Enjoy monthly reads, reflections, and thoughts from our wisdom filled team.
Strategies rarely fail because the vision is flawed; more often, they fail because employees lack the guidance, skill development, and confidence needed to execute effectively. When implementing a strategy, key members of the team must receive dedicated coaching and support from both subject-matter and technical experts.
I have seen many well-intentioned organizations draft catchy vision statements, spend significant energy developing a strategy, and then fall flat in execution after the strategic masterpiece is unveiled. A well-crafted strategy is only as strong as its execution. While organizations invest significant time and resources in designing strategies, many fall short when it comes to implementation. Strategy implementation is the critical bridge between planning and results—it ensures that intentions are translated into measurable performance.
I have commanded high performing organizations both in combat and peacetime and been lucky enough to serve with some of the best Americans and warriors this country has to offer. I was neither the best leader nor the best warrior. I made many mistakes while on my leadership journey and learned from every one of them. I have many regrets and wish I could go back and make different decisions, take different actions, or treat people differently; but I use these as motivation to be a better leader, mentor, and humble servant. I challenge you to do the same. If you “roger up” to the leadership call, then you will certainly experience failure, but you should see these failures as opportunities for growth and reflection. We should never consider ourselves to be experts but students who are on a continuous journey to become better.
It’s time to address one of the many unanswered questions in life: ”do I play it safe or dive!?” The context of this question will be framed around sports and though it was often the result of years of participating, coaching and observing many athletes, it also has a strong parallel to behaviors demonstrated in the professional world.
In 2011, Marvel’s comic series Captain America depicted the modern-day ultimate selfless, sacrificial act of jumping on the grenade when Steve Rogers covered a dummy grenade to save his fellow soldiers. He did not know that the lead trainer and assessor threw a dummy grenade. He possessed the key qualities that the senior leader, Colonel Phillips, desired – courage and self-sacrifice. While this dramatic visual vignette highlights these qualities and key elements that contribute to a leader’s character assessment, thankfully, few teammates or leaders ever must prove these qualities through such a mortal test. And yet, most leaders will face tests of their character and willingness to jump on a grenade throughout their professional lives. Leaders prove their courage, character, and willingness to sacrifice for the team to supervisors, peers, and junior teammates…or do not.
Have you ever been singled out for criticism by your leader in the presence of others? Do you remember how it felt?
Chances are, if you have experienced this, you have never forgotten it. Getting chastised in plain view leaves a lasting and unpleasant impression. Better said, it just plain hurts. As we move forward, every recollection of that moment makes us feel the pain and embarrassment all over again. Ouch.
One of the things I miss most about being in uniform is the camaraderie I felt with my fellow service members almost immediately upon arriving at a new organization. Over a 33-year career, this shared bond made each assignment a little easier, knowing I would quickly find people with common experiences and a shared purpose whenever I joined a team. These connections are a big part of what made military service so meaningful to me and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. Yet, over time, I realized that if left unchallenged, my comfort with teammates who shared similar experiences and thought processes could sometimes limit my openness to other perspectives.
I wanted to get a better understanding of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it could potentially improve my leadership, so I decided to engage ChatGPT in a conversation on the topic. I started out with an easy one: “how can I improve my leadership?” As suspected, a laundry list of ideas with well-articulated statements streamed down my screen. However…
Studies have repeatedly shown that regular exercise is positively correlated with high scores on leadership assessments (1). It has been shown that individuals who allocate time for regular physical activity into their daily life have a greater capacity to achieve goals. If you need more proof type “statistics on CEOs and physical fitness” into your search engine and you’ll have ample evidence that leadership and fitness are intertwined. So, what’s the connection? With all the time constraints placed on a leader, is it worth the effort?
The key to unlocking your team’s superpower is showing them what it looks like to take the armor off, share your vulnerabilities, and work together to overcome each other’s blind spots. Telling your teammates they can be vulnerable and showing them what it looks like are two very different things. Your actions are more powerful than any words you can share, and your consistency will build the kind of trust that winning teams are made of.
We often wear masks and armor to protect the people around us: our families, our friends, our teammates, and more than anything, the people we are charged to lead. We think our masks protect the people around us from the things we see as vulnerabilities: fear, anger, disappointment, overwhelm, uncertainty. If we show them our fear, they will be scared too. If we show them our uncertainty, they will lose hope. If we show them our weakness, they will lose trust and faith in our leadership. This is what we tell ourselves when we put the armor on.
The statement, “Leaders Are Readers,” as others point out, has become ubiquitous on social media platforms like LinkedIn. Whether or not people who share that sentiment know of President Truman’s quote doesn’t diminish what he meant by saying it. Some people do innately possess powerful leadership attributes and abilities, most do not. Leadership is learned, and anyone, in my experience, can become better leaders through educating themselves.
Leaders are thinkers; they observe, reflect, learn, and apply. Sometimes we learn from reflecting on our experiences and other times we have the opportunity to learn from others through books and other media. In the words of noted philosopher and educator, John Dewey, “We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on our experience.”
Victory Strategies is a Veteran Owned Business.
