-lessons-excel-30s

What does this have to do with Leadership?

I recommend reading the entire article, but consider these:

3. Don’t Spend Time with People Who Don’t Treat You Well

Who we spend our time with determines who we are. Surround yourself with people who will elevate your intellect, talent, and confidence. Shape your organization so that your team doesn’t have to spend their day with someone who treats them poorly (i.e. get rid of the jerks).

5. You can’t have everything; Focus On Doing a Few Things Really Well

Prioritize your energy and your time, and do the same for your team. They’ll appreciate it.

7. You Must Continue to Grow and Develop Yourself

Simply put, when the individual grows, the organization grows. If you lead others, then you also have the responsibility to become a better person. Not doing so is arguably unjust.

Incidentally, #2 is “Start Taking Care of Your Health Now, Not Later”…so, get out and do some PT.

(thanks to my wife for sharing this article)

http://markmanson.net/10-life-lessons-excel-30s