Combat leadership on the battlefield and team leadership in the boardroom are more alike than different. In either situation, the high stakes require leaders to exercise composure, precision, and intelligence in order to achieve prescribed goals.
Regardless of the landscape, leaders must remain optimistic in the face of adversity. When I was commander of a special operations strike force, my teams in Afghanistan relied on me just as much as I did. Loyalty to the team and the mission allowed everyone to move in the same direction. Although some days were tougher than others, it was always our shared commitment to a higher purpose that kept the division at bay.
Like most leaders, I learned many great role models and decision makers who have gone before me. General George Marshall, America's pivot in World War II, is a tremendous inspiration to many of America's greatest military leaders in history, and a number of his lessons have proven to be timeless. His insistence on versatility, tenacity, resilience and foresight made him one of the most effective leaders the world has ever seen.
Here are four of General Marshall's most famous lessons that have shaped many of us, inside and outside the military:
1. Choose to be optimistic.
Optimism does not come from circumstances; people in the given circumstances must choose it. General Marshall once said, “When conditions are tough, command is depressed, and everyone seems critical and pessimistic, you need to be especially cheerful and optimistic.”
The next time your team is in a hopeless situation, show fierce optimism in the face of overwhelming odds and assess its effect. I bet you'll be surprised at how contagious optimistic leadership can be and the incredible influence it can have on a team.
When times get tough, I often like to remind myself that the optimism – like hope – is a 99% choice. Co-founding LDR in 2011 was, in itself, a huge risk with challenges and countless opportunities for us to go negative. We entered a sophisticated market with a lot of saturation and took high-risk bets to distinguish ourselves from well-established competitors. There's no doubt that we've had days, if not weeks, of wondering if the business will take off, let alone take off. But we stayed positive and united and rose to the occasion.
Even when positive energy doesn't come naturally, pretend it does. Acknowledge your emotions, combat personal fatigue or stress, and be deliberately energetic and enthusiastic. It may seem contrived, but it can do wonders for team and staff morale.
2. Don't pull the punches.
Great leaders display an unwavering commitment to humility, accountability, and loyalty. But they must also continuously challenge the status quo and privately provide honest and critical feedback to subordinates and superiors.
My company now has five equal partners who make up our company's leadership team. Having even two equal leaders at the top of an organization often presents a difficult dynamic, but with five equal principles, we differ on a host of strategic issues, including hiring, investments, operations and more.
We have recognized that we are much more powerful together, but only if we can maintain trust, liability and, above all, franchise. We often debate our differing opinions behind closed doors, then join the team with “one voice.”
Good leaders don’t shy away from difficult conversations when opportunities arise, but they don’t use nor their power or influence to publicly embarrass or humiliate others. People want and need to know when they are underperforming. They value positive reinforcement and encouragement, and it's up to their leaders to provide it.
3. Never give in to failure.
All successful business people have experienced failure and can often tell of a number of failures that led to a breakthrough. Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are names synonymous with entrepreneurial success who have stumbled at one time or another. Had these leaders given in with every setback, they would not have achieved their incredible success.
While our company's core consulting business has remained fairly consistent, our industry focus and service offerings have pivoted significantly over time due to our ability to explore, execute, fail, pivot and then re-attack in a new direction. Early on, we were successful in investing in a transport business after identifying a high-margin business segment during a one-time consultancy assignment.
Like any new business, there was a lot of trial and error, especially when it came to balancing the goals of a consulting business and an equity investment arm. Through this, we learned both what we wanted to be and what we didn't want to be. This project gave us an identity we wouldn't have found by packing it away at the first sign of stress.
General Marshall's life shows us that if we submit to perceived failure or give up during tough times , we will never benefit from the rewards of a high level. Only tenacity in trial creates the successful businesses and breakthroughs we all admire.
4. “Lead with Why” to empower others.
The best leaders know they are only as good as the attitude they display toward the teams they lead. Rather than trying to do it all ourselves or perhaps worse manage it all, we should all pull a page from General Marshall's book and rely on our teams to win. Empowerment may be the buzzword of the decade, but it has earned this award through failed implementations and difficult results.
"Lead by why" by providing the reason why it is important that something be done. In the military, this type of communication is often referred to as "leader's intent" or "commander's intent." It helps articulate the desired goal without providing specific guidelines on how to get there. If you lead by explaining the “why” instead of the “what” and almost never the “how,” your team will own the challenge and stay committed to finding a creative outcome.
Most leaders won't have never have the opportunity to lead units in combat or countries at war, but that doesn't mean we can't learn the timeless lessons of those who did. By following the example of General Marshall, the leader of leaders, we can all improve ourselves and, more importantly, our teams.
