My experience tells me that the corporate world is catching up, in some regards, on how it develops its leadership talent if the billions of dollars we spend annually on leadership development training is any yardstick.  But, it has to be said, I think there’s at least one area where  the corporate world is falling short.  There’s one truth about leading others that doesn’t ever seem to get a mention.

Leading is lonely.

When I was deployed to Bosnia as part of a NATO peacekeeping mission, minefields were something we came across fairly regularly.  They were marked in a range of ways - some had the fairly obvious skull and crossbones on a red triangle and even if you couldn’t read the Cyrillic underneath, it didn’t take much imagination to work out that if you were on the side of the sign without writing then your day had taken a turn very much for the worse.  

The biggest difference I’ve observed consistently between the corporate world and the military is how we view leadership.

From the moment an Officer Cadet arrives at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS), an institution that has in one form or another trained the British Army’s Officers for over 200 years, it’s drummed into them that their role is simple - it’s to serve those they lead.

I’m told that at one point in time Every breath you take by The Police was one of the most popular choices by couples for their wedding dance.  When I heard that, I found myself wondering if any of them deliberately chose it because it’s a song about an obsessive stalker that Sting, the band’s frontman, wrote after separating from his wife and who regards its messages of sadistic jealousy and controlling possession as (in his own words) nasty and evil.  Or maybe they chose it just because they liked the tune…

So while we’re on the topic of misunderstandings, the term “Command and Control” seems to be copping a bit these days.

Whether it's on combat operations in Afghanistan or managing multi-million dollar projects there's one word that my team have learned not to use when they're briefing me on their planned course of action.

A question from an audience member at a recent speaking engagement really got me thinking.  He simply asked me "what's the most important thing you learnt in the Army that transfers to your corporate life?"

Sure, we got to do lots of cool stuff like jump out of airplanes and abseil out of helicopters but as transferrable skills goes, they’ve got to be fairly low on the list of things I’d ever put on my resume.

What do your employees or subordinates feel when you ask the question “can I give you a little bit of feedback?"
 
Do they lean forward, eager for some morsel of insight that will bring light to a dark corner of their self-awareness or do they sigh inwardly and prepare themselves for the infliction of death by 1000 character flaws and stuff-ups?

I was leading a workshop for a group of GMs & CEOs recently when the subject of strategy came up.  It appeared that within the group there were strategies for everything – we had personal effectiveness strategies, time management strategies, strategies to stop smoking and even strategies to de-clutter and simplify life.  Then there were sales strategies, marketing strategies and customer service strategies to name but a few. But there was little actual strategy.

I was talking to a client this morning who had a classic case of the ‘overwhelms’ and even if you haven’t suffered from it, you’ll probably have seen the symptoms in others.  It's that feeling that the problems you’re facing are so big and so complex that the temptation to do absolutely nothing is, well, overwhelming.

Almost every time I speak or run any sort of leadership development workshop I hear some variation on the same two questions.  The first is “do you know Bear Grylls?” and the second is “what’s the difference between the SAS and the rest of the Army?”

The answer to the first question is “not any more” and the answer to the second is “just one percent”.

With the pace of business today it can be very tempting to finish a project and then rush off to the next one without even so much as a pause - after all there’s always a backlog of ‘stuff’ clamoring for our attention.

The way I see it, that ‘stuff’ can, and should, wait just a few moments more.

OK, so not everything in business has to be about innovation, creativity and 'thinking outside the box'.  Sometimes rigid processes and rules are really useful for both the organisation and the customer.  This wasn’t one of those times.

If you want your business to be efficient and streamlined, give your staff processes and procedures.  If, on the other hand, you want your people to be innovative and creative in how they solve problems and create customers who are raving fans, tell them when it’s ok to not follow them.