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Copyright © 2016 Jason M. West
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from Maimou Publishing,
LLC, except for inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
ISBN: 153020609X
ISBN-13:978-1530206094
DISCLAIMER: The views presented are those of the author and do not represent the views of the Department of Defense or the United States Marine Corps. Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals. Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at press time, the author and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause.
Dedicated to my wife, Crystal, who has supported me each step of the way, and without whom this book would have not been possible.
To my fallen Brothers from Operation Iraqi Freedom
Captain Patrick M. Rapicault, USMC
Captain John W. Maloney, USMC Captain Tyler B. Swisher, USMC Captain Robert M. Secher, USMC
Jason M. West has been leading and developing teams for 20 plus years as a Marine, entrepreneur, and business professional. He has founded two companies and successfully sold one. West is a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Marine Corps Reserves and has served in combat environments in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. West has lived the U.S. Marine philosophy of Officers Eat Last, which effectively means servant leadership. West has used his experience as a leader to create a leadership development doctrine that anyone can use to become a successful leader.
Preface
Part I:
Establishing Your Leadership Foundation
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1 What is Leadership? 1
2 How Does Someone Become a Leader? 10
3 Know Yourself 19
4 Creating Your Leadership Doctrine 38
5 Creating Your Leadership Rules
Part II: Building Your Leadership Skills
51
6 How to Build a Skill 62
7 How to Become an Effective Communicator (as a Leader)
67
8 How to Become an Effective Planner
(as a Leader)
76
9 How to Become an Effective Decision Maker
(as a Leader)
86
10 How to Build a Successful Team (as a Leader)
Part III:
Starting Your Leadership Journey
96
11 Ethical Leadership: The Only Way to Lead 104
12 Role of Leadership Mentors 109
13 Role of Leadership Influencers 113
14 Let the Leadership Journey Begin
Acknowledgments
Appendix A
Appendix B
119
125
126
127
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The first time I ever thought about writing a leadership
development book was the summer of 2001. I was a US
Marine Captain instructor at the Marine Corps Officer
Candidates School (OCS) in Quantico, VA. Wharton Business
School had recently organized a leadership venture to OCS.
The students wrote a lengthy lesson learned document from the
event that was shared with the OCS staff. I remember reading
the statements and how impressed the business school students
were with Marine Corps leadership principles. Each of their
statements emphasized how they were going to take the
leadership lessons they learned from their experience back into
the business world. I was impressed with their enthusiasm, but
they learned their leadership lessons in a day-and-a-half trip to
Quantico. Since 2001, I have founded two companies and
successfully sold one. I have worked for Fortune 500
companies, mid-size, and start-ups. Over my 24 year career as a
Marine, I have served in Kosovo; Fallujah, Iraq; and Sangin,
Afghanistan. I am now a Lieutenant Colonel Marine Reserve
infantry officer. This leadership development book is a
combination of all the lessons I have learned over my 20 plus
year career as an entrepreneur, business leader, and Marine.
My experience in the business world indicates that there isn’t a
clear path to become a successful leader for entrepreneurs and
business professionals. I believe the leadership development
process that I have outlined and detailed in this book provides a
clear path.
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I will not try to make you a US Marine. I will not try to make you me. The blueprint or doctrine that I lay out will leverage your unique personality and style to grow you into a successful leader. Most companies do not have leadership development programs. They expect the young business professional to learn leadership on their own time. Most young professionals today will work for 7-8 different companies over their career. The responsibility to grow yourself as a leader is your own. The blueprint foundation is built on the philosophy of Officers Eat Last, which effectively means servant leadership. It is a physical expression of servant leadership, because Marine leaders eat last during field training and in certain combat environments. If your logistics personnel did not provide enough food for the unit, the leaders will not eat. The best people to fix any logistic issues are the leaders. Servant leadership is a simple philosophy, but it will allow you to take people to heights they never dreamed. If you are ready to begin your journey to becoming a successful and confident leader, please join me and keep reading.
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Carnegie Institute
of Technology
85% of your financial success is due to your
personality and ability to communicate,
negotiate, and lead.
Shockingly, only 15% is due to
your technical knowledge.
Are you seeking a path to greater financial
success within your organization or as an
entrepreneur?
Do you want to have a greater influence on
your team, peers, managers, and customers?
Start your journey to become a successful
leader today.
Start your journey to achieve greater
financial success today.
4
Officers Eat Last
Leadership Development Rules
Every successful leader has leadership rules that
guide their actions with their team.
Jason has compiled a list of 75 leadership rules
that he has used throughout his 20 plus years of
leading teams.
Add them to your personal leadership doctrine
today.
Get your FREE copy at the link below.
OfficersEatLast.com/index.php/rules-book/
PART I
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CHAPTER 1
“Leadership is the sum of those qualities of intellect, human understanding,
and moral character that enables a person to inspire and control a group of
people successfully.”
-John A. Lejeune Lieutenant General 13th Commandant of the Marine Corps
Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan - 2011
The sound of machine gun fire and the consequent return of
small caliber weapons could be heard in close proximity, but we
were lucky to be outside the path of the fire fight. This was
2011, Sangin, Afghanistan, one of the deadliest places in the
world for a United States Marine. Over the course of the year,
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casualties were staggering; over 30 dead and 150 plus wounded.
I walked to my patrol leader, Sergeant Kennedy, and
recommended that we return to Forward Operating Base
Jackson. Our unit had just completed a construction project
assessment in which a civilian engineer was accompanying us on
patrol. I was not aware of his battle readiness, but was fairly
confident that he did not want to be in the line of fire. I quickly
communicated my recommended route back to base with
Sergeant Kennedy who then called in our position to the
Combat Operations Center (COC). She informed them that we
were returning to base. The fire fight was taking place between
a static Marine position and Taliban insurgents east of the
Sangin bazaar, in a wadi, or dry riverbed. The entire unit heard
the firefight but remained calm and composed. The plan to
return to base and the intended route was communicated to the
team. The decision was made that we would not engage in the
firefight, as the Marines had the engagement in hand and we did
US Marines on patrol in Sangin, Afghanistan, 2011
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not want to risk moving a civilian into harm’s way. We were
directly west of the skirmish, and our movement back to base
would require our team to cross the wadi. Our current position
left our patrol clear from impacting rounds, as the engagement
was taking place at a northwest - southeast angle. However, the
required movement across the wadi would leave our team
exposed. I made the decision that we would use a tactical bump
plan to move across the open area and informed the team,
while also covering our rules of engagement. Near side
security was established, and the first two Marines rapidly
moved across to establish far side security. At this point we
began to bump the remainder of the team across the exposed
wadi. As I cleared the wadi and set up on the far side, I peered
through the scope of my rifle to see an individual moving in the
wadi at approximately 200 meters from our point carrying a
long straight device. I immediately placed my finger on the
trigger and clicked off safe. Your adrenaline starts to rush at
the thought that you are about to take someone’s life. We were
not under fire so I needed to ensure I was acting in accordance
with our rules of engagement. Due to the limited power of my
scope, I could not positively confirm that my target was holding
an AK-47, the preferred weapon of the enemy. As he runs out
of my field of view, I click my weapon back to safe. He never
attempted to fire on our patrol, therefore preventing me from
taking the shot. As the fire fight in the distance continued, I
returned my focus to our patrol, who had cleared the exposed
area in the wadi. Our team members assumed their positions
within the patrol and began our final few hundred meter trek to
safety at the base under the confident lead of Sgt Kennedy.
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This story helps to demonstrate how incredibly important
communication, teamwork, confidence, and decision making
are for effective leadership. More times than not, leadership is
about avoiding pitfalls and making the necessary decisions to
lead a team to a desired outcome. This situation could have
ended with casualties, had our team not used our training to
assess the situation, communicated our objectives, and
remained calm in a hostile environment.
Leadership position vs Leadership role
It is extremely important to understand the difference between
a leadership position, and a leadership role. The focus of this
book is on individuals that are in leadership positions or are
aspiring leaders. A person in a leadership position is an
individual that has two or more people as direct reports, and is
responsible for their collective actions as a team. Examples of
individuals in leadership positions are entrepreneurs, regional
sales managers, operations managers, product managers,
coaches, etc that have direct employees. The key is that the
individual in a leadership position has direct employees. The
best way to grow as a leader is to be in a leadership position. A
person in a leadership role is an individual that does not have
direct reports, but is in a position to influence the actions of
others. Examples of individuals in leadership roles are, a
quarterback of a football team, a class president in high school
or college, or a salesperson without employees. The key
difference is that the individual does not have any employees
and is not being paid to be in a leadership position. There are
different skill sets that need to be developed to be successful in
a leadership role. The education and development is centered
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on influence. It is more difficult to be successful in a leadership
role because you don’t have any positional authority.
Leadership Styles
Every leader has their own style that they have developed over
years of leading. The only way to be successful as a leader is to
develop a style that is uniquely yours. A leader has to move
individuals toward a common goal in order to succeed. The
style that General Patton used created success for his team on
the battlefield during World War II, but would probably not
resonate with a group of software engineers in the 21st Century.
He was trained and developed by the US Army to lead soldiers
into battle. He was a student of history and leadership. He
developed a style that fit his personality, and matched his
environment on the battlefield. He knew his objective, and led
his soldiers to defeat the enemy. He had positional power.
The character Spock from the popular TV show Star Trek, had
a unique leadership style that was focused heavily on the
analysis of data and logic. Spock wasn’t concerned with human
emotions regarding leadership, and problem solving, but he
knew that emotions were important to humans. This allowed
Spock to integrate human emotions into his decision making.
He relied on his intelligence and analytical abilities with his
leadership style. Every leader has to make conscious decisions
about their leadership style. Their leadership style must be
aligned with their personality or they will have a very difficult
time being successful. The leader's style, personality, and
behaviors must also align with their environment and industry.
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Leadership Abilities vs Technical Competencies
I have been perplexed with the amount of emphasis business
professionals place on technical abilities as it relates to
leadership. There is a huge misunderstanding in this area,
which leads to employee complaints about their supervision.
The person that is leading the team is often the person that was
most skilled in a technical area. The prevailing wisdom is to
promote this individual into a leadership position. The majority
of the time this person does not want to lead or doesn’t know
how to lead the team. They enjoy the technical details and are
not really interested in leading a team of people and pulling
themselves away from the data. So why do they normally
accept these offers? They generally accept because of the
financial benefit, the corner office, or the perceived freedom the
position offers. The problem is that the honeymoon is very
short. Their company offers them zero leadership training and
development. The thought process is that the person is clearly
intelligent, so they will figure it out. The new leader normally
alienates the team they are leading. They set expectations way
too high. They expect their team to work as many hours as
they previously did when they were in the technical details every
day. They expect their team to have the knowledge they do,
then get frustrated when they realize their team doesn’t.
Eventually this team will begin to miss deadlines, underperform
and ultimately fail. The new leader will be overwhelmed with
stress. The company will lose a couple of great engineers in the
process, and then eventually their new leader will also quit
because he is ill equipped to handle the situation. He will land
at another company as an individual contributor and be as
happy as a kid with an ice cream cone. The way to stop this
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cycle is to recognize that an individual's technical competence
does not directly correlate to leadership ability. Often times it is
a detriment. Leadership development requires time and
patience on the part of the individual and company.
Leader vs Manager
I’m not a fan of the word “Manager”. The world needs leaders,
not managers. My focus is on developing leaders. I realize that
I will not be able to rid the world of the word “manager”, but it
will be used very rarely by me. You must think of yourself as a
leader if you are going to succeed. A leader is emotionally
involved with their team. They care about the welfare and
success of the team. An ill-equipped manager is not concerned
with personal issues that may affect an individual's
performance. Those who are managerial focused, sometimes
feel the individual should deal with that on their own time, and
not bring their personal problems to work. A leader
understands that sometimes people get divorced, have a sick
child, or ill parent, and that can have a detrimental impact on an
individual’s performance. If they have a consistent solid
performer on their team and notice a significant drop in
performance, the leader engages the person. This engagement
by a leader will normally reveal that the drop in performance is
due to a personal issue in their life. The stress weighs on the
emotional state of the individual and affects their performance.
A leader acknowledges the effect this can have, and works with
the individual to determine a path towards resolution. The
correct path always varies and could mean time away from work
or a schedule adjustment, but the leader will gain a tremendous
amount of loyalty from this individual by being human and
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acknowledging the problem they are dealing with.
As you might expect, an ill-equipped manager will handle this a
different way. An ill-equipped manager is not concerned with
issues that are outside of work. They don’t know if their
employees are married. They don’t know where they grew up,
if they have siblings or parents, etc. An ill-equipped manager
also doesn’t care. They are concerned about the work the
individual is responsible for each day. The ill-equipped
manager will open the “Management 101” textbook when there
is a drop in performance. They will document the drop in
performance with a written counseling and get the employee to
sign the paperwork for Human Resources. Employees will
hesitate to communicate with this type of manager that there is
an underlying issue. They will accept the written counseling and
sign the paperwork. The end result will be this employee
becoming disengaged and seeking opportunities elsewhere.
We are going to focus on being a leader and minimize the
unemotional attributes that some managers display. A
successful leader does need to know and understand
management principles. However, management principles
should be focused on non-human resources and assets. We
need to lead people and manage resources and assets.
Leaders are Made
I am firmly in the camp with the legendary football coach Vince
Lombardi’s belief that leaders are made. I was developed into a
leader by outstanding mentors that cared about my leadership
development. I have developed and mentored people to
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become successful leaders. If you are interested in creating your
blueprint for building your leadership foundation; let’s get
started.
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CHAPTER 2
“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be
strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.”
-Helen Keller
I arrived in Quantico, VA in early April 2015. The US
Marine Corps had been tasked by the Department of
Defense (DOD) to host the 2015 Department of Defense
Warrior Games. The Warrior Games is an adaptive sports
athletic competition amongst the DOD and British Services.
The first Warrior Games were presented by Deloitte, and
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hosted by the US Olympic Committee in Colorado in 2010.
They had been held each Summer since 2010, so it was going
to be the sixth Warrior Games. At the conclusion of the
2014 Warrior Games. It had become evident that the two
organizations had different objectives for the event. The US
Olympic Committee wanted to use the event to feed their
Paralympic Games. The DOD was using the event for
adaptive sports recovery. The goal was to assist and facilitate
the recovery of wounded, ill, and injured service members.
