Send to KindleSeveral of us were standing around a table discussing the good and bad of young people in the workplace. When a member of the group complained that his young workers were not as productive as he wished and just didn’t seem to be able to “get it,” I suggested a technique to lead these people through mutual understanding of mission and goals and helping the younger workers learn as a method of engendering loyalty. I mentioned that, in some ways, older generations have abdicated a responsibility to teach, opting instead to change our behaviors to meet their desires. One of the members of the discussion immediately referred to my military experience saying that it was easy in the military to make people do what you want them to because they have to obey. He professed that it wasn’t as easy without military law as an overriding threat to non-compliance.
That statement was at once correct and incorrect. Correct in that military members do have a legal obligation to follow orders and superiors often have legal remedies to non-compliance. Incorrect in that the legal sledgehammer is a very ineffective and inefficient way to obtain loyalty and effective behavior from subordinates.
Yes, I’ve known military leaders who accomplish their goals through the brute force of legal authority. Sometimes they are successful and some even make it to the top ranks of the service. However, more commonly they stall out somewhere because that approach alienates their subordinates and does not engender the sort of loyalty that makes an organization excel. But, I’ve also known non-military leaders who use this approach as well; usually with the same results.
In a Harvard Business Review blog post last year, Colonel Tom Kolditz, a professor at the U.S. Military Academy, wrote that good military leadership is based on the values of duty, service, and self-sacrifice. These are the qualities of a good leader, whether in the military or civilian sector. It is the leader who understands their duty to the organization; who knows they are serving that organization and the people in it; and who is willing to sacrifice their own desires for the greater good that will be successful.
In my military service I was twice in unusual situations where I did not have the normal legal (or financial) sledgehammer, but still had broad responsibilities to accomplish a specific mission. In both cases I had small staffs (most of whom had no particular requirement to follow me, at least not in the normal military sense) but national, and even international, responsibilities for which I had no real authority. I found in both cases that one didn’t need brute force to accomplish goals. By treating people with respect, learning their needs and motivations, and doing my best to meet them while ensuring we all accomplished the overall mission, we were able to meet our goals and move the entire organization forward.
The military services have learned that a leader who works to understand and inspire his or her subordinates will be more successful than a leader who relies only on the brute force tools that may be available. They also understand that the troops need a leader who will stay with them; who understands and shares their hardships. No not all military leaders get it. But, the good ones do.
Col Kolditz’s excellent article can be found at http://blogs.hbr.org/frontline-leadership/2009/02/why-the-military-produces-grea.html.
Bob Mason
http://www.planleadexcel.com
