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Leadership Lessons Learnt from Defence

During my time in the Army, I learnt a few things about leadership that I feel are worth sharing. From my experience in and out of Defence I’ve found these lessons are as applicable to the business world as they are to leading troops in a war zone! Here are a few I hope you find useful and can apply to your role as a leader at any level within your organisation.

 

Lead with confidence

Leaders are expected to lead. This sounds intuitive right? Well it’s surprising how many leaders doubt their leadership ability. I recall working for a Brigadier General who headed up the Army’s Logistic Support Force (LSF). This Brigadier was an accomplished leader in-charge of thousands of soldiers and hundreds of millions of dollars of equipment. I worked for the Brigadier for two years and still hold him in the highest regard for his stoic poise and ability to lead with absolute confidence.

I ran into this Brigadier many years later when he was working as a senior executive with KPMG. As we reminisced about our time at HQ LSF, he revealed to me how much he appreciated the council of those who supported him, including mine and noted that every day as he got dressed in his service uniform he stood in from of the mirror and recited to himself over and over “They expect you to lead them. They want you to lead them. They need you to lead them”.

I had never thought that this consummate leader needed to perform a daily affirmation to help him step out in front of his troops and lead. If you are a leader who lacks self-confidence, you must find your affirmation. You must also understand that your troops see you as their leader and want, and need, you to lead them with confidence.

Never accept inappropriate behaviour

“The behaviour you walk past is the behaviour you accept”. This quote was made famous by the former Chief of Army, Lieutenant General David Morrison AO, when addressing ‘the troops’ about misconduct towards female soldiers.

What General Morrison was saying was that not acting to address bad or inappropriate behaviour has two effects: it normalises the bad behaviour; and it makes those who observe it and do nothing, complicit.

Addressing bad behaviour can be very difficult, especially as it often starts out seeming quite innocent. However, minor indiscretions can quickly escalate if left unchecked. Never walk past or accept bad or inappropriate behaviour.

No enemies inside the wire

The ‘wire’ refers to the barbed-wire obstacles we place around our defensive positions on operations. Being outside the wire means you are exposed, away from friendly troops and in hostile territory. When you are inside the wire you are under the protection of inter-locking machine guns, fortifications and pits and in the company with others willing to die for each-other and the mission.

The concept of no enemies inside the wire is one of absolute trust. In the business world you can’t afford to let enemies infiltrate your organisation. This includes anyone who doesn’t have the best interests of your organisation at heart. If you do, you have let the enemy inside the wire.

Understand your mission within the broader mission

When I was a newly promoted Corporal, I was called into a Platoon briefing where the Platoon Commander delivered his Mission Brief. My task was to return to my Section of eight soldiers and deliver my Mission Brief with my Platoon Sergeant tagging along to listen in.

After my brief was complete, my Platoon Sergeant pulled me aside and asked me how I thought I did, to which I replied that I thought “I had nailed it”! My Platoon Sergeant paused for a second, then proceeded to tell me that I had just done a fantastic job of delivering to my Section the Platoon’s Mission, not my Section’s Mission.

As a Section Commander, it was my job to distil from the Platoon’s Mission what were the exact activities and tasks my Section needed to perform in support of the Platoon’s Mission and how those tasks interrelate with the rest of the Platoon. Make sure you know what your mission is.

Support your commander’s intent

Equally as important as knowing your mission and being able to articulate it to your troops, is the need to understand and support your commander’s intent.

This means that when your ‘plan goes south’ and your mission is compromised, you can continue moving forward and support the larger campaign. It also means that you understand that your commander likely knows a lot more about the overall battle than you do. While you may not always agree with your commander’s decisions, once the order is given, you need to support it as if it were your own.

I recently had an indiscretion where I disagreed with a decision made by the leaders in our business. When I verbalised my concerns in front of the group I realised I had lost sight of the bigger picture and forgotten to support my commander’s intent. As a leader, I had also forgotten how much weight my comments carry over my staff. The time to voice your opinion is in an appropriate forum prior to a decision being made. Once a decision has been made, remember to put aside your personal views and opinions and support your commander’s intent.

Empower your staff

In the military, there is an absolute need to push power and decision making, as far down the chain of command as possible. Those junior soldiers fighting on the front line can’t be led effectively by Generals in the rear echelons. The Corporals and Lance Corporals at the forward edge of the battle must have the authority to make decisions that directly impact their mission and the very lives of those they lead.

In most business scenarios, the battlefield is much less dramatic, but the principle of decentralised command is just as valid. Empowering your staff to make critical business decisions is a powerful business principle. It has the added benefit of widening the decision-making bottleneck and freeing up senior managers, who are otherwise bogged down making or approving tactical decisions.