The Marine Corps tasked the Wounded Warrior Regiment to
plan and execute the event in Quantico, VA. I was tasked to
be the Operations Officer for the Warrior Games Task Force
that was being organized to plan and execute the event.
When I joined in early April 2015, there were already some
planning decisions made, but we didn’t have a complete staff
to run the event. As any good leader knows, having the right
team is critical to your success, so the first thing we set out to
do was build the rest of the team. The Wounded Warrior
Regiment received a contingent of about 20 contractors to
2015 Department of Defense Warrior Games closing ceremony.
Quantico, Virginia, 2015
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assist with the planning effort. Most of these contractors
continued through execution of the event, which contributed
to the success of the 2015 Warrior Games. Marine Corps
Base Quantico maintained their independence as an
organization, but played a huge part in the planning and
execution of the event. It was fascinating as we continued to
bring people into the planning effort to hear their comments
and feedback. I had never planned a sporting event, or any
event that the highest ranking civilian and military officials of
the Department of Defense would be the guest speakers and
visitors. The individuals that had planned major events
couldn’t believe that we only had two months to plan, and
execute a 10 day Olympic level competition event, with an
Open Ceremony and Closing Ceremony. The Marines
involved in the planning effort knew we would be successful.
We didn’t care that it hadn’t been done. We just knew that
we were going to do it. We created operational planning
teams (OPTs) to plan each event of the Warrior Games.
Each of these OPTs had between 20-60 members. They
comprised subject matter experts that had planned, and had
been involved in previous adaptive sports competitions. The
planning teams had all of the expertise that we needed to plan
and execute the event. We conducted over 60 planning
sessions, and developed an operations order that was several
hundred pages in length to execute the event, which led to
the event being a success.
As I have reflected back on the event, and what we were able
to accomplish together, I have thought about what allowed
me to have the confidence to act as the Operations Officer.
It was how I was developed into a leader by the United States
Marine Corps. I have led planning efforts in Iraq and
Afghanistan for combat operations. I have led efforts with
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more people, more assets, and clearly a higher level of risk
than a sporting event. My experiences and training provided
the confidence to act in that capacity. The Officers Eat Last
Leadership Development Process will do that same thing for
you.
By committing all of your efforts to building yourself as a
leader, this program will help you to establish a strong
foundation that can lead to a future of continued growth and
success as a leader in your field of choice.
Understand the Purpose of Leadership
The purpose of leadership is to join a group of individuals
together into a team, and accomplish a common goal. If the
group of individuals act and perform as a team, they will
accomplish more than a group of individuals acting alone.
Desire to Lead
An individual must have a desire to lead others. A person
will never build a team if they have accepted a promotion
into a leadership position due to an increase in salary alone.
They must want to grow as a leader. The team that you are
leading will be able to determine quickly if you have a desire
to lead. People want to be led by people that have a desire to
be a better leader.
Lead
The best way to grow as a leader is to actually lead others.
You will never have significant growth as a leader unless you
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are in a leadership position.
Fail
When you begin your leadership journey you will make
mistakes. Your first leadership position will probably be
leading less than ten people. This is a great place to figure
out leadership and fail small. Failure leads to success in just
about any endeavor. The critical piece is to learn from your
mistakes. Real leadership is built the way character is built. It
is built through trials and tribulations. There isn’t a linear
path to leadership success.
Study, Self-Reflection, Having a Mentor
Leadership is not a technical skill. Leadership can be learned,
but it takes work by the individual that is attempting to
become a Leader. You must read and study successful
leaders from history like George Washington and Henry
Ford. You need to ask what made them successful. What
leadership techniques of theirs can you employ? What style
of leadership fits with my personality? What industry is a fit
for my personality and leadership? All great leaders have
mentors that provided guidance and wisdom.
Officers Eat Last Leadership Development Process
The Officers Eat Last Leadership Development Process is
your blueprint to build your leadership foundation. Officers
Eat Last is a term used by US Marines as a physical
expression of servant leadership. It guides the actions of
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Marine leaders. When Marines are training or in certain
combat environments and the unit is going to have a meal
together, the Marines are directed to line up from the lowest
rank to the highest rank present. The heavy lifting and
hardest work is done by the youngest Marines. They deserve
to eat first. I have experienced this first hand as a young
enlisted Marine when I was able to eat first. I have also
experienced being the last to eat as a Commanding Officer.
It is a small sacrifice to be the last to eat, but it sends a
tremendous message. There have been times where there
was no food left when it came time for myself and other
senior Marine leaders to eat. It is unfortunate when this
happens, but the leaders of the unit are the best people to fix
any logistic issues and ensure there is enough food for the
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next meal. Don’t let the word “Officer” create any
confusion. The last word in the acronym CEO is “Officer”.
In business, it is common for people to talk about the
officers or executives of the company. The way the phrase is
used is a reference to leaders. It is my opinion that servant
leaders are the most successful leaders. As a leader, you need
something that reminds you daily of where your focus should
be. It should be on the people that you lead. There is
nothing like waiting for 250 people to eat before you have a
bite of food to remind you of your focus. What will you use
daily to remind you to focus on your people first? The
journey to becoming a successful leader is a long process, but
the ten steps of the OEL Leadership Development Process
will assist in shortening your journey.
Officers Eat Last Stages of Leadership
There are three stages of leadership that are based on the
number of people you are leading. The only way to be a
Stage I leader is to be in a leadership position. If you are a
student body president, you are not a Stage I Leader. You
are in a leadership role and have influence, but you are not
being paid in your role. There are three levels within each
stage. All leaders begin as an aspiring leader. Leadership
mentoring and hands-on leadership allow you to grow
through experienced leader and then to a mature leader.
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The number of people being led can stay the same from
Aspiring to Experienced to Mature leader because a person
changes levels by hours leading, reading, and being mentored.
An example of a Stage I Aspiring leader could be a High
School football coach. If the coach is still coaching football
40 years later, they would be a Stage I Mature leader because
the number of people they are leading has not changed.
The focus of this leadership development book is on Stage I aspiring leaders.
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CHAPTER 3
It is absurd that a man should rule others, who cannot rule himself.
-Latin Proverb
It was the Winter of 1998. I was in the Director’s office at the
United States Marine Corps Infantry Officer’s Course and being
told that I would not be graduating with my peers as I had
expected. I was devastated, but at the same time I had seen it
coming. My arrogance and cockiness had finally caught up to
me. I had completed all of the requirements to be a Marine
Infantry Officer, but there were a few staff members that felt
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like I was too arrogant to be an infantry officer. The Director
agreed with their assessment, so I would not graduate with my
peers, and I would be held back at Quantico for an indefinite
number of weeks for further evaluation. The Corps needed to
determine if I was humble enough to lead Marines. When I
think back to that time in my life, I have to laugh a little.
Marine infantry officers are some of the most arrogant and
cocky people in the US military. It is pretty bad when you are
deemed even more arrogant than the standard Marine infantry
officer. This required me to take a step back and do quite a bit
of soul searching. Once all the administrative details were set, I
got in my truck and started driving west. I didn’t know where I
was going, I just knew I needed to get away from Quantico for
the weekend. After a couple hours of driving I ended up in
White Sulphur Springs, WV. I decided to stop at The
Greenbrier Resort, which is a luxury resort that has a massive
underground bunker that was meant to serve as an emergency
A young Second Lieutenant West cooling off during an exercise at
The Basic School, Quantico, Virginia, 1997
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shelter for the U.S. Congress during the Cold War. I walked in
and requested a room for the night, but was taken aback when I
was told by the clerk that the night would cost $450. I had the
money, but my practical side told me that I could get a room
for less, so I decided to try elsewhere. I headed out and found a
hole of a motel for around 45 bucks. I found a local dive and
grabbed some beer and food. There weren’t many cell phones
at that time, and I didn’t have one, so no tracking devices, no
checking in on people. It was just me, by myself in West
Virginia. Some people have the ability to listen and figure
themselves out without a lot of pain and misery. That is not the
way I did it. I had my future in front of me as a Marine Officer
and my arrogance almost ruined my plans. I was learning a ton
about myself and some of those things were not easy to
swallow. I was way too arrogant, aggressive, and cocky. This
was another wakeup call in a long line of feedback that I had
ignored. I drank as much beer as I could and walked back to
my rundown motel room. When I awoke in the morning, I was
a bit hungover, but I felt like I was ready to tackle the
challenges ahead of me. I wasn’t happy but I felt like I knew
what I had to do. I needed to add some humility to my style
and pay much closer attention to my own behavior.
Why is it Important to Know Yourself as a Leader?
It seems like common sense that you should know yourself.
Most people think that they have a good understanding of
themselves. If you are an individual contributor in your
profession then this probably works for you. However, once
you start to lead a team it becomes much more important. All
of your actions will be observed every day. The time you arrive
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at work. The time you leave work. If you drink coffee. If you
don’t drink coffee. The way you run a meeting. The way you
establish goals or don’t establish goals. It is extremely
important that the view you have of yourself is in focus with
those that you lead. If you think you are intelligent, thoughtful,
and caring but your team thinks you are intelligent, lazy, and
selfish. Guess what? You have a problem. You will never lead
your team to new heights.
How is Your Self-Image Developed?
Your self-image is developed over your life. It begins when you
are a child. Parents that provide a loving and caring home for
their children have an impact on their children’s self-image. If
you excel in school from an early age, it will have an impact on
your self-image. If you have positive people around you, it will
impact you. All of your experiences good or bad build who you
are. If you were involved in sports and you excelled, it builds
your self-image.
My step-grandfather use to call me “Winner” when I was a kid.
I didn’t think much about it as a kid, but I think it is rooted in
my subconscious. I respected him as an authority figure in my
life, and I think it has impacted my attitude as an adult. I don’t
think about him saying that to me that often, but I think it is
always there. If I am going to pursue something, I believe I can
win. We know unfortunately there are adults that were called
“Loser” when they were a kid. This is a terrible thing for an
adult to do to a kid. If something like this has happened to you,
you must use it to strengthen your resolve to succeed. You
have to do it for yourself and don’t allow the person that called
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you a loser to have control over your life. Do not repeat the
mistake that was made.
Reality TV Show Syndrome
We have all watched reality TV shows that are competitions of
talent. The show may be judging the ability of an individual to
sing. The show has a panel of judges that evaluate the talent of
the individual. We have all heard an individual audition and the
sound gives you a headache because it is so terrible. The
person awaits the responses from the judges, and they inform
the person that they are horrible. The judges normally add
additional descriptions that make for great TV. The singer is
provided an opportunity to respond and they normally say, “I
don’t care what you think, I’m a great singer”. When I was an
instructor at the US Marine Corps Officer Candidates School
(OCS), we use to hear this same type of response from
candidates. The only purpose of OCS is to train, evaluate, and
screen for leadership. Candidates that are failing are provided
an opportunity in front of a board or panel to explain their
actions. The candidates are presented with the facts of their
performance. A typical evaluation of a failing candidate would
indicate that they were lazy, selfish, and lacked the ability to
accomplish simple tasks with their team when in a leadership
position. If a candidate acknowledged their failures and
sincerely indicated that they would improve their performance
during the next evaluation, they had an opportunity to continue
in training. If a candidate argued and defended their
performance, basically indicating that the OCS instructors and
their peers did not present a fair evaluation, they were dismissed
from OCS. We called this the “Reality TV Show Syndrome”.
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The individual's self-image and talent are out of focus. They are
delusional. These type of individuals make the worst leaders.
These are the leaders that believe their team is succeeding
because of them. When in reality their team does not respect
them, and doesn’t want to work for them but they just haven’t
quit yet. This is not where you want to operate as a leader.
You do not want to live in delusionary land. When you are in a
leadership position, your team does not need to like you, but
they must respect what you are trying to do as a leader. If you
can have respect, you can normally have trust.
The Entitlement Attitude
We would see the entitlement attitude in candidates at OCS.
This is a dangerous place for any leader to be. Great leaders
fight against this attitude. They know they have to prove their
worth every day. Past success is an indication of future success,
but a leader cannot rest on past success alone. A typical
entitlement attitude candidate is an individual that has had
success in multiple pursuits, academics, sports, and other
extracurricular activities. They have also been told by their
parents, family, and friends that they are the best. There is
nothing wrong with past success and a positive environment.
The problem arises when the individual believes that their past
success is enough and they don’t have to compete or be
challenged again. These candidates think that the Marine Corps
should judge them on their success in sports and their grades in
college. They feel the Marine Corps is lucky to have them, and
needs to provide them with their commission, so that they can
accomplish the other things on their career list. This doesn’t
work out very well for “the entitlement attitude” candidate.
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These candidates are brought before a board and provided an
opportunity to adapt their behavior for further evaluation. The
candidates that recognize that they must earn a commission
through their actions everyday normally will graduate. The
candidates that defend their previous accomplishments and
indicate that their family thinks they are successful do not make
it.
It is important for leaders of all ages to recognize the
entitlement attitude, and put measures in place to shield against
it. I have to do it in my life. I love having an office. I know
that I work best in an office. I have never had to work for long
in a cubicle and I’m not a fan of it. I basically have an
entitlement attitude towards having an office. You need to
understand if your behavior indicates an entitlement attitude. If
you see this in your behavior you need to adapt your actions
because you will have a difficult time being successful as a
leader with an entitlement attitude.
U.S. Marine Officer Candidates School
Tri-Focal View of Leadership
The mission of OCS is to educate, and train officer candidates
in Marine Corps knowledge, and skills within a controlled,
challenging, and chaotic environment in order to evaluate, and
screen individuals for the leadership, moral, mental, and
physical qualities required for commissioning as a Marine Corps
Officer. The primary mission of OCS is to evaluate and screen
to determine if young Americans possess leadership abilities.
An individual that arrives at OCS must have some basic
leadership abilities upon arrival, or they will have a very difficult
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time completing the course. One of the methods that the
instructor staff at OCS uses to evaluate leadership is called the
Tri-Focal View. The Seniors are the candidates instructor staff.
The staff is comprised of experienced enlisted drill instructors
that are seasoned in leadership evaluation, the Platoon
Commanders are Captains, and the Company Commander is a
Major. The Captains have 4-9 years of leadership experience.
