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Military Leadership – The Best on the Planet. Just Remember It!
May 1, 2024
MILITARY LEADERSHIP – THE BEST ON THE PLANET. JUST REMEMBER IT!
I think this is widely recognised and accepted. Military mindset is unequalled. Military values are unequalled (resilience, can do, calm under pressure). Our servicemen and women have a remarkable capacity to make things happen even in the worst situation. They have increased loyalty with an organisation.
Military Leadership is strongly values based. Values based around courage, discipline, respect for others, integrity, loyalty and selfless commitment (straight out of the army handbook!)
Military leaders are expected to hold these values true all the time, whatever the situation. These values translate into 7 behaviours:
1. L Lead by example
2. E Encourage thinking
3. A Apply reward and discipline
4. D Demand high performance
5. E Encourage confidence in the team
6. R Recognise individual strengths and weaknesses
7. S Strive for team goals
Most of you know all this. So why am I preaching to the converted?
For 2 reasons.
1. Civvies don’t always believe it
- In my experience most civvies who have worked with military at management and Director level are somewhere between highly impressed and blown away with the value they add. The remaining others either haven’t had much experience working directly with servicemen or women or they’ve had an isolated problem (often due to their own shortcomings). It’s your job to make them believe it.
And that leads to number 2
2. You need to believe it and talk about it at every opportunity
- Civvies are experts at talking up their skills and abilities and are generally well ahead of servicemen and women about waxing lyrical about how amazing they are. This is a skill worth honing or you risk losing out to a (largely) inferior civvy.
Am I being harsh on civvies? Maybe. But I don’t care because I have seen so many positive examples of what veterans can do that it doesn’t surprise me when civvies get blown away by how good they are.
You need to learn the art of self-promotion and get comfortable with it. I am not suggesting being arrogant about it – leave that to the civvies – but it can be done in a natural fact-giving way that delivers the value and the information in the right way and positions you ahead of anyone else.
Always be thinking, “what difference have I made?” You need to show you have done one of the following:
1. Saved your employer money
2. Saved your employer time
3. MADE your employer money
4. You’ve brough increased emotional benefits
5. You’ve eased pain, suffering or negative emotions
6. You’ve led a team to do one or more of the first 5
Do this and you will always be in the frame.
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