One-third two-thirds rule

This rule states that a commander should use one-third of the time available to plan the mission and allow the remaining two-thirds of the time for subordinate commanders to plan and execute their missions.

Too often in business, this rule tends to be reversed and those responsible for executing the mission have insufficient time to develop proper plans, resulting in failed missions.

A leader who fails to apply the one-third two-thirds rule is setting up his subordinate leaders, and the business, to fail.

One foot on the ground

On the battlefield, we always have ‘one foot on the ground’. Metaphorically, this means prioritising your effort and developing robust plans to efficiently and effectively execute those plans.

Having too many objectives in play at one time always results in disaster. Also, making every task ‘priority one’ means no task is ‘priority one’. Prioritising and executing those activities most critical to mission success is without a doubt the single most important lesson any leader needs to learn.

These are a few of the lessons I have learned from my time in the military. I hope they resonate with you and you can apply them in your day to day leadership of your “troops”.

After joining the Australian Regular Army at the age of 17, I served 21 years in various engineering, logistics, project management and leadership roles, including operational service overseas. I served 10 years with infantry units including 5/7 RAR (Mechanized) and the 4th Battalion Commando, before discharging as a Warrant Officer Class One (WO1).

Benefits Realisation

We’ve all heard it a million times, “Projects are how organizations effect change”. But are the changes truly aligned with the organisations strategic direction? Is the Business Case solid but focused on delivering the wrong outcomes? Ever heard the saying “the surgery was a great success, but the patient died”?

Maybe there’s a need to focus more on the benefits that the change is supposed to create rather than the outcomes of the project! Stephen Covey would suggest that we ‘start with the end in mind’ allowing us to work back to the start of the planning process so we plan the right project from the outset.

Benefits Realization Management is a multi-staged process for identifying benefits to determine whether projects, programs, and portfolios can produce the intended business result and then executing and sustaining the change.

The effective uses of Benefits Mapping and Benefits Realisation sets professional project organisations apart in the industry. Engagement with clients as early as possible during their strategic planning will help steer their decisions towards implementing the changes, and projects, that will ultimately deliver their vision. Wanna know more?

Make a decision and stick to it!

 

I’m sure you have all heard the saying “make a decision and stick to it”. My caveat for this is “make the RIGHT decision and stick to it”. There is no sense in sticking with a bad or wrong decision just to conform with the belief that good leaders stick to their ‘guns’. It’s far better to allocate sufficient time to the planning process allowing for the right decision to be made than it is trying to justify an ill-informed decision once in execution.

When time is lacking and a quick decision is necessary, you should always aim for the ‘least bad decision’ possible and be prepared to fail fast, course-correct quickly, and accept the fallout.

Vulnerable Leadership

 

Why would leaders think being vulnerable is good leadership – it’s not!

A lot has been written about the importance of leaders allowing themselves to be vulnerable. Check out this Harvard Business Review article by Jeffrey Cohn and U. Srinivasa Rangan

Using the word “vulnerable” to describe leaders who display good traits such as being open, transparent, and willing to share lessons they have learned, is a misuse of language. Webster’s Dictionary defines being vulnerable as ‘capable of being physically or emotionally wounded‘ and ‘open to attack or damage: Assailable’. Is this what we expect from our leaders, or is this a linguistic reflection of the victim culture plaguing society today?

There is a fine line between what followers view as ‘vulnerability’ and what is in fact just ‘weak, emotion-driven leadership’. What the HBR article promotes, is that CEOs need to prepare prodigies and aspiring leaders for the challenges of becoming a future leader, which is prudent.

Unfortunately, these sorts of articles use language that allows them to be misinterpreted and gives rise to emotive decision-making and leadership paralysis. Military leaders at all levels are trained to operate under significant pressure, often in a VUCA environment, and this requires stoicism. To quote DavidGoggins, it requires a ‘callusing of the mind‘.

Today’s leaders are expected to demonstrate a high degree of empathy, be supportive, be ‘politically correct”, generous, and agreeable. These are all great leadership traits, but like anything, there needs to be balance. Many leaders now struggle to make hard decisions and are often too afraid to actually lead. They spend too much time being ‘vulnerable’ when they should be thinking critically, planning with purpose, and leading by example. It’s important not to confuse leaders who foster psychological safety and speak freely with subordinate leaders and followers, with leaders who are vulnerable. These are very different scenarios and lead to divergent outcomes.