The Major has 10-16 years of leadership experience. The peers
are the candidates peers in the course. Feedback from peers is
gathered through peer evaluations that take place three times
over the length of the course. The last view is the view the
candidate has of themselves. The only way for a candidate to
graduate is for the Tri-Focal View to be in focus. Candidates
are placed in leadership positions throughout the course and
27
evaluated on their ability to lead. The leadership positions
usually last for 48 hours. The candidate in the leadership
position will have many tasks that they need to accomplish as a
leader over this period of time. Most of these tasks are simple,
but they become overwhelming to many candidates due to the
environment. It is always difficult to lead your peers.
The Drill Instructor staff assist in facilitating a little chaos for
the candidates in the leadership positions. At the completion of
a candidate’s leadership position, they receive a written
evaluation and counseling from one of the staff members. The
candidate will be asked a series of questions regarding their
performance. The candidate will also be required to write a
response on the evaluation. This could be called the
constructive critique time for the candidate.
This is the beginning of the Tri-Focal View for the candidate.
The majority of candidates do not do well in their first or
second leadership position at OCS. It is important for the
candidate to understand and accept the leadership critique they
receive. The candidates that accept the critique, and
acknowledge that they need improvement continue in training.
The next part of the Tri-Focal View is the peer evaluation. The
candidates are required to rank their peers in their squad. A
normal squad at OCS has 12-18 candidates in the squad. This
can be a very humbling experience for many candidates. A
candidate may receive feedback from the instructor staff that
they acted selfish and were not leading by example. If they
receive similar feedback from their peers, it is important for the
candidate to accept this constructive critique. They must adapt
their behavior and leadership style to be unselfish to those they
lead. Any candidate that does not accept this critique has their
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Tri-Focal View out of focus. These candidates do not normally
graduate OCS.
Is your Tri-Focal View in focus? Is the picture you have of
yourself the same picture that your seniors, mentors, and peers
have of you?
Officers Eat Last - Diamond View of Leadership
The Officer Candidates School Tri-Focal View of leadership is
very effective for its specific purpose. However, it is not the
best view of a leader in the business world. The Officers Eat
Last Diamond View of leadership more properly aligns a
leader’s world in business today. The only way for the
diamond view to work is for the individual to be in an actual
leadership position. For our purposes, this means the leader
has people working for them. The leader is being paid to
accomplish a set of tasks and the people working for him
understand that he is their supervisor. The most effective way
to become a better leader is to actually lead people and then
receive constructive feedback on your performance. The
feedback will continue to shape your self-image. It will
continue to shape who you are as a leader. I was informed early
on in my career that I lack patience. I have heard this from
Seniors/Mentors, Peers, Employees, and Customers. I believe
that I am impatient, so my Diamond View is in focus. This is
the most important part of how to use this information. What
will I do with this feedback? My natural state is to be impatient,
and push hard to accomplish the goals for the team I’m leading.
However, I have to remind myself that sometimes a little
patience is not a bad trait to use. There is always a balance on
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how hard a leader can push their team. This is why leading is
an art and not a science.
If I was continually receiving feedback that I lacked patience
and I denied and ignored this feedback, then my Diamond
View would be out of focus. This is a terrible place for a leader
to be. A leader will have an extremely difficult time building
Employees
30
trust with their team if they do not acknowledge constructive
feedback.
All of the feedback that the leader receives from the Diamond
View is important, but a leader should rank that importance per
the below list:
1. Mentors
2. Employees
3. Seniors
4. Peers
5. Customers
The mentor should not be relative. All leaders need to align
themselves with at least one experienced mentor. The mentor
needs to be a leader that has 15-20 years of leadership
experience. I want to emphasize that our definition of a leader
is an individual that has been paid to lead a team of people. A
mentor will not normally be able to observe your daily
interactions with your team. They will not be in your team
meetings or observe you resolving problems with your team. It
is critical to share the real facts with your mentor. Your mentor
will be able to coach and lead you on the different decisions you
can make, and how your behavior may be impacting your team
in a positive or negative way.
Employee feedback can get extremely interesting. At times you
may have members of your team that do not want to see you
succeed. If you are constantly receiving negative feedback from
a specific employee, this is where your mentor comes into play.
Share these interactions with your mentor and they should be
able to guide you in your decision making regarding constant
31
negative feedback from a particular employee. The other side
of this is when an employee is constantly telling you how great
you are as a leader. Compliments are always nice to hear, but a
leader needs to be cognizant that the constant positive feedback
from an employee may be so that they can advance their
agenda. The leader needs to sift through the feedback to shape
their style of leadership. The goal is to create a cohesive team
that works together. A team that feels like a team and
accomplishes big goals together. The best way to obtain this
feedback is one-on-one with an employee. Do not ask for
feedback in a meeting where
everyone can hear. If you have an
office, do not bring an employee into
your office and ask them. You need
to ask them while you are walking
down a hallway. It needs to be very
casual. The employee doesn’t even
know you are asking for a critique of your leadership. Your
question would be, “How do you think we are doing?”. After
you ask this question, you must listen for the employee’s
answer. They may say something like, “Oh, we are doing fine”.
It is important to listen for tone and inflection. You need to dig
deeper if you get a “we are doing fine” answer. Your next
question would be, “No, really how do you think we are going?
What are we doing wrong? What can we improve?”. Normally
after these questions, you will get some real feedback. Their
answers will be directed at the performance of the team. It is
important to take all of this information on in a gracious way.
You don’t have to implement every idea they provide, but you
need to acknowledge that you appreciate their feedback.
Earn your
leadership
every day.
Michael Jordan
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Feedback from a senior or your boss is important in the short
term, but a leader needs to be careful about this feedback over
the long term. There are tons of seniors in the business world
that are not effective leaders. Their feedback to you can be to
advance their career without any regard for yours. This is why
it is critical to have a mentor aligned with you on your
leadership journey. Your mentor can assist you in
understanding the type of senior that you have. If you have an
effective leader for a boss, you will be able to put more weight
on their critique of your leadership.
Peer feedback can be extremely beneficial. The peer can be a
friend you have known for years. The peer can also be a peer
leader where you work. You will need all types of peer
feedback. If it is a friend you have known for years and trust,
you should describe leadership situations with your team and
explain your decisions. You also need to describe to your
friend what you are trying to do. Sometimes a peer can lead
you off track, but you will know if they want to help you
succeed.
The least impactful feedback to assist in shaping your leadership
style is customer feedback. Customer feedback as we know is
critically important for the lifeblood of a company, but
feedback to one individual leader needs to be taken with a grain
of salt. If a customer thinks that your product is not aligned
properly in the market, this is less about you as an individual
leader, and more about the customer’s preferences. If a
customer is engaging with people on your team and they don’t
feel they are being treated fairly, then this is about your
leadership. You can’t allow people on your team to treat your
customers poorly.
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The Officers Eat Last Diamond View of Leadership is
extremely important in shaping who you are as a leader. A
person can have a ton of bad behaviors as an individual, but
leaders have to mitigate behaviors that tear away at the trust of
the team.
Is your Diamond View in focus?
Officers Eat Last - Know Yourself Process
Step 1: OEL Leadership Self-Assessment
Step 2: Personality Profile
Step 3: Diamond View of Leadership
a. OEL Senior Worksheet
b. OEL Peer Worksheet (3 minimum)
c. OEL Employee Worksheet (3 minimum)
d. OEL Customer Worksheet (3 minimum)
e. OEL Mentor Worksheet
Step 4: Holistic Evaluation of Diamond View
Step 1:
OEL Leadership Self-Assessment
The Leadership Self-Assessment is critical to the Officers Eat
Last Know Yourself Process. The best way to become a better
leader is to be in a leadership position. There are definitely
tangible skills to being an effective leader that a person can
learn through research and study. However, there are tons of
intangible skills that are best learned by actually leading others.
The self-assessment is the view you have of yourself right now
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as a leader. If this is the first time you are executing a process
like this, your view will probably be slightly out of focus. It is
perfectly acceptable to be out of focus right now. The point of
the process is to get your leadership abilities in focus so that
you can be successful.
Step 2:
Personality Profile
The prevailing wisdom in psychology today is that we have one
personality unless we have some type of mental disorder. The
majority of us do not have a mental disorder. So it is critical
that we understand our personality. We will not be able to
change our personality, but we will be able to change our
behavior depending on those we lead. My leadership
techniques as a Marine LtCol are slightly different than the
techniques I use in the civilian sector. One very simple
technique I use in the civilian sector is smile more. My normal
disposition during the day is intense, focused, and aggressive. I
have received feedback from my civilian employees that my
disposition is intimidating. I don’t lead through intimidation, so
I have found that if I smile more I look less intimidating. I was
asked by an employee one time, “How many people have you
killed just by looking at them”. A leader should not embrace
this type of behavior. There are many different options
available for online business personality assessments. It is
important to select a qualified provider and make this a part of
your Diamond View.
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Step 3a:
Diamond View Senior Worksheet
The Diamond View Senior Worksheet provides a view of your
leadership from someone that is leading you. Hopefully, your
boss is a leader that you respect and want to emulate but don’t
worry too much if you don’t work for a successful leader. The
feedback you receive is one small part of the overall view.
Step 3b:
Diamond View Peer Worksheet
The Peer Worksheet provides a view of your leadership and
behavior from individuals that are at the same level as you in
the organization or business world. You do not need to select
peers that work with you at the same company. You can select
close friends, but encourage them to provide honest feedback.
Step 3c:
Diamond View Employee Worksheet
The Diamond View Employee Worksheet provides a view of
your leadership from those you lead. These worksheets will
provide you with some of your best feedback. You may not
like it but the view that your employees have of your leadership
will be key to your success as a leader. Leadership is not a
popularity contest. Your employees do not have to like you.
However, they must respect and trust the path you are
recommending to accomplish the organization's goals. You
cannot take these evaluations personal. They are one small part
36
of your overall leadership abilities.
Step 3d:
Diamond View Customer Worksheet
The view your customers have of you is the least impactful to
your leadership. There are a wide range of customers in the
business world. The customers of your business should have a
desire to purchase the
service or product you are
selling. However, you can’t
provide goals and objectives
to your customers and hold
them accountable if they
don’t accomplish them. We
don’t want to ignore the
view customers have of us. However, we can’t let it guide our
leadership actions on a daily basis.
Step 3e:
Diamond View Mentor Worksheet
Finding the right mentor is critical to your development as a
leader. I recommend you not use a relative as your mentor.
You need good honest feedback. Your mom and dad have
been telling you that you were a great person since you were 5
years old, so they may not be critical of you. This needs to be a
trusted mentor that has 10, 20, or 30 plus years of leadership
experience.
If I had asked people
what they wanted,
they would have said
faster horses.
Henry Ford
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Step 4:
Holistic Evaluation of Your Leadership
The holistic evaluation can be performed by your mentor if you
have selected the right mentor. This is where you review with a
trusted mentor all of the feedback from the OEL Know
Yourself Process. This can normally be an eye opening process
for young leaders. You have to embrace the process and what
you are learning about yourself. The only way to improve your
leadership abilities is by gaining a better understanding of your
behaviors while leading. You can adapt your behaviors to be
more successful, but it needs to be in concert with your
personality. The old adage, “Just be yourself”, doesn’t work for
most people that want to be successful leaders. All of us have
some traits that are not beneficial to successful leadership. We
must learn to minimize these weaknesses in our daily actions
with our team. All of us have some traits that are natural
strengths. We must learn to maximize these behaviors in our
daily actions with our team. We can’t just be ourselves. You
can be yourself when you are sitting at home watching a movie
on your couch. If you want to build and lead successful teams,
you need to build yourself into a successful leader that people
want to follow.
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CHAPTER 4
“Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything
else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve
that goal, or any goal.”
-Vince Lombardi
In 1998, I was a Second Lieutenant, Rifle Platoon Commander
of an infantry platoon with about 40 Marines. I had a very
competent right hand man as my Platoon Sergeant. I was
excited and nervous to finally be in a true leadership position. I
was responsible for everything my unit did or failed to do.
39
When you are an aspiring leader there can be a lot of worry
about failing. I was trying to figure out my leadership style, my
leadership doctrine. I relied heavily on the core values,
leadership traits, and principles of the Marine Corps. I read the
Marine Corps publications on leadership, tactics, and strategy. I
read Sun Tzu and Clausewitz. It still did not provide me with
instant confidence. I still didn’t know what to do in every
situation. While in this position, I was confronted with a
challenge I could not have seen coming. One of my Marines
was arrested at a local gentlemen’s club for throwing a dancer
through a glass window. I received a phone call early one
Saturday morning. I had to put my Service Charlie uniform on,
which is the short sleeve khaki shirt uniform, and drive to the
police station to pick him up. I had never picked up a Marine
from jail. I didn’t know what to expect. When I arrived at the
police station I was directed to a desk window. I asked for the
Marine and if they would release him to me. I was surprised to
hear that they were happy to release him to me. They stated
that whatever I was going to do to him would be much worse
than sitting in a jail cell. I laughed to myself, but wasn’t so sure.
They brought the Marine out and we began our trip back to
base. Very few words were exchanged on our trek. Marines are
an interesting bunch for many different reasons. For one, they
tend to take responsibility for their actions in just about any
situation. He said they were all drunk and things just got a little
crazy. He didn’t attempt to fabricate a lie. He took
responsibility and knew there would be punishment for his
actions. I didn’t read in Sun Tzu or any other book, how to
handle a situation of this nature. I quickly began to realize that
I needed to rely on the experienced and mature leaders around
me to help mentor me with these decisions. The experienced
40
leader I relied on in this situation was my Platoon Sergeant. He
was a Staff Sergeant with over ten years of service. I explained
the situation to my Platoon Sergeant and with a grin, he let me
know that he would take care of it. This young Marine
continued to be a problem for our platoon, but he was properly
counseled and mentored each time. Through this situation, I
realized that I had a massive amount to learn about leadership.
I needed to make thousands of leadership decisions and be
mentored and critiqued on my decisions in order to become a
successful and confident leader.
What is a Leadership Doctrine?
A Leadership doctrine guides a leader’s actions every day. It
creates the blueprint foundation for the leader’s decisions.
