I'm currently deployed to Iraq as an e6 in the army I have listened to your
podcast and really enjoy your stuff especially different discipline equals
real I know as a sergeant and as a leader your focus isn't to be liked
however your soldiers should respect you respect both you and your rank my
question is how do you tell your soldiers to do the small stuff tedious
stuff like taking out the trash and still be light all right well first of
all if we want to get respect from people we have to give them respect for
sure think about this I think if you took out the trash sometime you know
thank if you're the you're the boss for you and see that the trash is getting
overfilled and you just grab it and take it out just think about what that does
think about what that does the attitude of the guys if you took out the trash
you you maybe in your mind you think you'd be losing respect but you actually
wouldn't be at all yeah in fact everyone looks at you and goes oh he's a good guy
he's taking out the trash it was little full then he's taken care of it so maybe
if you're insecure you think you'd lose respect but I think if you're secure in
your ability to lead and if you know that doing some tedious stuff is gonna
make you guys appreciate you then to me that means it's kind of worth it yeah
right another example you know we talk about taking out the trash but like what
if the platoon space has to be cleaned and on Friday
you you you just say hey guys you guys can go ahead and roll out I got this mmm
right there's a chance they're like hey boss we're not leaving yeah yeah no
we'll help you there's course there's a chance that oh that's awesome thanks
boss and they bail overtime that might be if they don't respect you at all they
might bail mmm now in order to regain the respect do
you make them stay in boss them around more does that increase the respect for
you you see see how interesting it is is that if you go hey guys that's cool I'll
do it mm-hmm and you're working hard and you still
got to maintain the discipline and you don't take any slack but at the U it's
the same balance it's the balance we talk about all the time so the more that
you treat them with respect more they're gonna respect you and they're gonna know
that you're not you know too high and mighty they're gonna know that you're
down to earth when I was a platoon commander task unit commander I picked
up brass I cleaned the ranges with the boys that's just the way I operated and
I would recommend that kind of attitude it didn't make people think Oh chuckles
doesn't have anything better to do they actually knew I had stuff to do hmm
but what I got to do pick up brass with the boys yeah build the relationships
set the example they're gonna respect you for it yeah make sense at the end of
the day do you have something better to do right because the whole in the big
picture it's like how you say like that's a leader yeah it's like sometimes
you literally have something no like sometimes you literally okay the floors
are picking up brass and guess what you got a meeting with the commanding
officer you gotta go do you you know sometimes we you you actually do yeah
and what's cool is tactically is and you heard us saying this at the FTX we're up
in Utah if you see the leader doing something menial what you should do is
as a followers step up and say hey echo I got this you can go and lead yeah
that's what that's what you want that's what I want to do for my leader I want
to take things off my leaders plate as much as possible yeah now the more you
try and you just have to build those relationships the way you build those if
you don't have anything better to do then you get down there and you help you
help clean up the range you helped pick up the brass yeah that's the way it is
actually did notice that about you and lathe to um where you know like I'll
have my camera equipment and you know lights or whatever and it's not a bunch
of stuff but you know you're always like oh you'll like grab something yeah and
you don't like what I grab okay yeah don't touch but it wouldn't just mean
you it's kind of like cool cuz we're just kind of friends or whatever there's
no perceived or know like hierarchy kind of thing like you're you know but let's
say like at the muster or whatever it's a bit like you guys have a specific job
I have a specific job you know kind of thing and meanwhile you and and Lafe
will like if I'm around I'm carrying something you'll always like grab
something or say hey you need you know you know at the Utah thing it's like oh
are you good I'm like bro you're the instructor here kind of thing that's
what I'm thinking in my head and um and yeah you guys always offered it like
help misty I'm like almost offended like bro like do I look like I need help
because you shouldn't really be asking me for active very capable individual
yeah and the small tedious stuff the other thing is you explain to him why
it's important right about to answer we give a whole time why is it important
why is important that the platoon Hut's clean well cuz I want you guys to have
time off over the weekends and not be stuck here cleaning because the
commanding officer came in and saw that this place look like a hellhole okay
well that makes sense to us we understand why you want us to clean now
you you want us to clean so that we can you have time off you want us to clean
so you want us to train hard you want us to do this because cuz we want to be
ready for combat because I want you guys to be able to come home to your families
make sure they understand why they're doing what they're doing and if there's
no reason why do if the reason I mean even cleaning even taking out the trash
there's a reason for that right there's an actual reason for that we can't just
have junk everywhere so explain why participate when you can build the
relationships with your troops you'll be good