I often reflect on how much more I respected and trusted the strong leadership of 30, 40 and 50 years ago compared to what I see as weak leadership today. It’s not that the leaders of the past were better people or led more effectively. Many of them could have done with a little more empathy and political correctness and I guess that’s the point. A little more, not the massive pendulum swing commonly applied to social issues today.  I’m fighting a losing battle as many leaders today don’t like conflict and find it terrifying to make any decisions, let alone hard decisions. They are unwilling to exercise what Jocko Willink refers to as “Extreme Ownership“. Do yourself a tremendous favour and read Jocko’s book.

I’m not suggesting leaders don’t accept failure or seek to identify their blind spots, and they should have discussions with subordinate leaders and general staff about risks and issues. Leaders who openly display their anxiety and fear do not demonstrate courage or instil much-needed confidence in their staff or their organisations.

As a proponent of critical thinking, the way words are used is important to me.  I ask everyone to think critically when they are told they need to be ‘vulnerable’ and to understand what that really means.

We need to stop promoting the idea that being vulnerable is good. It’s not. Being a mature, stoic leader, who is considered, driven to action, open, empathetic, and willing to share lessons learned should be what we’re aiming for.

If we accept ‘vulnerable leadership’ into the vernacular it is a slippery slope to accepting excuses and emotion-led decision making and that’s just plain bad leadership.

A Race to the Bottom vs Inspired Leadership

 

There’s been a disturbing trend on social media and in online leadership articles of late. A trend that sends a misguided message to upcoming and incumbent female leaders. A subliminal ‘call to arms’ for female leaders to adopt traits that are undesirable for any leader. Traits such as being aggressive, bossy, uncompromising, and non-collaborative and normalising this behavior by reframing the language and promoting the female leader as strong and powerful. There is also the notion that women are criticised and even penalised for demonstrating the same behaviors and characteristics as their male counterparts. The same behaviors and characteristics that everyone agrees are undesirable in male leaders. If they are being criticised, it’s because they are emulating the bad leadership demonstrated by many male leaders; behavior that shouldn’t be tolerated regardless of gender.

There are many articles and media posts promoting the idea that these bad behaviors are solely male traits and that women wanting to climb the corporate ladder need to embrace them. Check out this Forbes article by Liz Elting where she discusses the “five traits every woman leader needs to embrace”. Many articles like this have been published in recent times, and we get it! Women want to be respected and treated the same as their male counterparts.

The hard thing to understand is the notion that the bad behavior we despise in some high profile, inept male leaders, the aggressive, arrogant, condescending, and non-collaborative behavior, is somehow what female leaders should aspire to and emulate. Anecdotally, bad leadership is not expressly the domain of male leaders, and every leader should strive to set the moral and character example for their organisation and their community. Too often nowadays, bad leadership behavior is displayed by both genders, at every level of leadership and across both the private and public sectors. What is most difficult to understand is why anyone would think the opposite of bad leadership is worse leadership!

This is not to suggest that women should be timid or passive leaders. The hope is that they don’t try to copy their male counterparts and raise the leadership bar and provide a more empathetic, collaborative, and considered approach to how leadership is performed.

We need to change the message and the language we use to inspire women, and men, to be better leaders. Good leadership is underpinned by good character and we should all be striving to be better leaders, not worse; otherwise, we become that which you despise.

 

 

 

Not all Change is Good!

From an early age, we are taught to believe that change is good. In fact, you could argue that we are conditioned to believe that all change is good. We are constantly told that ‘things need to change’; that the past is bad and we can build a brighter future. These are easy ideas to support as they seem logical and make good sense. After all what could be bad about a brighter future?

We are now at a point in time where if you don’t support a change, if you question or challenge it, you are viewed as a ‘dinosaur’ or ‘set in your ways’. You know, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks…

We also live in a time where technological change is happening at a rate never seen in history, although that is not really a good premise for an argument. It might be more accurate to say that there is a lot more change happening now, but this change is not as transformational as, say moving from a time when we didn’t have the ability to make fire, to a time when we can make it on command.

We hear leaders make statements like ‘get on the bus, or get hit by it’ and ‘if we aren’t changing we are dying’.

There are a number of well-documented reasons why many normal, intelligent, and even progressive people are uncomfortable with change and even ‘resist change’.

In researching for this article I found many posts and articles about why people resist change and what leaders should do to help them overcome their fear and resistance and eventually accept the change. The ‘new normal’. What I didn’t find was any articles about leaders making sure the changes they are implementing are the right changes.