Organizations and companies in today’s environment have
written values, traits, and principles. These organizations are
trying to create a culture that is unique to their business model.
The problem is that the days of a person working for the same
company for 40 years are over. Most of us will work for 7-10
companies over our career. If we are transitioning from one
company to the next, we need our own personal leadership
doctrine that guides our actions regardless of the company we
are working for. Our personal leadership doctrine will always
be nested within the culture of the company we work for, or
our own company. When I was an aspiring leader, I did not
have a personal leadership doctrine. I utilized the Marine Corps
leadership doctrine because it was already developed. It served
me well over the years. As I gained more rank and
responsibility, I realized that I had my own style. I embraced
41
the style that was developing because I was emulating my
leadership mentors. I was taking all the best things from the
great leaders that I had served with over the years. When I left
active duty for the Marine Reserves, it was another transition
point for my leadership. I knew that the Marine Corps
leadership doctrine would not perfectly transition over to the
business world. I would have to adapt my personal leadership
doctrine to succeed in the business world. I was not going to
be training Marines to win battles. I have had to lower my
intensity level and smile a lot more in order to assist in building
my team. I haven’t lowered my aggressiveness in my pursuit of
mission success, but I don’t want to come across as
intimidating.
Why Do I Need a Personal Leadership Doctrine?
A leader will have situations that are very difficult. A leader
needs a concrete foundation to stand on during challenging
42
times. If your Chief Financial Officer tells you that you are
going to miss your quarterly earnings by 15% it is going to be a
hard day. They also might tell you that they know how to hide
the 15% loss but it is not exactly legal. This is when you need
your doctrine. If your doctrine is sound it will guide you
through these situations.
Officers Eat Last Leadership Doctrine
The Officers Eat Last Leadership Doctrine has been developed
over the last 20 plus years of my Marine and business career. I
have led teams in combat and business. I have led units in
Kosovo; Fallujah, Iraq; and Sangin, Afghanistan. I have
founded two companies and sold one. I was developed as a
leader by the United States Marine Corps. The foundation of
43
my leadership was built by Marine instruction, experience, and
mentors. When I transitioned to the business world, I knew
that I would have to adapt my style to succeed. The Officers
Eat Last Leadership Doctrine is the evolution of my leadership
style.
You need to have all of these in order to have a solid
Leadership Doctrine. If you are an aspiring leader, your
doctrine may adapt and change over the years. If you are a
mature leader and you go through this process, your doctrine
will not change very much.
Let’s take a look at the Officers Eat Last (OEL) Leadership
Doctrine that I developed.
OEL Core Values
You need to establish your foundational core values that drive
your actions on a daily basis.
Teamwork - Responsible, accountable, focused on the goals of
the team.
Commitment - Devotion to the organization’s goals and each
other.
Respect - Trust for the abilities and qualities of each other.
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OEL Leadership Definition
The ability to take a group of individuals, create a cohesive
team, and accomplish a goal together.
OEL Leadership Philosophy
The philosophy is very simple. It is about servant leadership. If
you want a group of individuals to accomplish a goal together,
you must put their needs above your own. You must establish
clear goals and hold them accountable. You must promote and
reward high achievers and remove poor performers.
OEL Leadership Traits
Initiative - Take action every day to help your team accomplish
your goals/objectives.
Integrity - You either have it or you don’t. You will have a
very difficult time accomplishing anything of significance if
your team doesn’t trust you.
Knowledge - You need to be competent and know-ledgeable
about the technical aspects that will make your team successful.
Persistent - Don’t quit at the first sign of resistance. Push
forward.
Empathy - You need to understand the emotions of those you
lead.
Humility – Be a servant first.
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Judgment - You need to be decisive.
Unselfishness - If your team thinks you are selfish, you will
have a difficult time creating success.
Bearing - Remaining calm regardless of the situation.
Dependable - Your team must be able to count on you.
Meticulous - Attention to detail.
Flexible - Don’t fall in love with one plan.
OEL Leadership Principles
1. Nosce te ipsum “Know thyself”.
2. Ductus Exemplo “Lead by Example”.
3. Emotionally commit to your team.
4. Communicate your goals/objectives/priorities
frequently.
5. Inspect what you expect.
6. Take responsibility for your actions.
OEL Leadership Rules
Every successful leader has rules that they use every day to
assist them in leading, directing, and guiding those they lead. I
have dedicated a chapter to the OEL leadership rules and how
you can create your leadership rules. A leader’s rules need to be
communicated to those he leads.
I’ll provide one rule below as an example.
46
Rule #32 - Set habits for your team and organization.
Example of Successful Leader’s Doctrine
John Wooden was one of the most successful college basketball
coaches in the history of the sport. He won 10 National
Championships as the head coach of the UCLA basketball
team. He is a wonderful leader to study because every time he
speaks, he is communicating his leadership doctrine. I would
encourage you to research, study, and listen to his thoughts on
leadership. You should not try to be John Wooden. A leader
will never be successful if they try to be someone else. You
must study his strengths and then make decisions on what you
believe you can add to your doctrine. Below are a couple of his
Leadership Rules.
Rule – Always be on time.
Rule – Never use profanity.
Rule – Always dress nice and neat.
His teams were dominant on the basketball court but it is
interesting to hear him say that winning wasn’t the most
important aspect for him. He wanted his team to do their best.
He wanted his team to put forth their best effort. He felt if
they put their best effort forward they would win. His track
record seems to validate that philosophy. You should also
study his legacy. His former players love, respect, and adore
him. His actions and how he treated his players created those
emotions in his players. You need to think about that as you
develop your doctrine. People think about winning and driving
47
the bottom line, but at some point you are going to start to
think about your legacy. What do you want your legacy to be?
How will you be remembered? Don’t try to make everyone
happy along the way. You can’t make everyone happy and if
you try, you will fail. However, you can treat people with
respect and be firm, fair, and consistent.
Paul “Bear” Bryant had a huge influence on my leadership
doctrine. He won six national championships as the Head
football coach for The University of Alabama. He had the
most wins of any coach in college football history at the time he
stopped coaching. Below are a couple of his Leadership Rules:
Rule – In a crisis, don't hide behind anything or anybody.
They're going to find you anyway.
Rule – There's no substitute for guts.
It is important for you to study successful leaders and
determine what you can integrate into your doctrine. You
should not try to be John Wooden or Bear Bryant. You have to
match your strengths and personality to your style. Let’s take a
look at how you should create your leadership doctrine.
How to Create Your Leadership Doctrine
The challenge for you is to create your own personal leadership
doctrine. You have to make it yours. It needs to match your
strengths and personality.
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Writing your Core Values
Your personal core values should guide your actions and be
understood by your team. You must live these values with
integrity when you communicate them to your team. Your core
values are what is important to you and what you think would
assist in creating a successful team.
Examples: Honor, Teamwork, Commitment, Courage,
Respect, Trust
You have to select core values that mean something to you.
Writing your Leadership Definition
If you are an aspiring leader, you probably are not ready to write
your own personal leadership definition. However, you can use
another leadership definition; just make sure you give credit to
the original author.
Example:
“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things.
He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.”
-Ronald Reagan
Writing your Leadership Philosophy
Your leadership philosophy does not need to be long.
However, you do need to spend some time reflecting on your
philosophy and how you will lead your team. What is important
to you and why? Why will people want to follow you? Why
would anyone join your team? Why should they listen to you?
49
You don’t have to answer all of these questions in your
leadership philosophy, but you need to think about them.
Writing your Leadership Traits
What leadership traits are important to you? These are traits
that you will expect your team to exercise every day. You must
also follow your own advice. I have listed a few examples
below:
Unselfishness Integrity Dependability Humility Judgement Initiative Loyalty Knowledge Persistence
Writing your Leadership Principles
Your leadership principles should create habits of action for
your team. These principles should reinforce the type of
behavior that you expect on a daily basis. You don’t have to
have 20 leadership principles, but you need a few of them. You
can always add more over the years. I have listed a few
examples.
-Be honest with your team
-Be clear with your expectations and hold your team
accountable
-Mentor, provide guidance, and empower people to accomplish
the mission
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Writing your Leadership Rules
Your leadership rules are expectations that you have for your
team but they don’t rise to the level of a trait or principle.
Below are a few examples of Officers Eat Last Rules:
OEL Rule #73 – Leaders create, build, and sustain the culture of their
team.
OEL Rule #81 – Intimidation is not leadership.
OEL Rule #48 - Be firm, fair, and consistent.
All of this is your personal leadership doctrine. It guides your actions every day as you lead your team. You need to spend the time to write out your personal leadership doctrine. You need to share your doctrine with a trusted leadership mentor. If you don’t have a trusted mentor at the moment, you can share your leadership doctrine with me, please send it to [email protected].
51
CHAPTER 5
“We’re gonna butt heads until I see what I want.”
-Paul “Bear” Bryant
The team I was leading was executing multiple projects
simultaneously. This was the middle of our peak season in an
e-commerce distribution center where time was short, but our
project list was long. It was like painting and repairing a
moving train. Every project would have been easy if we could
only stop the train, but we couldn’t. Every day seemed to bring
another project that senior leadership wanted to know the
answers to. I leaned heavily on a couple members of my team.
52
I would have to reset their priorities daily based off the desires
of senior leadership. The Leadership Rule that I kept going
back to was the “70% Solution”. I knew we would not meet
any of our deadlines for projects if we did not move through
the projects as quickly as possible. We had to collect and
analyze as much data as possible and present a recommendation
using the 70% solution. I must have said it every day for weeks.
It allowed us to focus and meet the deadlines imposed by senior
leadership. The 70% solution is a mentality to take all available
information at that time and make an immediate decision.
There are numerous decisions a leader needs to make in order
to hit deadlines and many times all desired information isn’t
readily available. A leader has to be comfortable making these
decisions as it is a huge part of being a leader.
Why Leaders Need Leadership Rules?
All leaders have a vision of how they would like their team to
accomplish their goals and objectives. Leaders need to
communicate those expectations to their team on a regular basis
and at a level that is incredibly clear. Some leaders get
frustrated if people do not arrive to meetings on time or early.
Other leaders don’t care and are comfortable with people being
a few minutes late and even missing a meeting entirely. Your
team does not have mind reading skills, they need to understand
what is important to you. If you get frustrated every time one
of your team members is late to a meeting, you must
communicate your expectations in a calm and clear manner.
53
How do You Develop Your Leadership Rules?
Your leadership rules will be developed during your years
leading others. If you have never lead a team, you are not going
to have many rules. If you have been leading teams for 5-10
years, you are going to have tons of rules that you use to create
and sustain success for your team. All of these rules need to be
written down. You need to spend some time thinking about
what allows your team to be successful. A rule is not as
important as a leadership trait or principle, but they are still vital
to the success of the team you lead.
Ten Officers Eat Last Leadership Rules
My current leadership rule count is at 75. I’m not claiming
original thought on every one of these rules. They are
expressions and behaviors that have created success for teams I
have lead. They are deliberately numbered out of order.
Leadership rules are not followed step by step like a recipe you
follow to bake a cake. They require thought by the leader in
their application. If one of my employees is working on a
project that has an extremely tight timeline, they might hear me
say, “Please use the 70% solution”. I’m not encouraging them
to deliver a poor product, but I am clearly stating that we must
deliver the project on time. I have listed ten Officers Eat Last
Leadership Rules below as a sample.
OEL Rule #30 - You only feel stress if you allow yourself .-USMC
OEL Rule #11 - Use the 70% solution. -USMC
OEL Rule #25 - Never raise your voice in anger.
OEL Rule #16 - Do not complain to your employees.
54
OEL Rule #14 - Embrace confrontation.
OEL Rule #32 - Set habits for your team and organization.
OEL Rule #73 - Leaders create, build, and sustain the culture of
their team.
OEL Rule #81 - Intimidation is not leadership.
OEL Rule #48 - Be firm, fair, and consistent.
OEL Rule #35 - Hope is not a course of action. -USMC
Let’s take a closer look at each one of these rules.
OEL Rule #30 - You only feel stress if you allow yourself .-USMC
This was taught to me when I was a young Marine officer. I
can’t remember who passed it along, but I have tried to live my
life with this mind set. I have had serious test to this rule in
combat and business, but I remind myself each time to not
allow stress to affect my life or the decisions I make.
OEL Rule #11 - Use the 70% solution. -USMC
I always get mixed reviews on this rule when I introduce it to
people I’m leading. A brain surgeon should probably not use
this rule if they are in the middle of surgery. The purpose of
the rule is to focus your effort and meet a deadline. There are
many decisions when you are leading that you can’t wait for
additional information. You need to make a decision and live
with it.
OEL Rule #25 - Never raise your voice in anger.
This rule is directed at your actions in front of your team. You
should not yell at your team or use profanity directed at any
member of your team. We are all human, so you will get
55
frustrated and you might even get angry. However, you must
remain calm in front of your team. When you get in your car,
or when you are in a field with no one around for miles, you
can yell and scream, but never do it in front of your team. You
will destroy your credibility instantly.
OEL Rule #16 - Do not complain to your employees.
Once you become a leader, you can’t complain about things
that are going wrong or employees that aren’t pulling their
weight. The only people you should complain to are your
mentor, spouse, or a trusted peer that does not work with you.
You have to hold your tongue.
OEL Rule #14 - Embrace confrontation.
The only way to hold people accountable is to look them square
in the eyes and have a discussion with them about their
performance. You don’t have to make these discussions
confrontational, and there are leaders that can essentially chew
someone out and the person feels good about it. I’m not one
of them. As a leader you need to embrace confrontation
because it is your responsibility to deliver good and bad news.
If you have ever had to fire someone, then you know what
confrontation is all about. Don’t let the thought of
confrontation cripple you. Embrace it and move forward.
OEL Rule #32 - Set habits for your team and organization.
When you are a leader you can’t just think about your daily
routine and your habits. You have to think about your team’s
habits and their actions. What does a day look like for your
team? What does a week look like? Should you have a daily
56
operations meeting? Should you only meet once a week? You
have to set the habits for your team.
OEL Rule #73 – Leaders create, build, and sustain the culture of their
team.
You must be deliberate about the culture you want to create. A
culture will develop without any thought as you bring people
together into a team. The successful leader recognizes culture
and influences it. Don’t let it just unfold.
