Following is an excerpt from my upcoming book on leadership. The advice is for anyone in a leadership role that wants to sharpen their skills and get more production out of their team. The hard-won knowledge applies to any size business, whether a two-person operation or a 20,000-person operation or more.
By Gregg Sturdevant. Retired Marine Corps Major General (2-star).
You should have seen the look on “The Knife’s” face when I told him if the squadron was ordered to war I was not going!
“What? Why?” Sife the Knife, demanded.
I swallowed hard and told him, “I’m not going to war because our squadron is not combat ready!”
“Sife the Knife” was the nick name of our new squadron executive officer. At the time, I had been in the squadron for a year and I had yet to start my tactical flight training. I was month’s behind my peers in sister squadrons. The sad part about it was that every other copilot in my squadron was also behind. How “Sife the Knife” reacted to my outburst reveals much of what someone should do to be a successful leader. (Keep reading).
In my nearly 37-years in uniform I’ve been exposed to numerous leadership styles, some superb and inspiring, others far from it. As one of my commanders once said, “You learn as much from the bad leaders as you do from the good.” Wise words.
What I’ve learned is this: Setting your team up for success is the primary responsibility of a superb leader. I would love to tell you every leader I’ve served with has had this same philosophy, but it would be a lie. There are good leaders and bad, both in the military and in the business world.
Much of my philosophy was developed when I was selected to command a helicopter squadron as a Lieutenant Colonel.
Twice a year the Marine Corps runs a “Commanders Course” at Quantico, Virginia, near Washington, DC. This course teaches all about the art of command. You become intimately familiar with family readiness programs, receive media training, get coaching and mentoring from select individuals who have already walked that path, and are exposed to a variety of other subjects.
Before I attended the Commanders Course, I was immersed in budget battles at the Pentagon. When I got to Quantico, I had to switch gears and formulate how I would lead the helicopter squadron. I reflected on my previous commanders and my life experiences and came up with three tenets to be a good leader. (I later added a fourth). The first tenant, which I am going to explore in greater detail here, is, again, “Set people up for success.”
But setting the people up for success under me did not just involve me and my direct reports. If the people under me had direct reports (people under them) then our job was to set their direct reports up for success. Just continue with that line of thought, think cascading effect. In the end, lots of Marines either succeeded or not, based on how well I did my job. And for all the Marines involved, winning was not just something nice to do, it was a matter of life and death.
Being responsible for everyone on the team
As a leader, if a person under my command stumbled, I asked myself several key questions: “Did I do everything I could to set that person up for success?” “Are they in the right position or would they perform better in a different role?” “Did they receive the training necessary for them to do their job? “Is there something going on outside of work that is impacting their performance?” The list could go on and on.
It wasn’t unusual for me to move someone from one department to another because of substandard performance. If someone was not happy in their current position, I would call them to my office and have a heart-to-heart talk. I needed to know how they thought things were going. Why weren’t they happy with their job? Those talks usually resulted in that person being reassigned to a role that I thought they were better suited for. I made it a point to circle back after about a month to see how they liked their new job. Some people call this caring. It is, but it’s also a necessary action to set your team up for success.
Job feedback is essential
The Marine Corps had a performance review program directing that you sit down with the Marines you were responsible for and provide counseling every six-months. The objective was to give an honest assessment, both good and bad, and document the discussion. If there was a performance issue, then the counseling session needed to include documented performance improvement steps. Expectations and the time allotted for improvement needed to be spelled out so there were no misunderstandings.
One time the head of my administrative section was struggling with her job. We had one of those heart-to-heart discussions and ended up making a deal: if she gave me everything she had then I would take care of her. I was not the one responsible for writing her annual performance assessment, but I was the one to review the report. Her direct supervisor wrote the annual report and it was not pretty. After she received the review, we sat down for another talk. She had in fact given 110% of what she was able to provide—but she still fell short of where her peers were. Next, I talked to her supervisor. I asked to see the documented counseling sessions he had had with her. Guess what? There were none. I made him go back and rewrite the annual performance report. He was not happy, but because he had not properly documented the substandard performance the report would never stick. The next thing I did was have a meeting with all the officers to remind them how important continuous feedback was, verbal and then properly documented, good points as well as bad. You can’t set up a team for success without continual, documented performance feedback.
Putting people in a position where they can win
Shortly after taking command of the squadron I had a senior Major check in for duty. He was the second most senior Major in the squadron, by all rights he should have been the Operations Officer. He had the seniority and a lot of flight time. However, most of that flight time was not in the helicopter the squadron flew. Rather, he built his hours as a fixed-wing flight instructor in Pensacola, Florida. In other words, he did not have the technical expertise to be the Operations Officer and to lead a tactical squadron. Nevertheless, he pushed hard for the Operations Officer assignment. I refused to give in. Had I assigned him to that position I would not have been setting him or the squadron up for success. Instead I explained the reasons I was not going to make him the Operations Officer and asked him to become the Logistics Officer, an extremely important job that can make or break a squadron. He turned out to be an absolute master at small unit leadership and skillfully oversaw the loading and unloading of three Navy ships in several US and foreign ports. During the deployment I put him in charge of a four-plane detachment, leading 60 Marines on a ship doing independent operations—what an opportunity to grow as a leader! Setting a team up for success means putting the right people in the right jobs.
Back to “Sife the Knife.” When I told him I wasn’t going to war, he instantly recognized leadership had failed to set up our squadron for success. Being a competent commander, a week later the situation was corrected, and we were on our way to becoming combat capable copilots. He was a man who listened to men under him and made sure they were set up to succeed.
Five questions to ask to assure your team is set up for success:
- Is your direct report or team capable of doing what you are asking them to do?
- Do they have enough education and is the education right for the job?
- Have they been given the tools and training to do the job?
- Do they understand their role and responsibilities?
- Are company policies and procedures clearly delineated and easy to understand?
Not asking these five questions can kill any chance a team has for success. Asking and honestly answering them will set you and your team up to win. It’s what true leadership is about.
For more information or a free consultation contact me at: www.linkedin.com/in/greggsturdevant/ or gregg.sturdevant@gmail.com. Retired Marine Major General Gregg Sturdevant, Founder/CEO Mission Critical Leadership Solutions.