It is human nature to resist change. We tend to adopt what works and discard what doesn’t and we develop routines that become habits. Habits are hard to break so make sure you develop good ones. When leaders try to force their followers to adopt new habits, especially habits that don’t make sense to them, it can be like forcing someone into rehab who’s not ready to quit their addiction.

But teaching the masses how to overcome their resistance to change or leaders how to better implement change is not the purpose of this article.

Change can be very disruptive and can cause significant damage to organisations and society if it’s the wrong change. It is absolutely critical that change is evolutionary and truly does create a better set of circumstances in the future, than what existed in the past. Change for the sake of change is a very bad idea and change to appease minority groups is a worse idea.

The world is in turmoil as I type. We are still suffering the effects of the worst pandemic in recent history which has devastated the world economy and created even more hostility with China. The death of George Floyd has sparked mass protests crying out that “black lives matter” and activists are now calling for the removal of monuments of great leaders because our current views disagree with those of the past, and social media is constantly reporting on all the negative aspects of society that ‘need to change’. It’s easy to get swept up in all the hype and become a ‘head nodder’ and simply agree that the superficial and often biased arguments for change are valid and therefore should be supported.

Thanks to social media the call to action is fast, if not immediate, and the response that follows is also fast, loud, and unwavering. Unfortunately, this tends to mean that the critical thinking that should be undertaken to validate the change and ensure it won’t result in unintended consequences, doesn’t occur. Worse, there are those in society that realise this and use it to agitate and progress their cause.

One of the main reasons that change is so difficult to implement within organisations, is that it is not seen as necessary or desirable and the masses don’t trust their leaders or their leader’s intentions. There is no ’cause’ to get behind.

This is why left-wing social activists are able to generate mass gatherings, rallies, and protests. They motivate their supporters through lighting fast social media campaigns and their message is one of saving the world and who doesn’t want to save the world – right!

They are able to quickly press emotional buttons that motivate people to act without questioning the validity of the cause and without taking time to think critically. The activists know that politicians need votes to be re-elected so their ability to promote their cause as one supported by the masses is a powerful strategy. The problem is, that it can result in changes that are not best for all. I’m not suggesting a pro-right-wing view or that the causes I’ve mentioned don’t deserve due consideration. I’m just stating that not all change is actually good. 

There is a word to describe a world in constant change and that word is anarchy.

The Big Five Personality Traits

The initial model was advanced by Ernest Tupes and Raymond Christal in 1961 but failed to reach an academic audience until the 1980s. In 1990, J.M. Digman advanced his five-factor model of personality, which Lewis Goldberg further extended.

What is the best predictor of a person’s likelihood to succeed in just about any endeavour? Is it their confidence, their competence, their grit and determination, or is it their desire, self-belief, or sense of destiny? The answer is, all these factors are important, but the single most significant determinant of their success might just be their personality. 

Personality is defined as:

“The combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual’s distinctive character”.

Your personality reflects who you are. It also determines how you act and react to stimuli and different situations. Some people are open to new ideas and experiences and may readily move away from their existing beliefs or form new beliefs easily when provided with a convincing argument. Others may remain steadfast in their long-held beliefs despite being provided with irrefutable empirical evidence that their presupposition is no longer valid.

While it is impossible to know for sure, anecdotally, most people seem to believe that we all have a mix of traits that are inherent in us and some traits that are more or less prominent based on the situation.

For individuals to be considered to possess specific personality traits, three criteria need to be satisfied. The individual needs to exhibit the specific trait in a consistent manner across different situations and circumstances. This means, for example, that an anxious person will not only respond with trepidation towards a challenging deadline but will respond in a similar way towards a difficult task.

The trait needs to be stable over a long period of time, for example, if the person cries when yelled at in class at school or at home they also cry when they are yelled at elsewhere such as in the workplace.

The individual must also demonstrate unique applications of the trait and not just be following normal behaviour such as responding to aggression with violence or by running away (fight or flight).

Humans have a highly tuned ability to rapidly determine if they ‘like’ or can trust another person based on what is commonly referred to as their ‘first impression’. It is astounding to discover that these first impressions can be formed in 100th of a second and it’s believed that we developed this ability based on our anthropological need to quickly determine if someone is a friend or foe and if they are likely to help or harm us. Each time we observe a person’s behaviour and determine that they’re “talkative,” “quiet,” “active,” or “anxious,” what we are observing is the individual’s personality, the characteristic ways in which the individual differs from other people. Personality and trait psychologists try to describe and understand these differences.

According to trait psychologists, there are a limited number of these dimensions (dimensions like Extraversion, Conscientiousness, or Agreeableness), and each individual falls somewhere on each dimension, meaning that they could be low, medium, or high on any specific trait.