OEL Rule #81 – Intimidation is not leadership.
Successful leaders do not lead through intimidation. There is
never a reason to threaten anyone on your team or attempt to
induce fear. You must act in an ethical way and hold people
accountable.
OEL Rule #48 - Be firm, fair, and consistent.
It is extremely difficult to be firm, fair, and consistent in
everything that you do as a leader. The idea is to do your best
each day in the treatment of your team.
OEL Rule #35 – Hope is not a Course of Action. -USMC
I learned this as a Marine. I’m not sure if a Marine coined this,
but if it was a Marine it was probably one of the first Marines
back in 1775. This means that you should have a plan for
everything. When we were planning combat operations in Iraq
and Afghanistan, we didn’t hope that the enemy wouldn’t plant
improvised explosive devices (IEDs). We had a plan in place to
mitigate and deter any impact IEDs would have on our
57
operations. You need to take the same attitude with your team.
Don’t “hope” that your team will accomplish the goals you
have set, put a plan in place to ensure success.
Successful Leader’s Leadership Rules
Every successful leader has leadership rules that guide their
actions. They didn’t have a bunch of leadership rules the first
day they became a leader. Their thought process and way of
thinking evolved through years of experience. Aspiring leaders
need to study and attempt to emulate successful leaders in a
manner that fits their personality and situation. Please find a
few successful leaders and some of their rules below.
Paul “Bear” Bryant
“It’s not the will to win that matters...everyone has that. It’s the will to
prepare to win that matters”.
“If you believe in yourself and have dedication and pride - and never quit -
you’ll be a winner”.
“The price of victory is high but so are the rewards”.
Andy Grove - Former CEO of Intel
“Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the
paranoid survive.”
“Leaders have to act more quickly today. The pressure comes much faster.”
58
Warren Buffett
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you
think about that, you'll do things differently.”
“It's better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates
whose behavior is better than yours and you'll drift in that direction.”
“There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make
easy things difficult.”
Condoleezza Rice
“Self-esteem comes from achievement. Not from lax standards and false
praise.”
59
Do you want another leadership book
for FREE today?
Go to the link below for your FREE eBook.
OfficersEatLast.com/index.php/rules-book/
Carnegie Institute
of Technology
85% of your financial success is due to your
personality and ability to communicate,
negotiate, and lead.
Shockingly, only 15% is due to
your technical knowledge.
Are you seeking a path to greater financial
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Do you want to have a greater influence on
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60
.
Officers Eat Last
Leadership Development Rules
Every successful leader has leadership rules that
guide their actions with their team.
Jason has compiled a list of 75 leadership rules
that he has used throughout his 20 plus years of
leading teams.
Add them to your personal leadership doctrine
today.
Get your FREE copy at the link below.
OfficersEatLast.com/index.php/rules-book/
61
PART II
62
CHAPTER 6
“Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.”
-Carl von Clausewitz
My first position on staff at Officer Candidates School was as a
Tactics Instructor. The curriculum was already set in place, but
we had the leeway to edit the training slides to fit our style and
knowledge of the subject. The instruction included platform
instruction, field instruction, and leading practical exercises. I
did not have much experience with platform instruction and I
was looking forward to the opportunity to learn the best
techniques. The normal process at Officer Candidates School is
to first present your class to your peer instructors and your
boss. This can make a person a little nervous because it is their
job to find fault in your presentation, and any good instructor
63
will be able to find fault. It was my turn. I walked up behind
the podium and began my presentation. Early on, I felt like
things were going well. I felt like my confidence was growing as
I moved through the presentation. I was thinking, “yes, I’m
probably the best platform instructor ever at OCS.” When I
arrive at the last slide, I expected to bask in the praise and
admiration that is sure to flow from my peers and boss. The
first feedback I received was someone telling me that I said
“umm,” about 58 times. I think back and can’t remember
saying it that much. Then more criticism came my way. I
didn’t make eye contact with the audience enough. I was
speaking to the projector screen instead of the audience. There
were a few of my slides that didn’t flow very well. It felt like
everything I had just done was wrong. My first presentation to
my peers was a huge failure. Shortly after, I was informed that I
would be presenting again the next day. I had the rest of the
day to work on improving. I immediately went back to my
office and focused on all the feedback that I had been given. I
spent the rest of the day practicing and rehearsing. When I
went before my peers the second time, my practice, focus, and
rehearsals had paid off. The feedback had taken a 180 degree
turn.
Why is it Important to Build Leadership Skills?
Leaders are made through skill building development. You
can’t build every skill you need to be a successful leader in one
day. It takes years to build all of the skills that you will need to
lead complex or large organizations.
64
Skill Building Process
Every leader needs tons of skills in order to be successful as a
leader. One option to build those skills is to use the OEL How
to Build a Skill Process. As you can see from the diagram
below you first need to identify the skill that you would like to
65
build. The skill needs to be narrow in focus. Let’s use the
example that you would like to be better at running a meeting.
Now you have your input and you are ready to move to the
process. Your focus will be researching all the best techniques
on how to run a successful meeting. The steps listed below can
assist with running a successful meeting.
1. Establish a purpose for the meeting
2. Decide who needs to attend and send the invite
3. Create an agenda for the meeting
4. Commence the meeting
5. Review agenda and purpose
6. Ensure all attendees stay focused on purpose
7. Provide guidance on next steps and wrap up
Once you have focused on how you would like to run a
meeting, it is time to move to the practical application of
running a meeting. The best technique to use for your practical
application is to have a trusted mentor evaluate your ability to
run a meeting. This should be done with your mentor without
any personnel from your team. You need to walk through the
steps with your mentor and explain how you will run the
meeting. Your mentor should provide feedback on your ability
to run a successful meeting. You need to be willing to accept
the constructive feedback from your mentor. Now you are
66
ready to execute and hold your meeting. If possible, you can
have your mentor attend your first meeting and silently observe
your actions and behaviors. After completion of the meeting,
you should meet with your mentor and review what went well
and where you can improve your technique. You should
continue to repeat this process until you feel comfortable
enough that you could teach and mentor someone else in
running a meeting.
If you follow this process and keep an open mindset towards
constructive feedback, you can build just about any leadership
skill that you desire.
67
CHAPTER 7
“Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”
-John Wooden
Everyone has their own style of communication. Your
communication style is going to be closely tied to your
personality type. You can model your behaviors and adapt your
style, but it needs to be comfortable for you. Your
communication with your team needs to be genuine and
sincere. You can’t try and be someone else. I had an
68
outstanding Commanding Officer when I was a First
Lieutenant. He was extremely professional, competent, and
cared for his Marines greatly. He was and still is a very nice guy.
On various occasions he would attempt to be stern with the
Marines. The only problem is that it wasn’t natural for him.
His communication style didn’t really come off as stern because
he was just too nice to be stern. I was his Executive Officer at
the time and the Battalion Commander had tapped me to be the
next Commanding Officer of the Company. I was talking with
one of the Lieutenant’s in my office one day, and the subject of
how nice our current Company Commander was came up and
how it was difficult for him to be stern. The Lieutenant
indicated that he didn’t think it was going to be hard for me.
He had observed my communication style in the past and knew
I would use the same style in the future. It has always been
natural for me to be stern. It is a part of my personality. I
actually have to change my behavior to be less stern with my
team. If I’m working on a complex issue or problem my facial
expressions will turn intense. I have had employees ask if I’m
upset with their performance just due to a facial expression.
We all have a communication style and we must understand and
master our style so we can lead our teams in an effective way.
You don’t have to be stern to be successful. You have to
leverage your personality and build your own communication
style.
Why is it Important to be an Effective Communicator?
The only way to build your team is through your
communication. You do not have to be a successful orator to
grow your team. You only need to speak with authority and
69
conviction. Your team cannot read your mind. You have to
communicate with them frequently in order for them to
understand your goals and objectives. Communication is a
leadership skill that must be learned. There are techniques that
leaders need to use to be effective. If you always look at the
ground when you talk with someone, you will not build
confidence. If you bounce from one topic to the next and can’t
stay focused for more than five seconds, you will not build
confidence. The leader has to communicate their ideas that
they believe will make the team
successful. These ideas need to
be communicated using
multiple methods in order to
convey the message. Effective
communication as a leader is
geared towards moving your
team towards a common goal.
I’m not talking about your
company’s marketing message
to your customers. That type of
communication is totally different from building and leading
your team.
Effective communication will allow you to build a loyal and
successful team. It will allow you to build a team with a
foundation of trust. There are studies that validate that money
is not the number one reason for people choosing to work at a
particular company. The other intangibles are what keep people
dedicated at a company. One of those intangibles is being
valued. A person only understands and sees this through the
actions of the leader and those on the team. The leader must
People will forget
what you said,
people will forget
what you did, but
people will never
forget how you
made them feel.
Maya Angelou
70
lead this effort through communication. Don’t assume that a
person on your team knows you think they are doing a good
job. Don’t assume a person on your team knows that they are
performing substandard. You will develop your own style over
time, and your team must understand your style and thought
process. Your communication methods will not allow you to
make a zebra into an elephant, but through listening and
learning you will be able to shape and mold the people on your
team to be effective. Engage your team and learn from them.
What Types of Communication Methods and Techniques
Should an OEL Stage I Leader Use?
There are many types of communication methods available and
a leader must have some level of skill in each method. An OEL
Stage I Leader needs mastery in the communication skills
outlined in the following chart.
71
Let’s look at each communication skill and their purpose.
Types of Communication
1:1
This method should be used often as a leader. A leader
must be able to effectively communicate one on one with
any member of their team. This method will assist you
with building trust and confidence with your team on an
individual level. That trust will allow your team to
accomplish the goals and objectives you assign them.
Huddle
The huddle is used to solve an immediate problem or
issue. It is used to present a plan. These need to be
short and concise, and focused on problem solving or
presenting a plan. A huddle normally comprises less than
ten people.
School circle
The school circle is used to pass information to your
team. You might be informing the team that they have
this Friday off because everyone has been working so
hard. This is generally used as one way communication.
Most leaders will ask if there are any questions and
normally there are none. If you have tons of questions
at a school circle it means that your communication plan
is poor and ineffective. You should not problem solve
with a school circle. Use it to pass information. A
school circle can range from a few people to several
hundred.
72
Staff/Operations meeting
These types of meetings are used to run the business.
There should be a rhythm to them. There should be an
agenda. Your team should come prepared to the
meeting. Every leader develops their own style, but my
style is to start these meetings on time and to follow the
agenda. If an issue is complex and will take more time
to resolve, the leader should set another meeting to
resolve the complex issue. These meetings should have
less than twenty people and be 30 minutes or less in
duration.
Speech
An aspiring Stage I leader will not likely be giving
speeches but it is clearly a skill that a leader must
possess. If you know that you will be giving multiple
speeches in a given year than you would spend time
building this skill. However, if you don’t anticipate
having to give speeches any time soon, you should focus
your time on the other communication methods.
Delivering a speech can take years to perfect.
Vision
The word vision for leaders is over used. You don’t
have to have visions like Steve Jobs to be a leader.
Providing a vision to your team is not complicated. A
vision needs to look out into the future one year or
more. It needs to be broader than a set of tasks that you
need your team to accomplish that day or week. It does
73
need to be written down, and you should refer to it at
least once a month.
Guidance
Guidance communicates your expectations in a certain
area. This can be simple things like you expect the break
room to stay clean, and you would like people to pick up
after themselves. You can have guidance on working
from home or morning start times.
Policy
The leader is responsible for the policies of the team.
Policies guide the actions of the team. Stage I Leaders
have to enforce corporate policies.
Procedures
Procedures need to be written for repeatable actions that
the team needs to execute. Every leader needs to be
able to create procedures that people can follow.
This cannot be your only communication method as a
leader. If you rely on email as your main method to
communicate with your team, you are heading towards
failure. Email is effective for team communication,
when the message is relevant to the entire team.
How Should You Build Your Communication Skills?
One option to use is the Officers Eat Last - How to Build a
Skill Process, that was described in Chapter 6, to master your
74
communication skills. Let’s start by building the 1:1
communication skill. The process starts with a focus on 1:1
communication. The practical application requires a competent
mentor or instructor that you trust and has years of experience
in 1:1 communication. You will need an individual to play the
part of one of your employees. You should not practice with
your actual employees. You will need various scenarios for
your practical application. The first scenario could be an
employee that has continually missed deadlines for recent
projects. You need to select a quiet conference room or office.
Your mentor should be in the room with you. The person will
enter the room and play the part of an employee that has
missed deadlines. The mentor should instruct the individual on
the scenario and the responses they are expecting based off of
your actions. The mentor should allow the entire scenario to
play out, and take notes for the critique. This should play out
for 5-10 minutes. The mentor will announce the end of the
scenario. At this point, the mentor will provide feedback to you
on your 1:1 communication skills. This should be an honest
and critical critique. You need to perform hundreds of these to
build your confidence level and your style. You need to be
confident in your communication style and you will develop
your own style that will be unique to your personality. Your
confidence will shine through the more you execute these
techniques.
75
This needs to be done for all of the communication skills that
require verbal skills and human interaction.
1:1
Huddle
School circle
Staff/Operations Meeting
Speech
You should use a mentor to develop your written
communication methods as well. You must focus on each
individual communication skill, and execute the process to build
your confidence to mastery. When you take on a new skill and
ask yourself “How would I teach someone else this skill?”, it
allows you to focus more. You need to hold yourself to a high
standard for each of these skills, because they are the building
blocks for your confidence in leadership communication. They
are the building blocks for inspiring your team to achieve more
together than they would individually.
76
CHAPTER 8
“Plans are nothing; planning is everything.”
-Dwight D. Eisenhower
Our task was to write a detailed patrol order for a platoon size
unit. This was going to be a graded test and it had to be hand
written. We were all dreading the thought of writing a ten page
patrol order, and we knew our instructors had high expectations
for the finished product. We had to use a specific format for
the plan. It is the acronym SMEAC, which stands for Situation,
77
Mission, Execution, Administration and Logistics, and
Command and Control. It is called a 5-Paragraph order. The
planning doctrine of the Marines at the small unit level requires
the use of the 5-Paragraph order. Marine officers are trained on
how to write, and deliver 5-Paragraph orders. Enlisted Marines
are also trained on how to write, and deliver small unit level
orders. This creates a common language for planning purposes.
