Leadership: Leading Junior Leaders

Leadership is the ability to take a group of people to a predetermined objective.

It is not just the ability to determine the right objective.  It is the taking them there that is leadership.

Sometimes the selection of the rout to the objective can be delegated to your junior leaders.  This helps develop their leadership skills.  Sometimes the route must be selected by the senior leader.

When the senior leader must do the selection that leader must make the right decision no matter if he/she has consensus or not among the follower or among the junior leaders.

Yet, it is wise to make sure the junior leaders feel their perspectives and opinions have been heard and considered.  They they will come along the senior leader even if the route is different than they would take.

1. Sometimes the Junior leaders may have a more fresh or more creative route to the objective not considered by the senior leader.
2. No one likes to feel they are a slave to the leader.  All want to believe they are part of a team on a cause.  Not everyone likes the play called but they all have buy in to the play.  They want to feel that the team sees their value and contribution to the team.
3. Part of the development of junior leaders is teaching them to become great followers.  Great followers sometimes have to do what they don't want to do.  In fact one person said that is the definition of leadership, "making others do what you want them to do and not what they want to do.

Isn't that the way it is in marriage and work?  I may not want to do what my wife asks me to do but as long as she knows what other things I think need to be done and I know she values my opinion, I am much more willing to do as she asks.  So does that make her the senior leader?

Strategic Thinking - Anticiapating Battlefield Events Part 1

How would you like to know what is going to happen before it happens?  To know what your business competition is going to do?  What your boss will propose at the next annual review?  What your spouse is going to complain about next?

Although you may not be a prophet you can anticipate with a high degree of accuracy what will happen during your next encounter.

When I was an infantry platoon leader we had to "Anticipate the Battlefield Events."  The anticipation may not have always been right but by going through the process, ambushes and the unexpected did not take us by surprise.  This helps you obtain your objective while reducing losses.

When it was time for me to create an Operations Order, the first paragraph I had to write, while thinking through our strategy, was the Enemy Forces.  After putting on paper what we knew of the enemy we would then write,

EMLCOA.

EMLCOA:  Enemies Most Likely Course Of Action.  Once you know everything about your enemy you know how they will react and how they will try to start or gain momentum.

"But Mike," you say, "what if we don't know that much about the opponent?"

Just a couple quotes from classic military strategists:

"The key in large scale strategy is to know your enemy's strengths."  Musashi Book of Five Rings. 

"Know the enemy's sword and do not be distracted by insignificant movements of his sword."  IBID 

"If you know the enemy and know yourself
You need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
If you know yourself but not the enemy,
For every victory gained you will suffer a defeat.
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself,
You will succumb in every battle."  Sun Tzu The Art of War.

So be a student of people.  Study their personalities.  Study their preferences.  Study how you react in different situations.  Use a Journal to record your discoveries.  The best training on using a journal I came across was by my virtual mentor, Jim Rohn who recently passed away.  You can get his two hour training program by clicking this link:  How to Use a Journal. This is not a diary.  It is a learning journal.

I am always surprised at how much of life flies by us without our capturing it in sEMome form such as a journal.  Great quotes, events, or observations; then within a week we forgot them.

Everyone THINKS they know people and few really do. If you think you know something, you immediately stop your mind from learning more.  So stay a student for a life time.

It is tough to anticipate what will happen if you don't know people.