No Excuse Leadership

This is one of the finest leadership books I've ever read. It charts the lessons and development of 10 Army Rangers and how some of them have brought the lessons and principles learnt from Ranger School into the corporate world.

The title's namesake comes from a speech a Ranger Colonel gave which inspired the author to sign up for Ranger School. Here's a short excerpt:

For a second I felt it was just Colonel Turner and myself in the room, and he was looking right at me from two feet away. "Well, cadet, what's it gonna be? Ranger -- or EXCUSE?"

Grasp the simplicity and power of No Excuses, and you have guaranteed success.

"Well, what's it gonna be? Wealthy -- or excuse?"
"Well, what's it gonna be? Healthy -- or excuse?"
"Well, what's it gonna be? A good parent -- or excuse?"
"Well, what's it gonna be? A good friend -- or excuse?"
"Well, what's it gonna be? A good employee -- or excuse?"
"Well, what's it gonna be? A good leader -- or excuse?"

If you set goals in line with your personal priorities, and never accept excuses for failure, you will succeed.

Not done with the whole book yet but even halfway through, I strongly recommend this as a good read on not just leadership, but many other of life's important principles.

[No Excuse Leadership]

Learning Leadership ?

Leadership is a pretty over-rated topic at times but had a couple of thoughts about how to go about developing what I would term "leadership on a personal level". This, I feel, is the foundation to being able to develop further in this area. Just a couple of thoughts on what I apply myself:

1. Learn about yourself - This is essentially the most basic yet hard to achieve element. You may scoff and say "Of course I know all about me!" but perhaps not at a deeper level. Knowing enough about yourself includes knowing your weaknesses and when they appear. For example, you may discover that you tend to become subconciously disorganised when nervous or under stress. Or that when interacting with people in stressful situations, you tend to stutter. Being mindful of all these facts will help you to acknowledge these personal weaknesses. That was the hard part, the next step is simply to find logical ways to keep your spirits and confidence
   
2. Learn about the people around you- Learn and understand the strength and weakness of people around you. Its similar to the first point and would help you to be mindful about how to project yourself positively. In teams especially, understanding how each member interacts is crucial. The key and most difficult aspect to this is to be objective and seek to understand everyone as much as possible. At the same time, learning about how people around you work gives tons of opportunities for self-reflection and correction - pick up the best attributes from people and be mindful to avoid negative ones you spot.
   
3. Learn from the best - This can be from mentor figures you may have or just plainly by reading up on the topic from books. Watching great leaders in action bring the double benefit of live learning coupled with a constant inspiration to excel. In terms of reading up, I've found that the best leadership books are the military-themed ones. My logic behind it is that in the military, successes and failures are much better documented and examined because they are matters of life and death. Being able to analyse a military failure, the military force hopes to avoid such a reccurrence. For companies and organisations, this is seldom the case as success stories tend to be played up while failure ones are toned down.
   

Leadership under Fire

Why is it that most of the famous leaders were from the military? Generals like Patton and Rommel who led, inspired and brought their armies of thousand together with a single vision and then towards victory?

It was their simplicity in vision and tenacity and action while under fire. No leader was ever born or built out of peaceful situations. From the baptism of fire till the last battle for each of these leaders, they were forced to move fast, think fast and act in the worst of conditions with enemy fire coming from all directions.

In face of such odds, these leaders remained steely faced and together with their men when overcoming the opposition. In fact, Patton confessed to frequently practicing his "war face" in front of the mirror and refuses to dress more warmly then his ground soldiers when it came to fighting winter battles.

Respect for leaders stem from the followers knowing full well that the people leading them will always be there for them and with them. Lt Gen Hal Moore from the Vietnam war promised his men this - " When we go into battle, I will be the first to step onto the field, and I will be the last to step off. And I will leave no one behind. Dead or Alive, we will all come home together!" And he did.

Little wonder than the followers of these great leaders often remark "That's the man who leads us, and we'll be sure to follow him to hell and back!"