I have been on patrols in three different countries and combat
zones, with four different Marine infantry battalions, and
everyone used the same framework for the patrol order. The
patrol order starts with a brief overview of the situation in the
area. The last paragraph details the chain of command and who
is in charge if the patrol leader is killed. Every Marine on the
patrol must understand the details of the plan so that the patrol
will be successful in their mission.
Planning is at the heart of
successful leadership. If you don’t
have a plan, the people you lead
will not know how to contribute to
the success of the team. It doesn’t
have to be the best plan in the
world to move forward and take
action, but it needs to be something. Your plan needs to be
written. It can be written on a piece of paper, email,
presentation slides, or other formats, but it needs to be written.
When you are leading your team, you will have multiple plans
and they all need to tie together. It is your responsibility as the
leader to tie the plans together. The Marine Corps uses the
term “nesting” to tie all the plans together. If the President of
the United States is trying to accomplish certain objectives in
Afghanistan, every operational plan Marine Corps forces
If serving is
below you,
Leadership is
beyond you. Anonymous
78
execute need to be nested properly in order to work towards
those objectives.
Why is it Important to be an
Effective Planner as a Leader?
A ship will never reach a destination without a heading. A team
will never reach their full potential without a plan. It doesn’t
matter if you know where you want to go. The only thing that
matters is if your team knows where you want to go. Your plan
does not need to be extremely complex, but it needs to be
written down. It needs to be organized into some type of
format, and it needs to be shared with your team. As a business
leader you will have more than one plan. Planning facilitates
critical thinking about the goals you are trying to achieve.
Planning should be inclusive of your team. Do not attempt to
plan in a vacuum. You don’t need to include every member of
West coordinating combat operations, Fallujah, Iraq 2005
79
your team, but you need to include relevant people that
understand the subject matter.
Every Marine Corps school for career level Marine officers
focuses a tremendous amount of time on planning. The
entirety of the Department of Defense spends a tremendous
amount of resources and time on planning. The military knows
that lives are at stake with the majority of their operational
plans. All operational planning is taken extremely serious, and
the smallest details are examined. My experience in the
business world does not represent the level of focus and
attention DOD places on planning. In my opinion, planning is
an area in which many business leaders and entrepreneurs have
an opportunity to improve.
What Types of Planning Methods and Techniques Should
an OEL Stage I Leader Use?
There are many types of planning methods and techniques
available to you. Let’s look a few of them below:
Kaizen
Kaizen is a Japanese term meaning continuous improvement.
The purpose of the planning process is focused on improving
existing processes. A Kaizen works well for established
companies that already have processes and policies in place.
The processes don’t have to be great but they must exist
because that is the starting point for a Kaizen.
80
Six Sigma
Six Sigma is a planning process that uses specific techniques and
tools to improve existing processes. It was originally developed
in 1986, by an engineer at Motorola named Bill Smith. It was
subsequently adopted by General Electric in 1995, and gained
favor with many companies across the globe. This is another
planning process that needs existing processes to already be in
place in order to improve.
Project Management Professional (PMP)®
The PMP® is an internationally recognized professional
designation offered by the Project Management Institute. I
think this is an outstanding designation for any aspiring leader
to pursue. The doctrine has a planning process built into the
designation, and it is not just focused on improving an existing
process. The basic requirements to sit for the exam include, a
bachelor’s degree, at least 4,500 hours of experience leading and
directing projects, and 35 hours of formal project management
education.
I would encourage any aspiring leader to review these different
methods in order to gain a better understanding of the
principles of planning. I highly recommend that aspiring
leaders use the Officers Eat Last Planning Process, which is
derived from the Marine Corps Planning Process. It is six
steps. Planning is effectively organized brainstorming. You
need a product that you can use at the end of the planning
process, and if you follow the following steps you will get that
product.
81
Step 1 - Mission Analysis
Step 2 - Course of Action Development
Step 3 - Course of Action War Game
Step 4 - Course of Action Comparison and Decision
Step 5 - Write the Plan
Step 6 - Transition to Execution
Let’s break down each step.
Step 1 - Mission Analysis
The first step in the planning process is focusing on the Who,
What, When, Where, and Why but not the How. The best way
to plan is to designate a Planning Team Leader. This will
normally need to be you. You need an open space with dry
erase boards and lots of coffee. Set a time limit for the duration
of step one. If you know that you are tackling a complex issue,
then Mission Analysis may need to be 1-2 days. If less complex
only set aside 1-2 hours. Once you begin the planning process
it is about capturing the ideas that will flow from the
brainstorming session.
What are you trying to accomplish? Are you planning to
launch a new product? Are you planning to open a new office
location in another country? You need to decide what success
looks like as well.
Who will be involved? Can your team handle all of the tasks?
What are all of the tasks that need to be completed? Do you
need to hire more people to get it done? Can you use a
consulting firm to assist?
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When will you commence the execution of your plan? When
does it need to be accomplished?
Where will execution take place? Will there be people in
multiple cities involved with the plan? Will there be multiple
time zones, multiple countries?
Why are we putting this plan together? Why now?
The planning team leader needs to keep everyone focused on
these 5 W’s. You should not dive into the How in this step. At
the end of this step you should have a written mission
statement that answers all of the 5 W’s.
Step 2 – Course of Action Development
Course of action development is about the How. The planning
team needs to focus on developing three courses of action that
they believe would accomplish the mission written in Step 1.
The planning team leader needs to maximize engagement from
the team and continue the brainstorming in order to create
three distinctly different plans that will accomplish the same
mission. At this step in the planning process you don’t need
specific detailed plans, but you need a broad overview of the
plans.
All of the information from the first step is the starting point
for COA Development. One of the most critical pieces of step
2 is developing 2-3 courses of action that accomplish the same
mission you set in step 1. They need to be distinctly different
plans.
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Step 3 – Course of Action War Game
The purpose of Step 3 is to determine what will prevent your
team from accomplishing the goal. You need to focus on the
first course of action that you developed in Step 2. Ensure the
entire planning team is focused only on COA #1. Once
everyone is focused, ask what can happen that will derail this
course of action? Allow brainstorming to flow on what
possible pitfalls may arise. All of this needs to be recorded in
your notes. Then use the same process for COA #2 and #3.
This step will reinforce your plan and minimize risk, because all
of the brainstorming ideas will be integrated into the plan to
ensure success.
Step 4 – Course of Action Comparison and Decision
The best way to perform this step is to have an overview of
each COA on dry erase boards or paper so that everyone on the
planning team can see all three COAs at the same time. You
can get extremely detailed in this step and create a criteria
matrix with a 1-5 ranking system for each major element of the
plan. The easier way to do it is to go around the room, and
allow each person on the team to vote for the plan that they
believe will achieve success. They must also explain why they
are selecting one plan over another. Once everyone on the
team has voted, the planning team leader needs to decide which
COA the team will execute. This can also include merging the
most effective parts from each COA into one plan.
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Step 5 – Write the Plan
Now that you have a selected a course of action it is time to
write the plan. This step does not include the entire planning
team. The planning team leader needs to write the plan and/or
enlist the help of a member of the planning team to assist with
the final product. The plan needs to include the Who, What,
When, Where, Why and How. All of the details from your
planning should be included and any contingency plans that
were derived due to the brainstorming. If your plan is complex
and will take weeks or months to accomplish, I would
encourage you to break your plan down into manageable phases
or stages.
Step 6 – Transition to Execution
Once you have a final copy of your plan, you are ready to bring
your team back to together and deliver the plan. Your plan
should have immediate buy-in from your team because they
were involved in the planning. You need to utilize your team to
continue to create more buy-in for the plan and to ensure
successful execution of the plan.
How Should You Build Your Planning Skills?
The best way to build your planning skills is to plan. You
should use the Officers Eat Last – How to Build a Skill Process
to improve your planning skills. I would encourage you to use
the Officers Eat Last Planning Process because if you are new
to planning, you will need a planning framework. I have spent
thousands of hours planning. I have led operational planning
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teams in developing combat operational plans in Iraq and
Afghanistan. I have led operational planning teams as an
entrepreneur and business leader. I’m very comfortable with
planning, but it is because of the number of years that I have
spent planning. When you first begin to use the OEL Planning
Process it may feel challenging, but you must stay the course.
Let’s think about what a plan will provide you as a leader:
A plan will:
- Guide your decisions.
- Give you confidence in your decisions.
- Provide a foundation to fall back on when
challenges arise during execution.
- Facilitates policy, procedures, and guidelines.
If you are new to planning this is only a quick overview. The
ability to plan with your team is key to any leader’s success. It is
hard work and why many leaders don’t do it. To be a successful
leader, you must educate yourself on planning and spend the
time to do it.
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CHAPTER 9
“Making good decisions is a crucial skill at every level”.
-Peter Drucker
We had a Thursday evening battalion operations meeting every
week when I was the Assistant Operations Officer for 3rd
Battalion, 4th Marines in Fallujah, Iraq. The meeting had already
started when a Marine who worked for me in our Combat
Operations Center (COC) quietly walked in and approached
me. He said that there had been a Suicide Vehicle Borne
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Improvised Explosive Device (SVBIED) attack on the main
route in Fallujah, and there were multiple Marine casualties to
include female Marines. He was looking to me for an answer,
for guidance. I looked at him and whispered, so as not to
interrupt the meeting that was in progress, “Well I guess we
better get back to the COC.” I quietly got up and let the
Operations Officer, Major Matt Watt know there had been a
SVBIED attack. I left the building with the Marine walking
back to the COC. I asked him how many casualties, and he said
that he thought it could be as many as ten. I looked at him and
said maybe we should jog and he agreed. We arrive at the COC
and I calmly walk in and ask for a brief from our Watch Officer.
He informs me that a vehicle had come from the North side of
the main route, jumped the median and rammed into one of our
7-ton vehicles. The 7-ton was carrying Marines from our Entry
Control Point on the West side of Fallujah back to their base.
West and leadership of 3rd
Battalion, 4th
Marines in front of the
contractor bridge. Fallujah , Iraq 2005
88
There were females Marines in the back of the vehicle. Marines
from our India Company had already sent their quick reaction
force to the area. I could hear the radio and it was the
Company Executive Officer for India Company indicating that
they were taking fire from the North side of the main route. He
was requesting the ability to return fire. I immediately approved
his request. I looked at the Watch Officer and told them to get
1st Battalion, 6th Marines (1/6) on the phone. I had just
approved a request for direct fire into battlespace that we did
not own. This is something that a unit never wants to take
lightly. The main way to prevent friendly fire incidents is to
maintain strict adherence to the boundary lines. At the time
that I allowed our fires to enter 1/6 battlespace, I had no way of
knowing whether they had units close enough to get hit by our
fires. My watch officer hands me the phone and says that it is
1/6. I pick up the phone and I hear, “This is LtCol Brown”. I
knew immediately that it was the Battalion Commander for 1/6.
It is not normal for a Battalion Commander to be on the COC
phone, but I proceed to let him know about the situation. He
confirmed that they did not have any troops in that area. We
quickly worked out a plan where his Marines would clear from
North to South to the main route. Together, we established
some fire control measures and set the plan in place. I radioed
India company to brief them on the plan. They had already
secured the attack site and were clearing the buildings on the
North side of the route. They had one enemy killed in action
(KIA), and were exploiting the site of the ambush. The medical
evacuation (medevac) of our wounded was in full motion. I
sent our battalion Quick Reaction Force to the area and
repositioned our M1 Abrams tanks to assist in securing the
ambush site. Our Air officer was working to determine air
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medevac, and to see if we had air assets on station for close air
support and surveillance. Everyone knew their job; everyone
was calm and doing what they were trained to do.
Why is it Important to be an Effective Decision Maker?
Leaders make decisions every day that have an impact on many
people. If you have a desire to lead, you have to embrace this
fact. You have to respect this fact. You have to respect the
weight of responsibility that comes with being a leader and a
decision maker. Your decisions will impact the pay and benefits
of your team members. Those decisions will impact their
families. It will impact where they get to live. It will impact
decisions in their lives. It will impact their stress level.
Decision making is one of the most critical skills to be an
effective leader. Leaders will constantly need to make decisions.
It doesn’t matter if you have a small or large team. You will
need to make decisions every day that affect the direction and
morale of your team. There are many decisions that need to be
made quickly, and others that you will need to analyze and take
time to answer. There are decisions that you should not make,
and have your team members make them instead. The situation
doesn’t matter; the only thing that matters is having confidence
in your decision making.
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What Types of Decision Making Methods and Techniques
Should an OEL Stage I Leader Use?
There are many types of methods and techniques available for
decision making. The key is to have a method that you feel
comfortable using.
A leader has to have a decision making process that can handle
the simple to the complex. A simple decision making cycle
does not require rigorous planning. I recommend that leaders
use the OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) Loop for simple
decisions or decisions that need to be made quickly. It was
developed by Colonel John Boyd, who was an Air Force pilot.
He developed the OODA Loop to train American fighter pilots
to make faster decisions in air-to-air combat.
Let’s take a look at the OODA Loop.
The OODA loop is perfect for making decisions that need to
be made now. It is not a deliberate planning process. If you are
being chased by a bear, you need to use the OODA loop. The
first step is to observe that you are actually being chased. The
second step is to orient yourself on what you should do next.
You see a small cliff ahead and think the bear might not jump
off the cliff after you. The next step is to decide that you are
going to jump off the cliff. The last step is to act and actually
jump off the cliff. Now you are at the bottom of the cliff and
the OODA loop starts over again. Did the bear jump off? Are
you alive? Can you run again?
I’ve seen some material on the OODA Loop that indicates you
should use it as a deliberate planning process, but I’m in
disagreement with that recommendation. A leader should use
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the OODA Loop to make quick decisions that require speed.
Marines use the OODA Loop to make decisions in all aspects
of Marine training, and combat operations. It is used to lower
frustration and stress levels. If I observe a Marine getting
frustrated about a particular problem, I might say “Don’t let the
issue get in your OODA Loop”. The Marine will know exactly
what I mean, and will push forward in resolving the issue.
