5 Things the Military Teaches You About Leadership

Most experts will agree that leadership skills top the list of strengths gained from military experience. When Major General Marcia Anderson, the senior advisor to the Chief Army Reserve on policies and programs for the USAR, initially joined the Army’s Reserve Officer Training Program she was placed in various leadership roles that compelled her to break out of her shyness. During an interview with C-Span, Anderson explained how during a six-week period, she went from platoon sergeant for a day, responsible for getting 40 people from point A to point B all day long, to standing up in front a group briefing them up on what was next on schedule.

This experience made her learn how to stand up in front of a group, assert herself, and maintain control over that group and capture their attention. Here are a few other ways the Army has instilled leadership skills in soldiers.

“Successful leadership can be invisible”

– Gen. Lloyd Austin, First African American Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army

“Invisible leadership doesn’t mean its unseen or unrecognized, it’s simply hidden so that the efforts of others become more visible and new leaders emerge,” said Blanche Williams, MS, an expert in performance management and leadership. This couldn’t be truer for Gen. Lloyd Austin, who while leading to troops in Iraq became the first African American to command a corps in combat. According to The Guardian, when asked about his status as a high profile black general, Austin has been quoted saying he didn’t want his race to become a focus. “If you talk to Tiger Woods today, and you asked him how he felt about being the best African-American golfer in the world, he would tell you that you don’t want to be known as the best African-American golfer. He wants to be known as the best golfer,” Austin said.

Austin has been praised for “his calm demeanor, strategic vision, regional experience and knowledge, and proven judgment.” He is also the first African American Commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM), and is in charge of the military operations against the jihadist group Islamic State and the Al Qaeda franchise Khorasan in Syria and Iraq (ISIS).

Gen. Lloyd Austin, CENTCOM commander, in charge of the military operations against ISIS
Source: Business Insider

“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.”

– Isaac Oates, Army Intelligence Officer

This quip by Eisenhower is absolutely true. Few operations go according to plan but building a good plan forces you to think through constraints, resources, and contingencies.

“A good leader knows to plan. A great leader anticipates no plan will survive first contact with the enemy and knows just what to do about it. It’s hard to train your mind for both the rigidity necessary to come up with good blueprints and the flexibility to improvise when plans fall apart, but on the battlefield or in the boardroom, it is crucial.”
Source: Entrepreneur.com

(Continued on the next page)

Stanley McChrystal, Retired United States Army general
“Commit and Invest in your people.”
“The best advice I received in the Army came from my mentor, Lieutenant General John Vines. He was the perfect model of a ‘servant leader.'”

“He demonstrated (and continues to demonstrate to this day) the importance of committing and investing in your people. As a leader he shared his troops’ conditions, and understood their experiences. He led with empathy, understanding the motivations and perspectives of those who followed him.”

“Another important piece of advice is to view your leadership as being less about giving top-down orders and more about cultivating those who follow you, empowering them to make the right decisions. Many leaders are tempted to lead like a chess master, striving to control every move, when they should be leading like gardeners, creating and maintaining a viable ecosystem in which the organization operates. This is especially applicable to private sec

tor leaders; the world is moving too quickly for those at the top to master every detail and make every decision. Empowering, cultivating, and ultimately serving those who follow you will unlock massive potential within your organization, allowing you to solve for problems in real time.”
Source: Forbes

Mike Coney, former member of the United States Army Intelligence Team and
President and CEO of Unitrends
“After your ‘dream team’ is assembled, get out of their way.”
“In the military you do what you are told, and you do not disobey orders. There’s no variability. However, I’ve learned that the opposite philosophy is most effective in the business world. At Unitrends, I encourage my leadership team–and all employees–to take initiative and challenge one another. I’ve found that the best way to empower your “dream team” is to get out of their way and trust them to do their jobs. The worst thing you can do is make someone feel insecure about their performance, because then their focus will shift from worrying about the business to worrying about their own job security. With this variability will surely come mistakes. But, my philosophy is, if your employees aren’t making mistakes, they probably aren’t trying hard enough.”
Source: Venture Beat