Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way

This axiom has always been a dilemma for me. First I should provide a note of credit here; I’m referring to a book written by Jim Lundy. This book was first published in 1986 and was on many mandatory reading lists for young professionals studying business and heading into the corporate world. I was introduced to the book as a young Army Lieutenant during my initial year of active duty. It was on the reading list during Officer Basic Course (OBC) back in 1986. OBC is / was the training that all new officers attended after receiving their commissions and before reporting to their first duty station.

The dilemma for me was the title of the book itself, not the content. The title gave off a brash and even arrogant feeling to me. It sounded good though. A quote to use when one wanted to sound confident, in control, and impressive (the latter being a good tool in the kit for a single guy in a mixed company social environment back in the eighties). You could picture the great warriors and leaders spouting this saying and having the masses line up behind them and charge ahead wherever they were headed (think John Wayne, Liam Neeson, President Trump, etc.). History of the quote is actually attributed to General George S. Patton. It was used for the title of a Ted Turner biography in 1981 and again reused in an ad campaign by Lee Iacocca in 1992 when he was the head of Chrysler. In 2012 Al Gore incorrectly attributed the quote to Thomas Paine, a Founding Father of America.

Honest to Goodness Goodness

I wrestled a bit with the “Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way” perspective for the 10 years I spent in the Army during the Cold War. Again, the content of Lundy’s book does not take the tack that one might get from the title. It’s not a lit path of brashness. It follows a solid, proven, straightforward and is simple in application. Proving the point of contradiction between the title and the content is something from near the end of the book, a little section called “Four Powerful Words”, and those words are: “Ask questions and listen”.

It’s taken 30+ years to come back to me in ways I never thought it would, or expected. If you go through Lundy’s book today, (which is a very easy read by the way, I mean it was given to young Army guys…), you’ll see how and why my coining of the phrase “Leading with Honest to Goodness Goodness” applies. And the best part is that it’s more applicable today in the in the civilian / corporate / real world than ever before (I won’t comment on its applicability in military leadership today, but I can assume it applies there as well). Some may argue that my perspective is all touchy-feely, fluffy and soft. They may call it “bunk and malarkey” that get in the way of mission accomplishment (nice old-school terms, huh?). I have no problem asking that camp to re-evaluate their mission(s) and their processes in play to meet their challenges.

The other camp, the “warm and fuzzy” one I’m in, understands what is absolutely needed to be really successful – not a constant magnifying glass on the top line, bottom line, revenue per head metrics – but by applying honest to goodness goodness to an organization. The business KPIs will do just fine if honest to goodness goodness becomes the standard.

What do I mean “honest to goodness goodness”? It’s understanding, trust, confidence, and communications. It’s community, camaraderie, positive people relationships, believing together that what we’re doing with our “work” matters, and most importantly understanding why it matters. It’s remembering that we’re all in this thing called life together and what we’re trying to achieve is important, but how we press forward to achieve it is what is most important. The mission is important, yes. But the people are what make the mission, right? That’s why we lived by “Mission First, People Always” in the Army.

You know you can (and do at times) go beyond what you think you can do. You probably do it with your family all the time, which of course is most important. But don’t let that be the only case, extend it to your “community family” and dare I say it, your “corporate family” (I hope you have one). Do you care if you get the credit for doing the right things and taking care of your personal family? Probably not. You just do what you know and feel are the right things to do and you do them – that’s what I call honest to goodness goodness. When we think about it, we can do that all around us and include it with the day-to-day efforts we put forth in our careers. We can do so much more than just working to meet the common objective and appeasing fractional unit success, political pressures, and covert agendas.

We all know it, and yet we often suppress it and avoid taking action. We let fear win over courage and control our thinking and decision-making, which does not result in people-to-people arm locking with the intestinal fortitude to proceed. We end up as some sort of human flotsam and jetsam.

Call To Action

I challenge you to raise your standards higher to do not just what you’re good at doing but make a concerted effort to focus on what the team you’re on is doing. See and understand how all players doing their best will knock whatever target or objective in front of them out of the park! If you have the ability to put a bit of effort into a teammate’s challenge as they’re struggling, then do it – don’t let them struggle and potentially fail to meet their individual target(s). They may suffer consequences and the team is likely to suffer collectively because the team objective was not met.

It’s not the brash and rude “lead, follow, or get out of the way” perspective. It’s leading with honest to goodness goodness. 

Together is Better (just ask Simon Sinek).

Stay tuned. // Cary

carynoel1@gmail.com

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