If you are dealing with a complex problem then you need to use
a deliberate planning process. I recommend Stage I Aspiring
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Leaders use the Officers Eat Last Planning Process. If you
know that you are going to be operating in the Alaskan
wilderness on Kodiak Island, then you need to conduct some
deliberate planning so that you are not being chased by Kodiak
bears. Every leader needs to have a decision making process
for simple and complex problems. I wouldn’t limit yourself to
the two methods I have outlined, but I would use them as my
starting point.
How Should You Build Your Decision Making Skills?
You need to build you decision making skills the same way you
are building all of your other Officers Eat Last skills with the
OEL Skill Building Process. The priority is to make thousands
of decisions. Each decision will allow you to gain confidence in
your decision making style. You will develop your style over
time. Your style will impact everything that you do.
One of the techniques that Marines use to grow leaders, and to
increase their decision making ability, are Tactical Decision
Games (TDGs). TDGs are normally conducted with less than
ten individuals participating. The leader gathers the participants
around a table to start a TDG.
Example Marine Corps TDG
You are a squad leader in Fallujah, Iraq. It is July and your
battalion has been in country for four months. Your patrol
base is on the West side of the city near the Euphrates River.
Your squad has been tasked to depart on a security patrol.
Your patrol has 13 Marines and one Navy Corpsman. You
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depart heading South out of your patrol base. You are about 20
minutes into your patrol, when you hear machine gun fire
impacting around your patrol that is coming from the other side
of the Euphrates River towards your patrol. The next thing you
hear is someone yelling in pain and “Corpsman Up”, which in
Marine speak means somebody needs immediate medical
attention.
What now?
At this point in the TDG, the
instructor would advise all of the
participants that they have about
ten minutes to put together a
plan as if they were the squad
leader on patrol. The instructor
would give everyone a minute to
ask any clarifying questions about the situation, and then every
participant would need to create their plan.
When the ten minutes are up, the instructor will pick a
participant at random and ask them to explain their plan. Let’s
say that the instructor picks Sergeant Brown.
Sgt Brown explains that the first thing he would do is direct his
patrols fire at the machine guns across the river. He would
ensure that his patrol was getting effective suppression of the
enemy machine gun position. He would then use his radio and
provide a situation report (SITREP) to his combat operations
center. The SITREP would include the fact that his patrol is in
a kinetic fight with the enemy, and that he has one friendly
wounded in action and needs a medical evacuation for the
The growth and
development of
people is the
highest calling of
leadership
Harvey S. Firestone
94
injured Marine.
At this point, the instructor would stop Sgt Brown and then
look at another participant and ask if they agree with Sgt
Brown’s plan. The entire TDG process effectively uses the
Socratic method in order to stimulate critical thinking, and to
illuminate ideas.
The idea is for Marines to do thousands of TDGs with all kinds
of scenarios focused on decision making. All of these build
confidence in the Marines decision making process, so when
they are downrange in Iraq, Afghanistan, or some other
country, they will respond, and make good sound decisions.
Officers Eat Last uses this same technique to improve decision
making, except the games are called Leadership Decision
Games.
Let’s look at an Officers Eat Last LDG.
You are the Head of Security at an eCommerce Fulfillment
Center. You get a call over the radio from your Security
Manager that you are needed in the company parking lot. You
proceed to the parking lot and see a wrecker with a car hooked
up to it. You see a female crying on the phone sitting in the
driver’s seat and a small dog in the car. Another individual is
standing nearby, it appears to be the wrecker driver. Your
Security Manager begins to brief you that the car is being
repossessed. The lady in the car left her dog in the car with the
windows all the way up. The temperature outside is 90 degrees
F/30 degrees C right now. You think that the dog probably
would have died. The police are on their way to the scene. The
female is a temporary employee of your staffing agency.
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What now Leader?
I realize that most of you are not the Head of Security at an
eCommerce Fulfillment Center. You may never be the Head of
Security or even be in the Security industry. It doesn’t matter.
The way to get better at making decisions is to make them. If
you walk up on this situation, you don’t have time to conduct
deliberate planning. You don’t have time to analyze data. You
need to start making decisions.
So what would you do?
If you want to let me know what you would do, please email me at [email protected]. You can also visit my blog at www.officerseatlast.com to find more Leadership Decision Games.
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CHAPTER 10
“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus,
but a molder of consensus.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
One of my senior leaders walked into my office and let me
know that his wife’s grandmother had passed away. He
explained how close his wife was to her grandmother and how
she was taking her death very hard. I was the Commanding
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Officer for Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines at the time
in Twentynine Palms, California. The senior leader was my
Company Gunnery Sergeant (GySgt) Rodney Buentello and his
wife’s family lived in Texas. We were in the middle of planning
a major live fire exercise that would include four days of
training. GySgt Buentello was a key member of the planning
team, and would be critical to our success in execution. He
knew this, and did not intend to accompany his wife to her
grandmother’s funeral. I let him know that he needed to go and
support his wife during this time. His commitment and
dedication was so high towards the Marines, he did not want to
let them down and felt he should stay. I told him we would be
fine and that his wife needed to be his priority. He reluctantly
agreed. The Marine Corps has a policy for just about
everything, as you might expect. The policy in this case would
allow me, the Commanding Officer, to deny a leave request in
this situation because the Marines wife’s grandmother is not an
immediate family member. I knew of this policy, but I also had
the discretion to grant the leave request. GySgt Buentello
accompanied his wife to Texas for the funeral. We made the
necessary adjustments to our staffing and executed the live fire
training successfully. When GySgt Buentello returned, he
stopped by my office and expressed his gratitude to me for
encouraging him to go with his wife. He said that his wife and
her family were very thankful that he was allowed to attend.
This seemingly minor action created an extremely loyal senior
leader who became a greater asset to our team. It also pulled
his wife closer to the Marine Corps and our entire team. This
action and other similar actions contributed greatly to other
team building techniques we were instituting at the time in an
effort to build a close knit group.
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Why is it Important to be an Effective Team Builder?
Team building is the very essence of leadership. If you can’t
build a team, you can’t be a successful leader. A leader needs to
spend a good deal of time ensuring they are creating an
environment where a team can flourish. The leader sets the
tone for the team. If the leader is frustrated all the time, it will
create friction and frustration amongst the team. If the leader is
calm and maintains a positive attitude regardless of the
situation, the team will have a positive attitude. This isn’t about
being a cheerleader.
Effective team builders
focus on how the team is
organized, and the roles
they are executing. They
focus on all members
knowing and doing their
job for the team. They
hold people accountable,
and everyone knows that
they will be held
accountable. It doesn’t matter what goal or objective you are
trying to achieve as a leader, you won’t achieve anything of
significance if you can’t build a team and hold them together.
What Types of Team Building Methods and Techniques
Should an OEL Stage I Leader Use?
The main method you need to use is to build trust with your
team. An OEL Stage I Leader should get to know everyone on
their team. You need to understand their strengths and
Leadership is about
making others better
as a result of your
presence, and making
sure that impact lasts
in your absence.
Sheryl Sandberg
COO of Facebook
99
weaknesses. You need to leverage their strengths and minimize
their weaknesses. You need to ensure your team works
together and builds trust amongst one another. This is where
you start to lean on your Officer Eat Last Personal Leadership
Doctrine. Your leadership doctrine is the foundation of your
leadership and your team.
How much should you know about the members of your team?
You can go really deep on this, but I found the most successful
method is to have a balance. I want to know the family
situation of the members of my team. I don’t do this through
interrogation. I do this through casual conversation. If you
can’t be genuine about learning about your team members
families then you will struggle to build and maintain the trust
and respect of your team. The only reason people are coming
to work with you is because of their families. They want to take
care of their families, and provide for them, or they want to
prove something to someone in their family. The “Prove”
something types are generally single individuals. The “Provide”
types are married or just have a deep respect for their family
and want to provide for them financially. All of this is
important because it affects their attitudes and performance
every day. You should know their personality and how they like
to work.
All of this information builds your framework on how you
should organize your team for success. You need to align
people in your organization where they have the best chance to
succeed. Everyone needs to know the overall team goals and
objectives. They need to know their role and responsibility.
They also need to have an understanding of everyone else’s
roles and responsibilities. This will allow all members to work
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together and solve issues before they become obstacles for the
team.
The next piece is to establish a rhythm to your work. The team
needs to be moving the ball forward towards accomplishing the
goals and objectives you have set. Do you have a weekly
meeting to keep everyone on track? What types of reports do
you want to review in order to understand if the team is moving
in the right direction? If your goal is to launch a new product
six months from today, it is the leader’s responsibility to chart
the path to get to that launch. The rhythm you set needs to be
aligned with your personality. I like to know what is going on
with my team and if the ball is moving forward, so I always
have at a minimum weekly status check meetings. If somebody
on the team is stuck and can’t seem to overcome an obstacle, I
want to know so that I can help resolve the issue. You will
develop your own style; just make sure there is a rhythm to the
work.
How Should You Develop Your
Team Building Skills?
You have to establish clear goals and objectives for your team.
They need something to rally behind in order for the team to
grow. These need to be long term goals like increasing sales by
25% over the next year. You need to get buy-in on your goals
and objectives from the team. These need to be individual,
regular conversations that you have with each team member.
Each member of the team needs to believe the team can
accomplish the goals and objectives you have set. If your goal
is to take the company public by the end of the year, but you
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haven’t sold one product, and you have never taken a company
public, guess what? You might not get buy-in from your team.
The goals need to be realistic and achievable. You need to get
to know your team. You need to know their personality,
behaviors, strengths, and weaknesses. You need to know about
their families and what is important to them. What motivates
them to work for you? You need written job descriptions for
each of your team members with details regarding their roles
and responsibilities. These need to be shared with every
member of the team. The only way to encourage your team to
help each other is if they know everybody’s role and purpose.
You need to establish a rhythm for team meetings and
reporting. All of these things start to create a culture for your
team. The foundation of your culture is your Officers Eat Last
Personal Leadership Doctrine. You need to leverage your
doctrine to drive your team and the culture. You also have to
do the hard work of improving the performance of sub-
West working to resolve conflict with Afghan elders. Sangin,
Afghanistan, 2011
102
standard performers, and/or removing them from your team.
Do not allow one bad apple to ruin your team or the overall
culture.
I have just described how to begin building a successful team.
There is a ton of work involved in this process, but it is a
necessity if you want to create a successful team.
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PART III
104
CHAPTER 11
“The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it,
no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a
football field, in an army, or in an office.”
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I walked into the office and heard the news that Bill Tucker was
about to be fired. I was shocked. Bill had been a Financial
Representative and producer for over five years. We had
become friends over the last year and I really respected his work
105
ethic and knowledge. The five year point in the financial
industry is an important milestone to achieve. It normally
means your days of struggling to build your business are over, if
you have built your client base the correct way. That is when
you will begin to get referrals from your current clients, and
your existing clients will be purchasing new products from you.
Bill was well respected by all of the Financial Representatives,
and viewed as a mentor, and expert. He had a serious ethical
lapse, and forged the signature of a prospective client onto
some life insurance forms. The process to purchase life
insurance can mean signing 5-10 forms depending on your age,
health, and the company you are acquiring the life insurance
from. Bill rationalized the forgery in his mind because he only
did this with clients that signed the initial contract, and paid the
first month’s premium. The majority of these forms require
original signatures by the client. Bill would review the client
package, and observe that one of the five forms that he needed
signed was somehow not signed by the client. This is where the
rationalization would take place. Bill knew that if he had to
send the form back to the client, it would delay the life
insurance in force date. So, he would sign the form as the
client, and submit the life insurance package. The client got the
life insurance on the date they wanted it, and he had another
client. The problem is that forged signatures are a serious
breach of ethics. The company we worked for used software
that would examine the signatures to determine if any were
forged. The software alerted that Bill had been forging
signatures on some of his clients. The company commenced an
investigation, and immediately started to find more documents
that had been forged. The senior leadership of this company
valued ethical leadership, and fired Bill within a few days of the
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discovery. Bill admitted that he had forged documents and left
the company peacefully.
Ethical violations can arise frequently in business such as the
one above. Bill was a solid producer. He treated people with
respect. His clients did not complain about forged signatures,
because they were happy that they had the product within the
promised timeline. However, companies know that you can’t
run a business with forged signatures. At some point, the
company can be sued for forged documents, and it can destroy
the credibility and brand of the entire company. As a leader,
you need to look for situations where your team might
rationalize unethical behavior. You have to build a culture and
policies that prevent unethical behavior.
What is Ethical Leadership?
Ethical leadership requires a clear and coherent ethical
framework that the leader can draw on in making decisions and
taking action. Every decision and action by the leader needs to
be based on integrity. Ethical leadership should be woven into
the policies and fabric of the company. I have long held the
belief that you either have integrity or you don’t. There isn’t
any gray area with integrity. If you cheat a person for a dollar, it
isn’t any different than cheating someone for one million
dollars.
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Why is it Important to be an Ethical Leader?
Ethical leaders build trust, credibility, and respect with those
they lead. The only way to achieve real success with a group of
individuals is to build trust.
People need to know that they
will be treated fairly and they
need to see this in the actions of
their leader. If you consistently
lie to your customers, and
rationalize this behavior, it will
not build trust with your team.
It doesn’t matter how you
rationalize the behavior. You
have to create a healthy climate and environment for your team
to succeed. This happens through a focus on ethical leadership.
How do You Build a
Foundation of Ethical Leadership?
Everyone has some type of ethical foundation. You may not
have written it down, but it is a part of you. The foundation
began with how you were raised, and what part of the world
you lived. As you grow older, you have the opportunity to
shape your foundation to suit your personality, and the behavior
you want to model. If you desire to lead people, you must build
a solid ethical foundation that is accepted in the society you live
and the organization you lead.
It is not
fair to ask
of others
what you are
unwilling to
do yourself.
Eleanor Roosevelt
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Your Officers Eat Last Leadership Doctrine will be the guide
you need for yourself and your team. That is why an OEL
leader has their own Core Values, Leadership Definition,
Leadership Philosophy, Principles, Traits, and Rules. The
doctrine is your ethical framework. It is what should guide your
actions and decisions on a daily basis. The environment you
were raised in has a tremendous impact on how you will behave
as an adult. If you had parents that were positive and showered
you with love, your natural instinct will probably lean towards
being positive. If your home life was negative, your natural
instinct may lean towards being negative. The good news is
that you get to shape your behavior and actions as an adult.