It’s quite common nowadays, that individuals will think of themselves, for example, as either introverts or extroverts in an almost binary way. They believe they are either one or the other all the time, never sway and that these traits are immutable. They think of these traits as precise descriptions of how they behave and that these traits mean the same things for everyone. But research shows that these traits and others are quite variable within individuals and each of us occupy a place on a ‘continuous distribution’ of traits that make us who we are.

In the 1970s two research teams led by Paul Costa and Robert R. McCrae of the National Institutes of Health and Warren Norman and Lewis Goldberg of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and the University of Oregon, respectively, discovered that most human character traits can be described using five dimensions. They surveyed thousands of people and independently identified the five broad traits that are common to most people and can be remembered with the acronym OCEAN: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.

Openness

People who score high for openness tend to appreciate novelty and are generally creative. At the other end of the scale, people who score low are more conventional in their thinking, prefer routines, and have a pronounced sense of right and wrong.

Extraversion

People who are more extroverted tend to display cheerfulness and initiative and seem more communicative. They are also more companionable, sociable and tend to be able to accomplish what they set out to do. Those with low scores are considered to be introverted, reserved, and more submissive to authority.

Agreeableness

Highly agreeable people tend to be friendly, empathetic, and warm to others, while those less agreeable tend to be shy, suspicious, and egocentric. Whilst being agreeable may help you get along with others, being too agreeable may see you being taken advantage of, and you may find it difficult to say no to others resulting in prioritising their needs ahead of your own.

Conscientiousness

Individuals who are high in conscientiousness tend to be well organised, motivated, disciplined, and trustworthy. Those who lack conscientiousness tend to be irresponsible, easily distracted, and unreliable.

Neuroticism

People who score high for neuroticism are often emotionally unstable. They tend to be anxious, inhibited, moody and less self-assured. Those at the lower end of the neuroticism scale are calm, confident, and contented.

Some examples of behaviours for high and low traits are provided in the table below.

Personality Trait

Example behaviours for low scores

Example behaviours for high scores

Openness

Prefers not to be exposed to alternative moral systems; narrow interests; inartistic; not analytical; down-to-earth.

Enjoys seeing people with new types of haircuts and clothing fashions; curious; imaginative; untraditional.

Conscientiousness

Prefers spur-of-the-moment action to planning; unreliable; hedonistic; careless; lax.

Never late for an appointment or a date; organised; hard working; neat; persevering; punctual; self-disciplined.

Extraversion

Preferring a quite evening to a loud party; sober; aloof; unenthusiastic.

Being the life of the party; active; optimistic; fun-loving; affectionate.

Agreeableness

Quickly and confidently asserts own rights; irritable; manipulative; uncooperative; rude.

Agrees with others about political opinions; good-natured; forgiving; gullible; helpful.

Neuroticism

Not getting irritated by small annoyances; secure; self-satisfied.

Constantly worrying about little things; insecure; hypochondriacal; feeling inadequate.

But what if our understanding of personality traits is wrong and if people don’t act consistently from one situation to the next? This was an assertion that shook the foundation of personality psychology in 1968 when Walter Mischel published a book called Personality and Assessment. Mischel’s assertion was that people behave differently in different situations and that the demonstration of particular personality traits isn’t really that consistent.

Mischel cited that children who cheat on tests at school may strictly follow the rules of a game or may never tell a lie to their parents. Thus, Mischel suggested there may not be any general trait of honesty that links these apparently related behaviours. The debate that followed the publication of Mischel’s book was called the person-situation debate because it pitted the power of personality against the power of situational factors as determinants of the behaviour that people exhibit. The reality may be that, for the most part, individuals tend to act according to their inherent personality traits and under ‘standard’ or normal circumstances; however, are able or even likely to stray from these traits under specific, but inconsistent and undetermined circumstances. However, this does not negate the existence of the Big Five Personality Traits or their validity but does suggest caution and that they are not solely relied upon to determine how someone will behave towards a random situation or how they might if they are afflicted by either internal or external factors.

Understanding the degree to which you possess each of the five personality traits and how they might affect your behaviour especially under certain conditions and circumstances, could help you to stop or pause from reacting, think about your response and take appropriate action for the situation. Further, understanding how these traits affect other people might also allow you to anticipate how other individuals or groups may react to stimuli and how this might have a negative impact on you, especially if you’re their leader.

If you would like to take a free personality test created by Dr John A. Johnson, Professor of Psychology at Penn State University, which is based on the Big Five Personality Traits, please click the button below.

IPIP-NEO Personality Test
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