Leadership in the Military

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.