You get to establish your moral compass as an adult. Your
moral compass does not need to match your parents’, or other
people in your life if they were negative and untrustworthy.
You are building your ethical foundation, and you control your
actions. The actions you choose will be what your team
mirrors, and integrity must be at the core.
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CHAPTER 12
“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you
become a leader, success is all about growing others.”
-Jack Welch
I was leaning up against the wall, and I had my glasses propped
on top of my head. He looked at me, and motioned for me to
not lean against the wall, and to take my glasses off my head.
He didn’t do it in stern way or to be mean. His direction was
from respect and authority. My first Commanding Officer was
a prior enlisted reconnaissance Marine. He was tough as nails
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and smart as a whip. He was extremely arrogant, but he could
back it up. He was the perfect Commanding Officer for me
because I needed to be molded, and shaped into a better leader.
He would correct my every move. If I crossed my arms and he
felt it was inappropriate, he would correct me. If I was
checking on my Marines too much, he would correct me. If I
wasn’t checking on them enough, he would steer me in another
direction. I didn’t know it at the time, but he was my mentor.
He embraced this role for every young Marine officer in his
company. There wasn’t any rebellion against his mentoring,
because of the respect we all had for him. He was an extremely
competent leader, and his military tactics were sound.
What is a Leadership Mentor?
A leadership mentor is an individual that has significant
leadership experience. They need to have in excess of 10-12
years of leadership experience. The best leadership mentor will
be an individual that has been in your industry or a similar
industry. They need to be an individual that is ethically sound.
They should be a skilled communicator, planner, decision
maker, and team builder. They should have a genuine care for
those that they are mentoring. They should have an altruistic
attitude towards their mentee. If the mentee is able to assist the
mentor that is fine, but the mentor should not enter the
relationship with that in mind.
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Why is it Important to Have Leadership Mentors?
The best way to improve your leadership abilities is to have a
leadership mentor. You will not reach your full potential as a
leader without solid
leadership mentors. You
need to bounce ideas off
of leaders that have
wisdom. You need sound
advice for the normal
struggles that leaders have
every day, week, and
month. You need leaders
to emulate. It is one of
the best ways to really
grow as a leader. You can read every book on leadership, and
only marginally improve as a leader. However, proper
leadership mentoring can make you grow by leaps and bounds.
How Do You Build Leadership
Mentor Relationships?
The best way to find someone to be your leadership mentor is
to ask. The ideal leadership mentor is a leader that does not
work for the same company as you, and they are not a family
member. They also need to meet the other criteria of years of
leading, and be willing to commit the time to actually mentor
you. I’m not discouraging family members from mentoring
you, but you don’t want this to be the only leadership
mentoring you receive. I would also encourage you to visit your
local Chamber of Commerce. Most Chambers of Commerce
Never tell people
how to do things.
Tell them what to
do and they will
surprise you with
their ingenuity.
General G. Patton
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have programs in place for mentoring. Another great resource
is to find mentors is SCORE. SCORE is a nonprofit
association dedicated to helping small businesses get off the
ground, grow, and achieve their goals through education and
mentorship. You have to be patient when you are trying to find
a leadership mentor. If you begin to meet with a leadership
mentor, and the advice you are receiving does not align with
your ethical framework, you need to politely find another
mentor. You do need to listen to constructive criticism from
your mentor. If you can’t find a leadership match with all of
the above methods, I would recommend you hire a leadership
coach. You will still have to have patience in finding a
leadership coach, because the first one you hire may not align
with your ethical framework. The key is that every leader needs
a leadership mentor whom they can have honest and open
communication geared towards continuously improving oneself.
It is one of the most vital ways to continue your growth as a
leader.
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CHAPTER 13
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.”
-John Quincy Adams
Growing up in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, I was never the tallest kid
in class or on the football field for that matter. In high school I
was 5’ 8” and weighed 155 pounds, and I was tough as nails.
When I was on the football field and I hit my opponent, I hit
them as hard as I could. Paul “Bear” Bryant, the legendary
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football coach at Alabama, had a tremendous impact on my life
because he was a winner. I wanted to be a winner. From a very
young age, I wanted to grow up, and play football for Alabama.
In spite of my size, I did play for Alabama. It had been a
childhood dream, and it felt great accomplishing that dream.
Bear Bryant’s influence is what drove me during my youth to
train hard, and build strength so that I might have an
opportunity to play football at Alabama. When I was a
teenager, a group of us wanted to go to the beach without adult
supervision. My Dad told me that if I got into trouble, or if I
got arrested that he wouldn’t let me play football that Fall. I
wasn’t an angel on that trip to the beach, but my Dad’s message
was always on my mind, and it influenced my actions. I knew
he would follow through on his promise. I attempted to be on
my best behavior and stay out of trouble. I needed to continue
playing football if I was going to have a chance to make the
football team at Alabama. I embraced Bryant’s influence, and it
shaped my behaviors as I was growing up.
What is a Leadership Influencer?
A leadership influencer can be anybody throughout history that
you would like to study and emulate. It can be a leader today.
A few of my leadership influencers are Paul “Bear” Bryant,
Abraham Lincoln, and Jack Welch. I have never met any of
them, but I have studied their behaviors and thought processes.
I have tried to emulate many traits that they possess. My goal
has always been to integrate the traits that helped my
influencers achieve great success into my leadership philosophy.
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Why is it Important to Have Leadership Influencers?
Leading people can be incredibly challenging and difficult. You
need to learn as much as you can from others mistakes. You
will make mistakes the first year you are leading a team, and you
will make mistakes 40 years later if you are still leading. You
need to study others and understand common mistakes so that
you can attempt to avoid them. If you study the doctrine and
philosophy of leadership influencers it will assist you in
modeling your leadership behavior. How did they handle
complex problems? How did they handle conflict resolution?
How did they select talent? How did they juggle multiple
complex issues? What types of planning techniques did they
use? What type of people did they surround themselves with?
West conducting an assessment of area with Afghan government
officials and a member of the Provincial Reconstruction Team.
Sangin, Afghanistan, March 2011
116
Bear Bryant would say that he didn’t have any reason to hire
somebody unless they were more intelligent and talented than
him. That statement screams confidence. Are you confident
enough to hire people that are more talented than you? Many
leaders in business are not. They fear that if they hire more
talented people they will be fired and someone on their team
will take over. You will never be a great leader if you don’t have
the confidence to hire people with more talent than you
possess.
Who Should be Your Leadership Influencers?
You should study a wide range of leadership influencers, and
emulate the best traits across all of them. You have to create
your own unique style that maximizes the value from each
leadership influencer you would like to emulate. You will not
be able to be Abraham Lincoln, so don’t try. However, you can
take lessons from President Lincoln’s style and integrate them
into your leadership style.
The leadership influencer needs to be someone that you would
like to model your behavior after. If Abraham Lincoln wrote an
angry letter, he would place it in his desk drawer after he had
completed writing the letter. He would pull the letter out the
next day and read it again. He would normally rewrite the letter
in a more productive way. I use this same type of technique in
my leadership. I never send an angry email or letter. We are
fortunate in our day because it is much easier to meet face-to-
face, over video, or have a phone call. The influence of
Abraham Lincoln provided me a leadership rule that I use
frequently. I never attempt to counsel individuals on my team
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through email. I only provide constructive criticism face-to-
face, over video, or a phone call. My preference is face-to-face,
but I will use other tools if we are separated by long distances.
The influence of Jack Welch provided me a leadership rule
associated with ensuring everyone is rowing the boat in the
same direction as a productive team member. He focused on
having the right talent on the team. His subordinate leaders
knew that they would have to defend the organization of their
teams. If they could not communicate why particular
individuals were benefiting the team, they were removed from
the team.
You need to think about the traits and skills you would like to
build. Then study influencers throughout history that possess
those traits. Study how they used those traits. How did they
create successful teams? Why were they successful? Where did
they learn the traits you desire? How can you best model their
Captain Ramotowski and West near Helmand River.
Sangin, Afghanistan 2011
118
successful traits? How do you integrate their traits into your
daily actions? How do you use their traits to enhance the
performance of your team?
You should use, and integrate quotes from your leadership
influencers with your teams. Don’t do this so that your team
will be impressed with your memorization skills. Do this to
influence their behavior. When you are an aspiring leader, your
team is going to be more impressed with following the
leadership lessons of Abraham Lincoln or General Eisenhower
than they are following your lessons. You can use this to your
advantage. It makes the leader of the team seem like Abraham
Lincoln or Gen Eisenhower, and you are just a steward in
charge at that moment. It allows you to act with a certain level
of humility, because you are executing leadership lessons from
great leaders throughout history.
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CHAPTER 14
“Some people wonder all their lives if they've made a difference.
The Marines don't have that problem.”
-Ronald Reagan
When I arrived at Parris Island, South Carolina, for Marine
Corps boot camp, I had an arrogant chip on my shoulder. I
had watched and listened to the recruiting messages about
Marines. It was clear they thought they were the toughest of all
the branches of service. I was eager to find out for myself. I
was in great shape due to my training and playing football at
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Alabama. The Marine physical training was not difficult for me.
I let my arrogance, and cockiness get the best of me during a
sprint competition. We were lined up in a field for a 75 yard
sprint. The drill instructors said they wanted 100% effort. I
heard “on your mark, get set, go”. I took off and started to
look to my left and right. There wasn’t a single recruit near me.
As I was getting closer to the finish line, I turned around like a
hot shot and started pointing at everyone, and went backwards
across the finish line. I learned very quickly it was a bad
decision. I had about five to six drill instructors all over me.
They were yelling at me for
being a hot shot. It was the
exact kind of attention you do
not want at boot camp. I had
just identified myself as an
arrogant recruit, and from that
day forward for the rest of boot
camp, the drill instructors were
all over me, all the time. My
respect for the Marines continued to grow every day. I was
finding out that the Marines were every bit as tough as the
commercials stated.
I didn’t take the easy path through Marine boot camp due to my
arrogance. However, I realized while I was there that I had a
ton to learn about leadership, and I was in the right place at the
right time to learn. How about you? Are you going to take the
hard path due to a lack of maturity? Or are you going to do the
hard work that it takes to become a leader?
A true leader is
one who is
humble enough
to admit their
mistake
Anonymous
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Growth Path
It takes about 10-18 years for an American doctor to practice
independently. A person cannot skip steps because they want
to, or because they are impatient. You must complete your
undergraduate degree, then graduate medical school, and lastly a
3-5 year residency program. There are longer paths for some
specialty physicians, or surgeons. If you plan to become a
doctor you study and understand this path. You may want to
speed it up, but it is not going to happen. The only way to
speed it up is to choose a specialty that takes less time for
residency. I recently visited a neonatal intensive care unit
(NICU) because my cousin’s newborn had been admitted to the
NICU. I happened to be there when one of the team lead
doctors was making her rounds. She had two residency doctors
with her and two RNs. They invited the family to listen to the
brief. The lead doctor kicked off the meeting by indicating she
was ready to hear the brief. One of the residency doctors
started to read off a list of healthcare data, and stats that applied
Afghan boy and West. Sangin, Afghanistan 2011
122
to my cousin’s daughter. The brief was very efficient and
thorough. Every person was engaged and providing data to the
lead doctor for her to make the best decisions regarding the
baby. It struck me that this team of doctors held the life of my
cousin’s baby in their hands. If they were able to use their years
of experience and wisdom, mixed with modern technology, his
daughter would continue to thrive and grow. The opposite is
also true if they provided poor advice. The lead doctor
displayed compassion, and care for the two doctors that she
was clearly mentoring. I was impressed with the entire process,
and how the medical profession was ensuring the
professionalism, and competency of the next set of doctors.
The young aspiring doctors were being mentored, and they
seemed to embrace the process.
How do you create a similar scenario for yourself? The
business world does not provide this type of path for
individuals that plan to grow into leaders. The business world
has more of a sink or swim mentality. The medical profession
knows they cannot operate based off of a model of sink or
swim. There are lives on the line with their decisions. The
interesting piece is that leaders have lives on the line as well.
However, poor leadership in business doesn’t normally lead to
death, but it can destroy a person’s career. As an aspiring
leader, you need to have the maturity and humility to be
developed into a leader.
Your Leadership Journey
Every person’s leadership journey is different. There is no such
thing as born leaders or even natural leaders. There are people
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that possess certain characteristics that embody leadership.
However, just like a person cannot become a doctor in one
year, a person does not become a successful leader in one year.
The journey takes time, and you have to be mature enough to
realize that it takes time. The Officers Eat Last Leadership
Development Process details a path to develop a rock solid
foundation in which you can build a career of success. This
path requires hard work, and it will take years to achieve, but
the reward and joy will be well worth it.
Let’s quickly review the process below:
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If you follow the Officers Eat Last Leadership Development
Process you will not wonder if you have a made a difference,
you will know that you have made a difference.
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Successful teams are built through the contribution of great
people. I would not be writing a leadership development book
if it wasn’t for all the people that have coached, mentored, and
nurtured me throughout my life. I would like to provide a
special thanks to the following people, Chris Ellison, Stephen
Pate, Rob Peterson, Brian Merz, Amy Merz, Matt Fritsch,
Vance Sewell, Scott Campbell, John Childers, and Brantley
Wilks. Each of them provided insight and feedback that
strengthened the content of my first book.
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Do you want another leadership book for FREE
today?
Go to the link below for your FREE eBook.
OfficersEatLast.com/index.php/rules-book/
Carnegie Institute
of Technology
85% of your financial success is due to your
personality and ability to communicate,
negotiate, and lead.
Shockingly, only 15% is due to
your technical knowledge.
Are you seeking a path to greater financial
success within your organization or as an
entrepreneur?
Do you want to have a greater influence on
your team, peers, managers, and customers?
Start your journey to become a successful
leader today.
Start your journey to achieve greater
financial success today.
129
Officers Eat Last
Leadership Development Rules
Every successful leader has leadership rules that
guide their actions with their team.
Jason has compiled a list of 75 leadership rules
that he has used throughout his 20 plus years of
leading teams.
Add them to your personal leadership doctrine
today.
Get your FREE copy at the link below.
OfficersEatLast.com/index.php/rules-book/
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