I am a Marine Corps vet only four years and I recently hired another marine he
had a great reputation and a lot of experience as NCO leader Gunny sergeant
but he's not doing well in our company he only seems to lead through fear slash
Authority it isn't working his high standards which I like but he's not
gaining the respect of his team or the rest of the company what's going on and
how can I fix it this is kind of a classic case and unfortunately it's an
unfortunate case too and what we have here is an example of a guy that's
probably pretty charismatic he's probably pretty aggressive he's probably
pretty loud he's probably pretty authoritative he's probably pretty smart
he's probably physically impressive in other words he's probably got a lot of
natural good leadership traits and I surmise in a situation like this that
this is the type of person that took the basics of what the military taught him
and utilized it to lead and so what he did was he used imposed discipline
that's what got used on him and that's what he used so it's the things that we
just talked about it's intimidation it's the whole thing with maneuver warfare
versus attrition warfare that the military still teaches unfortunately
that the job of leaders is to obey orders and ensure orders are obeyed okay
that's that's what the military unfortunately in some cases teaches and
you can go through your career and that's what you can kind of learn or you
can have some good leadership inside the military that teaches you the better way
the way to actually lead and so but if you're if you're raised that the way
that your job as a leader is to obey orders and ensure that orders are obeyed
if that's your job how do you do that will you do it through blunt force
trauma that's how you do it and as I've said before that does
for a time period it does get the job done it's micromanagement and
fortunately or unfortunately in the military you've got people that rapidly
cycle through leadership positions and so it's not like you are permanently in
charge of the same group of people so you can kind of get away with it because
you do a workup and into work of a stressful then you go on deployment when
it's only six months long and by the time he you're done everybody hates you
but it's okay you're moving on to your next job mm-hm
and so that's how people survive and what really hurts about this is because
they survive that leadership position it actually reinforces that type of
leadership behavior which is not good but what they do is if if let's say you
do it's just an American kind of mindset of hey if some is good more is better
and so they take this this attitude and they become more more aggressive they
impose more discipline they raise the standards to a ridiculous level where
it's no longer even sensible where things just become stupid like we used
to say so I don't know why they called us but in the military they called a
push-up position the front leaning rest sure the front leaning rest I don't know
why but I and then they also use the term forward leaning meaning hey we want
to be ahead we ready we're prepared and I used to say let's not be so far
forward leaning that we're in the leaning rest so for that we're wasting
our energy and getting tired and so at a certain point it can become super than
example this would be like um like uniform inspections like okay you gotta
have a square to a uniform you know you gotta be able to break out uniform look
sharp well if you do that every day you're wasting time because it's not the
most important thing it does have a level of importance somewhere on the
hierarchy of important things not real high but there's some people if you're a
strict military disciplinarian you might think I didn't have a uniform inspection
every single day because my guys are gonna look the best and soon you got a
bunch of guys that not only are they wasting time prepping their
uniform and paying for the new uniform get dry clean and they're actually using
their uniforms so much their dress uniforms so much that they're providing
wear and tear on it and so it's just it's just stupid doesn't make any sense
so that's that's what they do they these leaders that have been raised like that
they start to do it even more and it just it defeats its own purpose and most
important is that these leaders start to stifle free thought from their
subordinates and eventually and this is even more critical eventually they begin
to stifle free thought from their own brain and that's likely what happened in
a situation like this and you know you got a guy that again was raised in this
attitude and he took that attitude and he amplified that attitude and that is
how he was successful and he amplified it even more and he ends up now he
breaks out of the Marine Corps well now it's not just a six-month appointment
you got to lead people for years and years and years and you got to go
through different various projects and all these personalities in and it's a
more sensitive environment because it's in the civilian sector and lives aren't
necessarily at stake and so what do you need to do what what you need him to do
so now I'm talking to the leader that asked this question what what can you do
to help well what you need that former Marine Gunnery Sergeant to do what you
need him to see is that the next level of leadership the next progression along
the spectrum of leadership is not more of all that it's actually less it's not
more imposed discipline on your troops it's actually less it's the troops
having free thought and self-discipline and it is not you leading more it is
actually you leading less it is not you taking more ownership it is you taking
less ownership and your troops taking more owners
it is him giving guidance giving commander's intent and then stepping
back it is him not being the focus because a
lot of times when you're in a leadership position that can be an ego feeder mmm
and all of a sudden you want to be the center of attention you want to be in
the spotlight but you don't want to be that you want to be less of that and
it's and I'm telling you so that's what you got to do you gotta open his eyes to
what the next level of leadership looks like he never had that opened for him
and I'm gonna tell you right now it's gonna be hard to get him there because
there's a good chance that he's a hard person to coach because he's been
successful with the techniques that he learned and he has experience and he's
and that that experience has strengthened his resolve and his belief
in his leadership technique mm-hmm it's it's it's a tough situation so you're
likely gonna have to take an indirect approach and so for instance here's a
good one hey I was wondering you know who who's gonna take your place when
it's you know when it's time for promotion of who you grooming to fill
your shoes mmm cuz guess what he's not grooming anybody
hmm or you ask him how much time he's spending looking up and out at what's
going on strategic as opposed to down and Ian at his own little element and
the other thing that you could do is assign him some higher level projects
that actually pull him out of the micromanagement weeds and maybe even put
him on projects with people that don't micromanage hmm and and good leaders
that lead in a good way put him on some kind of project with them so he can see
what that looks like and obviously these are just some
suggestions of approaches because you're probably gonna have to you'll have to
adapt those and figure out exactly how to walk him through to the
end state which the end state the commander's intent from me is you want
to teach him what the next what the next level the next advancement of leadership
skill for him is and it's something that's the opposite of what he learned
so good challenge yeah yeah that did that leading from authority thing and
fear and authority mm-hmm it's almost like it's so black and white where when
someone does that it's so clear it's very clear and it's a very addictive
yeah person because there's immediate gratification yeah I told you to do it
yeah so they do it and then the kisi worked you know it kind of takes less
work to a lot of the times less work you don't have to invest in relationships
yeah to invest in in indirect approaches on things of course it takes less work
it's it's real simple you know you can kind of give in to your temper sometimes
- yeah your tempers a little bit of a tool with that kind yeah the problem is
over time these that type of leadership doesn't work you know you want to be
with the beloved captain who never lost his temper who never yelled at his men
and yet who would follow him into the fires of hell yeah