Leadership Essences I Learned from Military Folk
If you do not have an intricate understanding of the interrelatedness of the subtle and overt dynamics of power that is a highly organized group of individuals, then you are a fool.
Those who see you for a fool, with this understanding, will not tolerate your foolishness though they will embrace your humanity.
As a fool, the path of least resistance is to gather with other fools and spend a lot of time talking about your feelings and reinforcing framing the world in terms of yourself.
Those who see you for a fool and grasp the subtleties without care for the sacred of every life will manipulate you.
Only fools manipulate other fools. Only a fool can be manipulated. If you have been manipulated, then acknowledge yourself taken for a fool, learn from it, and move on.
Therefore, learn the difference between conflict and manipulation.
You will get broken. That only means defeat if you allow it, though sometimes the journey can take an entire career or more.
Killing for honor is necessary. Only you can create your own compass for that, in sacred compact with your gods.
In the midst of battle, there are no heroes, there are no good guys and no bad guys. There is only the depth of your bond with all your fellow men about you, the dead, the dying, and those who lived through the grace of God.
When you come to realize that it is all god’s grace, then you no longer care about right and wrong, and yet you will not tolerate fools or injustice.
Those who become hidebound in their lack of tolerance find themselves alone in their old age, because the young want to learn, but they have no time for learning to be stiff and creaky in their souls.
The gifts of being forced to understand the merging of the feminine and masculine aspects of power in the compression chamber of the military include a deep capacity for sizing people up quickly and efficiently. Only the most foolish of fools do not harvest this gift.
When you have stood on the field of death and realized all there as your brothers, then you no longer have time to waste. Civilians are those who fritter time. They are blessed with the love of their soldier-brothers/sisters as a young child is blessed with the love of parents—so bathed in it and too innocent and ignorant to see. It is good to love in this way, but not to work, never to work.
The chain of command is sacrosanct. It needs no explaining. If you take that to be true, and explore it, you will gain in wisdom and learn to see flaws in the chain of command for what they are, and determine your course of action accordingly.
However, there are some common tenets and truisms that mark a good beginning for exploration.
Praise in public, criticize in private. Unless you are a subordinate, often then it is reversed, but act with care and discretion from the heart of your truest self.
If communication is not truly flowing up and down echelon, expect drama.
It is okay to have certain kinds of conversations with your peers about your bosses.
It is best to say everything in your heart to leadership.but it takes more skill and grace than most have. Keep practicing.
When a group of people is too large an amalgamation of secret opinions and secret committees, expect drama.
The leaders own the process.
Everyone is a leader of their integrity and their own choices. Everyone can be an inspiration, and everyone can develop the worth of their own influence, wherever they are in the chain of command.
Consensus is earned, not cried about after. If you feel your opinion is treated poorly, is it a personal problem, or is it a true danger to the mission? (and do you really have your whole being centered on surrender to the mission, or are your dreams creeping in? Men are better at this than women, generally speaking)