Leadership: Navy Style

Leadership in the Navy is different from that of the Marine Corps. While I served as a small unit leader in the Marine Corps, it was nothing compared to the leader I had to become in the Navy. This also reflects the difference in responsibilities and duties between the officer and enlisted ranks.

I believe leadership is one of those intangible qualities which can be developed rather than something with which only a few are born. Many times it’s the situations and events individuals are thrust into which builds on and refines those innate leadership abilities we all possess. I think the culminating event of my leadership transition was the sudden death of a much-beloved and respected colleague. Bill George, author of “True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership,” concurs. In the Wharton Leadership Digest, he explains:

“Most of the leaders we interviewed have been profoundly shaped by crucibles in their lives. These traumatic experiences enabled them to realize that leadership was not about their success or gratification, but rather about serving other people and empowering them to lead. In my experience – perhaps oversimplified – you can separate all leaders into two categories, those for whom leadership is about their success and those who are leading to serve others. The latter group finds inspiration in their life stories and the crucibles of their lives to make the transformation from “I” to “We.”

Being a leader is truly about our connections with others. In another article from the Wharton Leadership Digest, one of my esteemed Marine colleagues, CAPT Erik Orient, explains that developing relationships and establishing rapport with others achieved faster results with more impressive outcomes.
 
He writes, “Depending on rank alone to determine leadership downplays the value of competence and respect. Having a subordinate follow orders is not an affirmation of leadership; getting buy-in and willing cooperation from peers, juniors, and seniors without flexing rank muscles is.”

Finally, leadership is about being a good manager, too. Bruce Tulgan, author of “It’s Okay to be the Boss,” says “Supervisors are now the most important people in the workplace.” Leadership and being perceived as a leader are sexy concepts; being a manager doesn’t have the same cachet. However, Tulgan and Marcus Buckingham, author of “First, Break all the Rules: What the World’s Best Managers Do Differently,” both recognize the manager’s role is to meld the leader’s vision with the individual’s strengths.

“Managers work with people to help them understand their strengths, to build on them, to give them the confidence to be different,” writes Buckingham. A manager’s first job is to help every person generate compelling answers to 12 simple questions about the day-to-day realities of his or her job. These are the factors, argue Marcus Buckingham and his colleagues at the Gallup Organization, that determine whether people are engaged, not engaged, or actively disengaged at work.

1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2. Do I have the materials and equipment that I need in order to do my work right?
3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
4. In the past seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
8. Does the mission or purpose of my company make me feel that my job is important?
9. Are my coworkers committed to doing quality work?
10. Do I have a best friend at work?
11. In the past six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?
12. This past year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
--John Quincy Adams