Military | All About Being "Emotionally Agile"

September 7, 2014

Five Things You Can Do To Prepare The Young To Lead

There is much to be learned from those who have served our Country by serving in the military. This is especially true if you look at some of the “specialized” organizations within the military. I am blessed to have some very dear friends who have served. One or two have served in some of our military’s most elite units. Consider the following as it relates to leadership and youth.

“We expect to lead and be led. In the absence of orders I will take charge, lead my teammates, and accomplish the mission. I lead by example in all situations.” — Navy SEAL Creed

Navy SEAL Teams are a relatively flat organization. Everyone goes through the same grueling training, and everyone is trained to lead regardless of age or rank. In the civilian world, emergent leadership is about team members stepping up and taking the initiative to accept more responsibility and to perform work outside of their general roles when called upon. If we, as leaders, encourage and promote this type of drive, our young team members will be ready to rise within the organization, and our organization will be better off for it.

Here are five ways that we can prepare our young people for leadership. But remember they are, in fact, young:

Give them a platform. Don’t hide your young leaders. Show them to the world. Let them be a feature of your organization. Encourage them to contribute to the organization’s blog if you have one. Take them along with you to trade shows and give them an opportunity to represent you in the booth. And offer them opportunities to collaborate on ways to improve the organization’s systems and offerings.

Manage them, not their output. Get the right people in the right jobs, give them a goal, but don’t micromanage their efforts. It has been my experience that when someone comes to you and says, “I am not trying to micromange, but . . . “, they are usually micromanaging! Set goals and boundaries and then back off. Allow them to be innovative and develop systems, processes, and methodologies that will accomplish the goal you set for them and that get the job done. They may and probably will do it differently than you would have done it. And that is OK. Doing this will not only result in a more confident team and better retention, but will give your team members a sense of ownership that they wouldn’t get by simply following your orders.

Let them fail. This one is hard. Continue reading “Five Things You Can Do To Prepare The Young To Lead”

May 26, 2014

Sacrificial Leadership

Real leadership often involves sacrifice. And it is the sacrifices of those that have lead the way and who have forged a path to freedom and liberty that we remember today. Now is also a time to remember those who today stand a watch that allows me to grill hamburgers in my back yard today and then lay my head on my pillow tonight in safety and security.

One of the fallacies that exist today is that the higher one goes in leadership within an organization the more freedom they will have to do what they want. Nothing can be farther from the truth. In fact it is quite the opposite. The higher one rises the less personal freedoms you have and the greater your responsibility is to those who you lead and serve.

Rodney Mills captured the essence of sacrificial leadership when he wrote on the subject of Being a Servant Leader – A Theme last September. Out of the 8 points he made, the very first one on the list was that being a servant leader requires sacrifice. That is counter culture for many of us. It is counter to human nature that you would run into a burning building while others are running from it. Nevertheless there are brave men and women who do that every day. So, developing a spirit of self-sacrifice is possible. It just isn’t intuitive. Continue reading “Sacrificial Leadership”

May 27, 2013

Memorial Day Heroes

Not all of our heroes have died in battle.

Please don’t take that the wrong way. I truly mean no disrespect. But a thought came to me as we stopped by Veteran’s Memorial Cemetery late yesterday afternoon. The thought was that heroes come in many forms. Consider if you would, the man that came home from the war and made a life for himself. He married his sweetheart. He got a job. He went to work every day. He helped his wife raise some children. He served on the church board. And he lived a full life. That man may not be a military hero. But he was a hero nonetheless.

Such can be said for both my father and my father-in-law. Both of these men served in the military. Both served in times of war. My father served during the Korean War. It was a somewhat forgotten war. Dad dodged a few bullets while in Korea and he served with honor. My father -in-law served during the Vietnam War. And if Korea was a forgotten war, then Vietnam was certainly a forgettable war to many Americans.

However, neither of these men are my hero because of what they did in the service of their Country. Both of these men are my heroes because of what they did in the service of their family. The late 1950s saw them leave the military and rejoined civilian life. And the 1960s and 1970s were times of great social upheaval in our Country’s history. It was almost social warfare. So many of their contemporaries and colleagues may have been military heroes, but they were wounded by that social warfare and went AWOL as husbands and fathers.

So, on Memorial Day and on Manday, I encourage those of us who are fathers to be a hero. Do not be AWOL. I encourage you to show up for duty every day. Be a “Hero of the Home“.

And to those of you who have lost loved ones in the service of our Country and for the sake of freedom, we at LeadershipVoices say, “Thank You” for paying the ultimate sacrifice that we can lift our voice in freedom.

Have a great Memorial Day

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April 10, 2013

As a soldier sees it

I came across another great quote the other day. But, as I am getting old and didn’t write it down, I have to try to recall it from memory. The gist of it was the way that a soldier sees leadership. Leadership as a soldier sees it went something like this:

I do not follow orders, I obey them. Instead I follow a leader.

Let that sink in for a few minutes.

Now what does that mean?

Try as I might, I just cannot get some of the courtroom scenes from “A Few Good Men” out of my head. If you take some of the military bashing out of the film you are left with some riveting dialog. At some point along the way the characters Dawson and Downey lost sight of the impact of following an order from a leader who is not worthy. They followed an order and things went terribly wrong.

The premise of the movie is not a perfect analogy for me. But it does point out to me that we need to be clear regarding those that we chose to follow. And further, we need to be aware of the impact that we have on those who follow us.

And consider this as well. We don’t always get to choose our leaders.

Are you following, obeying or leading?

Photo credit: Atfyfe / Foter.com / Public Domain Mark 1.0

November 30, 2012

Is leading a quiet activity or a loud activity?

That is a strange question. Isn’t it?

Here is what I mean. Is real leadership something that you can undertake without ever raising your voice?

My son’s kindergarten teacher was Mrs. McGrath. She was a very soft-spoken woman. In fact, whenever she needed to get the children’s attention she would whisper. No matter what was going on in the classroom and no matter how rowdy the children were, she would stop what she was doing and speak in a voice that was nearly a whisper. And one by one the children would quiet down and come over to where she was standing or sitting and would get as close to her as they could. Why? Because they wanted to know what great secret she was about to share with them.

Now contrast that with the drill sergeant that assisted my dad through basic training during the Korean War. There was probably not a lot of whispering going on there. In fact that drill sergeant probably got up close and personal and spoke in such a way as there was no way my dad misunderstood what he was saying.

Two very distinctive communication styles. Both individuals were demonstrating great leadership. But it would be hard to find two more opposite styles.

So, is leadership a quiet or loud activity?