I shook the hand of a Medal of
Honor recipient today. Needless to say,
not an every day experience – and one I won’t soon forget. His name is Tom Kelley, and he came to speak
at a class I was enrolled in titled “Leadership Lessons Learned in the Military”. The course was organized by a fellow
LGO/former submarine officer/good friend of mine and took place over the past
three days during IAP (independent activities period) here at Sloan. IAP lasts for the month of January, and many
students use this time to go on vacation, or to take part in various treks that
are available, and a multitude of short courses are offered on-campus by most
departments as well. I’ve been using it
to spend time with family, work on my thesis, and to take this class – which I’m
glad I did as it will probably be a part of my MBA experience that will really stick
with me.
This course was offered through
Sloan and is sponsored by one of our great ethics professors, Leigh Hafrey. While Professor Hafrey is a
fantastic teacher that challenges you to think critically and solidify how you
feel about everything that can’t typically be defined by an equation – like
power, authority, leadership and influence, he really didn’t drive the
course. Instead, it was put together and
facilitated by a few of the veterans in our MBA class. It was a great opportunity to learn from them
about how their military careers affected their lives and how they act as
leaders. I’m writing this post in an
attempt to capture my impressions on leadership from the past few days, and
maybe someone else will also find it useful.
Day 1
We spoke about the different ranks
in the military, and what it takes to achieve them. I hadn’t really understood that there were
two paths in the military, that of the enlisted soldiers and that of the
officers, and the lowest ranking officer will always outrank the highest
ranking enlisted, even though said officer will be a 22-year old kid fresh out
of college or one of the military academies, and said enlisted soldier will
probably have a 20+ year career in the military under their belt. This isn’t to say that the enlisted soldier
is a low-ranking contributor, in fact it’s quite the opposite – to be where
they are they have to have proven their capability to lead soldiers and
accomplish objectives, and are often technical experts at what they do. They typically have great rapport with their
people, and in the class were often referred to as the “backbone” of the
military. When you hear the terms
“Gunny”, “Chief”, or “Sergeant First Class” on T.V., these are the people
they’re talking about. They are also
referred to as “Non-Commissioned Officers” or “NCOs” which causes some
confusion, but they are enlisted soldiers that report up to officers.
Once we had an understanding of
what all these ranks meant, we had the opportunity to hear from two Army drill
sergeants talk about how they get new recruits literally fresh off the bus and
begin to incorporate them into the Army – it doesn’t sound like fun. Corporate onboarding would be a lot different
if it entailed pushups ad-nauseum, some amount of sleep deprivation, and big
scary guys yelling at you from the moment you entered the door. We then had the chance to talk with three
senior NCOs, who were able to give us their perspective on what it’s like to
lead when you’re the person with all the experience and some young kid with a
college degree outranks you. They said
that these young officers were generally most successful when they were humble
and allowed themselves to be trained. I
think this is really applicable to young college and MBA grads in general. It’s really easy to think that just because
you have a fresh degree from a top-notch institution then you will always know
best and so people should listen to you.
However, from my experience that just isn’t the case. A college degree is only a manifestation that
you know how to think, and it also helps to open a lot of doors. However, the people on the ground that have
earned their spot through experience have all kinds of valuable knowledge. This knowledge needs to be used both for the
success of the person and the success of the organization, and if a young
leader can swallow their pride, ask for help and training to be able to utilize
the abilities of these people, then it will help everyone in the end.
Day 2
We had an
“optional” PT (physical training) session with the guys from the MIT ROTC at
0700. The training was actually a lot of
fun; we got in formation, did military exercises – naturally a number of
pushups – and ran around shouting military cadences. They went really light on us, but it was cool
to get a glimpse of what that aspect of military life is like. I said it was optional because it technically
was, but the day before they broke the class into squads, named squad leaders,
and gave the squad leaders the order to have 100% attendance at PT. I ended up as our squad leader, and while I
began to get some commitments to come, I was killed in action as a part of the
exercise. Not surprisingly then, my
squad did not have 100% attendance. The
key takeaway for me here was that of accountability. Once we got back in the classroom, they put
all of the squad leaders in the front of the room and asked us what our
attendance was, and why our people weren’t there. Most of us didn’t have a very good answer. Sure I had gotten killed, but I still could
have done more. We probably hadn’t taken
the exercise serious enough, and hadn’t held ourselves accountable how we
should have. However, this really made
me think about accountability in life in general. It’s too easy to just send an email and then
think we’ve done our job, when really that email doesn’t mean anything. I could go on for a while about this, but
this simple illustration of accountability was powerful for me, and while I
feel like I am on the whole an accountable person, I recognize there is room
for improvement and incorporating it more into my life has become a goal of
mine.
Next up, we
had two panels, one with Junior Officers and one with Senior Officers. The theme of humility came up again, and the
Junior Officers reiterated the point that the NCOs had made – it’s important to
learn from the enlisted folks that have a lot of experience. However, they also stressed the importance of
making decisions and owning them, because at the end of the day that’s your
job. The Senior Officers were also quite
impressive – we had representation from the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air
Force. It was as though we had four Vice
Presidents from four large companies with us in the same room to speak about
leadership. One of my key takeaways from
this was the importance of knowing your people.
While this had been stressed throughout the course, it really hit home
for me here. In order to lead people
have to want to follow you, and the way you earn that is by showing them that
you know and care about them. As well,
it was interesting to think about how it goes both ways – you need to know the
people below you so that they trust what you say, but you also need to know the
people above you so that you trust what they say. Otherwise, you won’t really be able to own
their orders, vision, or objective that they give to you, and in the end you
will become ineffective.
Day 3
Today. It was really
cool. We did a lot of reflection on what
we had talked about so far, wrapped up the course, and listened to both the Deputy Under-Secretary of the Army and of course Mr. Kelley. It was interesting to
hear him speak, and to hear him talk about fear. He said that while of course he was afraid
for his physical well-being, what drove him to his heroic actions (if you
didn’t check the link above, while protecting his troops on a damaged boat, he
put himself in a necessary but very exposed position, and continued to command
his troops to get the out of danger after having been struck in the head by the
shrapnel from an RPG, which cost him his eye) was more the fear of letting his
men down. In essence, as their commander
he felt accountable to them and their safety, and that had become such a part
of him that it overcame his fear. When
we had a break for lunch I approached him to shake his hand, thank him for
coming and for his service like I’m sure thousands have done since he received
the award. It probably wasn’t a big deal
for him, but for me it was very impressive to be able to shake hands with
someone who had been ready and able to perform under the most duress imaginable
in a way that saved the lives of his mean and is admired by a grateful nation.
As I’ve been reflecting of this course, I think my main
takeaway is that leadership is really simple – it’s all about people and it’s
all about accountability. While we come
up with all kind of frameworks, theories, and mantras for leadership, it’s
probably just that simple, and maybe everything else we talk about when
discussing leadership is just fluff.
