You guys know I cann’t let this one pass. So here is a very long post. Most of it is taken from RANGER SCHOOL, NO EXCUSE LEADERSHIP by Brace Barber.
The following are the US Army Principles of Leadership and which lessons illustrate them:
*Seek responsibility and take it for your actions. *Make sound and timely decisions.
*Set the example. *Employ your unit in accordance with its capabilities. *
Keep your soldiers informed. *
Know yourself and seek self-improvement. *Be technically and tactically proficient. *Know your soldiers and look out for their well-being. *Develop a sense of responsibility in your subordinates. *Ensure that the task is understood, supervised and accomplished. *
Discussion of Seek responsibility and take it for your actions.
As a leader, you take responsibility for the success or failure of a job. You pass credit for accomplishment to the team and accept responsibility for a failure, regardless of the reason. You have to cut yourself off from excuses and focus on solutions. This idea of not giving excuses or ‘reasons’ is perhaps the most misunderstood and difficult concept to grasp for most people. This is not a zero-defect mentality. The fact that you stop the reasons at your level and pass on to your boss, “There is a delay, but a solution is in hand,” is continuing to maintain leadership of, and responsibility for, your team. If, however, a superior’s support or guidance is needed, it should be sought.
The first time you stop yourself from giving a perfectly legitimate reason why the job did not get done will be tough, but do it, and then do it again. Emotionally, you have burned your bridges and must now succeed. You will see yourself start to succeed beyond your peers who allow themselves ‘reasons’ to fail. Discussion of Know yourself and seeking self-improvement. If you have never pushed yourself, how can you know what you are capable of? How can you know what others are capable of? Many people in leadership positions are afraid to test the physical and mental limits of their organizations because they do not know if they themselves can handle the stress. If you are attempting to get more out of your subordinates, doesn’t it make sense that you should know how to motivate them to do more? You should be able to draw on your past experiences to find what motivated you to substantially exceed the standard and translate that to your employees to get them to do substantially more than the standard.
You must learn your limits. Through the process of doing that, you will also build self-esteem. Good self-esteem and a high self-image are important in a leader. Self-esteem does not come from always succeeding. It comes from achieving a tough goal after failing. It comes from the natural comparison a person makes between himself and the person who did not succeed. This comparison is not a judgment of the other person. It simply gives value to the achievement and to the person who achieved it. What good is a competition if everyone wins, or if you win but your opponent was not trying or designed to lose?
Whatever goal you set, if it is high enough and hard enough, by definition, you must question yourself somewhere along the way, “Do I really want to do this? Is the reward that great?” You will rationalize how little you want the reward, and you must think about how much easier it would be if you were to rest, if only for a little while. If you do that, you are pushing yourself. If you quit, you quit; you lose for now. If you continue to try, you are among the minority. If you continue to quit, you are part of the majority. It does not matter what excuse you make. They all have the same result - failure. If you continue to try and succeed, you are part of the elite, a winner.
These high goals give you the opportunity to develop the habit of making the right decisions in times of duress. The point you must remember is that in order to continue to be a winner you must continue to set higher and higher goals and accomplish them. Please do not ever rest on your laurels. Your competition is with yourself, not the person next to you. The person who displays persistence and consistence will win every time. Over time, dripping water wears down the rock.
The lack of perseverance is what causes most people to quit. Perseverance is not tested in good times, it is tested in times of stress. The third principle that makes it all work.
It is essential that you hold yourself to this standard, but as a leader in a non-dictatorial organization you cannot force your team members to embrace this philosophy. You can only teach it and use it yourself as an example of doing what is right. This truth brings to light the importance of arguably the most important leadership principle, Set the example. Trying to force this philosophy on others is a losing game, it is something each individual must accept responsibility for, himself.
Give them something to take away from the class for the long term.
Write down your leadership philosophy. What is your bedrock? What principles do you base your decisions on? Do you even know? Write them down; record your principles. As a leader, with high personal and team goals, you will come against obstacles and into confrontation. You will face conflicting and divergent opinions and forces - your vision must prevail. Without good knowledge of the principles behind your goal, the reasons why you do what you do, you will fold under pressure. Instead, understand yourself logically and be able to develop intelligent arguments to sell, defend and push your purposes forward. Another saying warns, “You had better stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.” Knowing yourself and the reasons behind your goals is the beginning of standing for something.
For those of you who what to read more do a search: Military, leadership.
Ranger School is the most intensive leadership school on earth and it does not produce unthink robots.
The military does not seep down to the civilian population. The military is composed of a unique subset of the population, since it is now volunteer.
T-men and T-vixen would do well to adopt some of the Ranger Leadership characterists.
I know these are confusing times, but I believe the point of the TC’s Article was to encourge us not to be sheep.
Best of Luck.
