WHAT THE MILITARY CAN TEACH US ABOUT LEADERSHIP: PART 4

January 19, 2017 1 Comment

Today we conclude our four part series on the 15 rules of leadership, originally penned for use by those in the Military over at RangerUp.com (Here), we have taken those rules and translated them for use by business and corporate professionals. What follows are the last 3 rules, for the previous 12 rules check out the posts on Tuesday and Thursday of this week and last, On Sunday we will compile all the results into one post for you all.

Miss a day, find the links to the other posts below:

Part 4 - Permalink

Part 3 - Permalink

Part 2 - Permalink

Part 1 - Permalink

RULE 13: DISAGREE IN PRIVATE; UNITY IN PUBLIC

There will be times when you disagree with your boss, and if they’re a good leader they’ll give you ample opportunity to voice your concerns. However, once the decision is made you need to act as a team member once you’re out in front of the front line people. Disputes need to be resolved in private, don’t make a spectacle of it and have a melt down because you have to do something you don’t like; it will only encourage that behavior among the people that work for you (See point 12)

Otherwise your boss may become your enemy.  Have you ever been contradicted in public and appreciated it? Especially in front of people you supervise give the courtesy.  People can appreciate the honest council behind closed doors and even more so will appreciate your support while knowing you disagree.  Support could be as simple as smiling next to them while they make their pitch rather than burning them down. 

RULE 14: DON’T TAKE YOURSELF TOO SERIOUSLY

Sometimes things are going to get hard, and often they’ll just keep getting harder. The more successful you are, and the higher you climb the harder and more stressful it will be but it is absolutely critical that you keep positive. Your team will look at your behavior to discern how things are “Really” going and if you’re beaten down and serious looking all the time they will read that to mean “poorly”.  So smile, joke around, be approachable and a real human being, be a little self deprecating even.  Be serious when you need to be, firm even, but don’t let the job make you unbearable because you will inadvertently make your teams job unbearable.

We all have bosses and sometimes we all have to do things that suck.  People can appreciate the honest person who acknowledges things may not be ideal but your head is down and working towards completion.  Smile and laugh while doing the worst of it. Heck give em a good old fashion WHEEEEEE to lighten the mood.  There are times on deployment when things are just horrible and sometimes all you can do is look around at those going through it with you while having a good laugh.  Business is no different because people are a constant and people can get you through

RULE 15: DO THE RIGHT THING

Simultaneously the easiest and hardest thing to do in business, but it is likely the most important of these rules. It’s easy because identifying the right thing is easy. Be honest, don’t cut corners, do right by your people. It’s hard because so many people have failed at this before, and they will pressure you to instead do the easy thing. Their expectations are based on doing the easy thing, and sometimes their business model is predicated on doing the easy thing. Let me be clear on this.

Never compromise your integrity for a quick fix. 

And that’s it folks! Thanks for following the article, if you like what you read be sure to check us out on Facebook at:

https://www.facebook.com/RogueDynamics/

1 Response

Leave a comment

Name *

Email *

Comment *

---

Also in Rogue Dynamics