Military Leadership

In honor of those who have served in our United States Military and who I have served

with, I'm going to take this post opportunity to share some military leadership quotes:

The day Soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.

General Colin Powell

Leadership: The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower

The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.

Prime Minister Tony Blair

Leadership and learning are indespensible to each other.

President John F. Kennedy

Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.

General Norman Schwarzkopf

Men make history, and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.

President Harry S. Truman

Promises, Promises

Trust, honesty, integrity . . . a promise is a promise.

For those "leaders" who don't have those three things, promises will never mean a thing to employee's.  You've probably heard of "the boy who cried wolf"?  The more lies he told, the more no one believed him, until it was too late.  Same thing with leaders.  If you're not honest and carry through with your promises to your employee's, you're just blowing smoke.  It's an easy way to lose respect . . . but it's hard to get it back.

I try not to get into politics, but this timely and is just a great example (and no I'm not going to debate it).  I saw a graph today on how many people have lost their current insurance due to the Affordable Care Act - millions.  This was after the country was told, by the President, that if people were happy with their insurance they could keep it.  As I began writing this blog post I got a CNN tweet headlined, "Obama apologizes for some people losing health coverage despite his promise".  What do you think that apology means to those millions of people?  Nothing. Nothing but lost trust.

It doesn't matter who you are or where you land on the totem pole - bottom or top - a promise is a promise.  And people - employees - WILL remember when you break those promises.  It's kind of like the silent customer.  If you give bad service, they may not say anything to you.  But they will tell others who you won't see and not return themselves.

A promise IS a promise.  Make it so.