8 Leadership Lessons I Learned in the Army

September 09, 2012, by HR à la carte | Work Environment and Policies

Having started my working career as a Logistics Officer in the Canadian Army, there are many lessons in leadership I learned as a platoon commander that have stuck with me through the years in my civilian career in both operations and human resources, and have continued to be helpful both as a leader myself and as a coach to leaders.

Leadership Lesson #1 – Always Listen to Your Experts

As a junior officer, your Second in Command is generally a seasoned non-commissioned officer (NCO), either a Sergeant, Warrant Officer or Master Warrant Officer.  The advice my father (an ex-army Warrant Officer) gave me upon obtaining my commission was to “always listen to your NCOs”.  The NCOs are the experts in their trades and one of their roles is to mentor, guide and train the junior officers to whom they report.  I took this advice to heart, and developed a fabulous working relationship with my platoon’s Master Warrant Officer, who happened to be a female soldier as well.  By being open to her advice and suggestions and showing her the respect she deserved as a function of both her rank and her experience, we became a strong leadership team that the platoon looked up to.

Leadership Lesson #2 – Do Not Ignore Your Gut Instincts

This is the Yin to Lesson #1’s Yang.  Sometimes people who come across as experts really aren’t.  If you follow their advice against your better judgement, they will let you down.  But you as the leader will need to take responsibility for this.  I learned this lesson the hard way as a young Lieutenant.  I was in charge of my Company’s annual field exercise and the Company Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM) was assigned to me as my Second in Command for this event.  Having had such a great experience working with my Platoon Master Warrant Officer, I expected the same level of expertise from the RSM who was also a Master Warrant Officer.  I started to question his guidance early on when I did not agree with his bivouac plan for the Company camp.  It made no sense to me and I made my concerns known to him, along with suggestions for improvements.  He insisted that his plan was the most viable and that he knew best.  So, against my gut instincts and because I was green behind the ears I let him carry on with it.  I sorely regretted my decision a few hours later when the Commanding Officer spent several minutes yelling at me (in front of the RSM, who said nothing) for the poorly designed plan.  I took responsibility for the plan and changed it according to my original suggestions and it was approved.

Leadership Lesson #3 – Do Not Ask Your Team to Do What You Are Not Willing to Do Yourself

Even though there is a very specific rank structure in the military, you can only get away with pulling rank so much before your soldiers start to disengage from you as a leader and only do the bare minimum required (enough to avoid court martial, but not enough to really pull their weight).  The cliché “lead by example” is a cliché because it is so true.  My platoon knew that I slogged it out right beside them every step of the way, whether it was from doing our daily physical training together at “O’Dark Hundred”, pulling night duty, the rigorous training I had completed, etc.  For example, if I ever doled out push-ups as a disciplinary measure, I ensured I only asked them to do what I was capable of doing myself.  (They also knew that I could out push-up the entire platoon at the time, so no one questioned this form of discipline.)

Leadership Lesson #4 – Small Gestures Pay Big Dividends

Constantly getting the pulse of your team in terms of their energy levels, morale and engagement levels is extremely important for any leader.  If you find it’s waning, small gestures go a long way to boosting their morale as they see that you care for them as human beings, and not just worker bees.  We had been training for 6 long weeks preparing to deploy to Bosnia and I could tell my platoon was tired of being away from home, the rations and not having a break (we only received 1 day off during the 6 week training period).  Fortunately, part of my platoon included the Brigade’s cooks.  I had a chat with the Sergeant in charge of the cooks and asked him if we could prepare something different for our platoon.  He looked at me with a twinkle in his eyes and said “Ma’am, I know exactly what we can do.”  After procuring all the supplies in the local town with the aid of my driver, the Sergeant prepared the ultimate Kraft Dinner and hot dog feast for my tired team.  They were thrilled and surprised and had renewed vigour for the final leg of the pre-deployment exercise.  In fact, they would bring it up time and again after that amongst themselves and to me for months afterwards.  Another platoon’s Warrant Officer came up to me sometime during that exercise and mentioned to me that he thought my platoon had the best morale in the whole Battalion and congratulated me.  Small gestures, big dividends.

Leadership Lesson #5 – Be a Good Follower

To be a good leader, you need to be a good follower.  This lesson is drilled into every officer during basic training and beyond.  It goes hand in hand with Lesson # 1, listening to your experts.  Having the fortitude, courage, openness and humbleness to admit you do not know everything, and are open to learn, and follow others who may have more expertise than you, is the cornerstone of becoming a good leader yourself.  Several times I saw peers of mine try to pull rank without the knowledge or expertise to really follow through with it.  They struggled to maintain control of their platoon and ultimately were ineffective as leaders.  There are also many instances where you are given a role that requires you to lead your peers; if you have not reciprocated by following them effectively in their own leadership roles chances are they will not help you when it comes time to lead your own project.

Leadership Lesson #6 – Become Politically Astute

You don’t have to become a political animal in order to succeed as a leader, but you do need awareness of the politics of the organization and how to navigate them successfully.  My Master Warrant Officer was adept at pointing out the various relationships between functions and people in our Battalion; “watch out for Major XYZ, he’s a smiling blade”; “Captain ABC is a great guy to have on your side, get to know him”, etc.  It was my first introduction to the fact that not everything on the surface is what it may seem, and to start to hone my skills at understanding the motivations and strategies that individuals in an organization will use to further their own agendas.  Effective leaders know the undercurrents in their teams and organizations, know how to successfully navigate them and surround themselves by experts they can trust.

Leadership Lesson #7 – Share the Big Picture

I was astounded when I became aware that most of the soldiers in my platoon did not know how to read military map symbols.  To me this was such basic knowledge that would help them be more effective in their day-to-day roles out in the field.  I put together a training session for them and my investment of a few hours, with the enthusiastic support of my Master Warrant Officer, paid off in a big way during our pre-deployment exercise for Bosnia.  My troops felt prepared and confident and thanked me for sharing my knowledge with them.  From that moment on, I made sure to share with them as much as I could from a security clearance perspective information from the various briefing sessions I had to attend during the course of the exercise.  Because they were able to see the big picture, they were able to see how each of their roles fit in with it and to suggest how they might be able to do things differently to meet the various objectives.  I believe this investment in time and training had a large part to play in my platoon successfully kitting out over 200 soldiers, along with the necessary vehicles and equipment with less than 2 weeks’ notice for deployment to a NATO mission in Bosnia. 

Leadership Lesson #8 – Leadership is Not About Your Rank

Your rank or position will only get you so far.  Leaders who only use their position in the organization’s pecking order to make things happen will quickly lose the respect of their teams.  Leadership in any organization, including the military, is ultimately about motivation and influencing skills.  There were officers I had in the army who led with fear tactics and via their rank and others who used similar leadership styles to the lessons laid out in this article.  Which style do you think got the most out of their troops?  It’s not for nothing that in war situations there have been officers found dead with bullet wounds in their backs; shot by their own troops.  That’s a very harsh example of how not to lead.  In the civilian world, employees will disengage, leave the organization, or perhaps bring in a union to provide a buffer between themselves and poor leaders.  Either way, the results of poor leadership are damaging.

The army has a very clear command and control structure.  However, the foundation for its success, particularly in high stress situations such as deployments, is the development of trust between officer and soldier that has taken place prior to the deployment itself.  Without the trust of your team, command and control will only take you so far.  By utilizing the lessons in leadership above, leaders will develop camaraderie with, and the trust and respect of, their teams, so that in times of trial, teams will give their leader their all, knowing that it’s reciprocated back to them.

Click here to find out more about HR à la carte's leadership and management training.