At a cocktail partly last night, I was discussing leadership with my cousin who is the director of operations for a global health care corporation. As we verbally crossed through the different aspects and principles of leadership, we quickly realised one of the most overlooked traits in writings today was the personal courage required to be a leader.

We both agreed strongly that personal courage must be a bedrock of leadership.

A quick search of the internet for leadership principles reveals over 13M returns but target this to personal courage and the returns are reduced by over 60 per cent. To be successful, a leader must display both moral and physical courage. This is accomplished by showing a willingness to take calculated risks, acting independently, and demonstrating personal responsibility for their actions.

On Focus and Intensity
The leader must persist with focus and intensity even when faced with adversity and, in when faced with challenge, project confidence, credibility, and poise.

As Aristotle informed us so many years ago: “Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.” ~ Aristotle

Without personal courage, leadership cannot be effective, revolutionary change is not possible, evolutionary advancement will not occur and an organization will quickly find themselves on the express path to extinction.

The Personal Courage Required to Be a Leader
Leaders must have the personal courage to stand up for what is right. They demand accountability…from followers, superiors and themselves.

Leadership is about doing what is right, not just doing the right things. successful leaders are never yes-people, but they respectfully dissent. They also understand that decisions may be delegated but responsibility can not. Courageous leaders are always responsible for their actions.

Leaders must have the personal courage to make decisions.
A leader is continually asked to make decisions with incomplete and variable data sets. The choices many times are not right or wrong, but differing degrees of good enough with conflicting second and third order effects. This draws many leaders into analysis paralysis where a decision is delayed into nonexistence because of the continual search for a perfect solution.

A courageous and dynamic leader knows their worth is determined by their ability to properly analyse situations and take deliberate, calculated risks to move the team forward.

Leaders must have the personal courage to ensure positive change.
It takes courage to question everything, to break from the status quo, to challenge the norm and determine how it could be improved.

A successful leader strives to make positive change every day.
They are not afraid of leading paradigm shifts to ensure success and positive progress.

Leaders must have the personal courage to deliver bad news as well as good news.
All leaders deliver good news, good leaders delivers bad news. Negative feedback is painful for both sides, but your followers will appreciate your candor when their behaviour is improved in the early stages of poor or unsatisfactory performance instead of waiting until the issue becomes so large it is almost impossible to deal with simply.

We have all needed constructive criticism in our lives. A successful leader cares about their followers enough to have the awkward conversations to discuss missteps, mistakes, or mannerisms. Making each person better helps the team be better. It takes personal courage to do the right thing and not just calm the troubled waters in your organisation.

Leaders must have the personal courage to develop their followers.
True leadership is not found in an individual, but the people developed. The true measure of a leader is not just measured by success of their organisation, but by the measure of leaders they influence and develop to follow in their footsteps.

Successful leaders invest in the future of their followers and not just the organisation.
The more you care about your followers, the more personal pride and motivation they will feel toward you and your organisation.

Leaders must have the personal courage to delegate.
Leaders must give their team vision…Courageous leaders trust their team to execute their vision. As any new leader can attest, one of the toughest actions is to do nothing on a task and trust your team to execute your direction and wishes.

This is the transition from a tactical level action officer to an organisational and strategic level leader.

Leaders must have the personal courage to seek help from others.
Leadership has many aspects and principles, but the first building block of a successful leader must be personal courage. The U.S. Air Force defines courage as what allows you to remain calm while recognizing fear.

Further, moral courage means having the inner strength to stand up for what is right and to accept blame when something is your fault.

Improving Your Personal Courage
The obvious question looming is how do you improve your personal courage? You can begin your quest to control fear by practicing self-discipline and calmness. Determine the area in which you experience the most fear in your daily life, and your leadership duties, then force yourself to do them until you can satisfactorily control your reaction.

Personal courage allows the right questions to be asked, followers to be developed and credibility established.

Persoanal courage is simply not letting your fears overcome your goals and define you. It is the ability to admit and learn from your mistakes, and the continual quest to become a better person.

“Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.” ~ Billy Graham

What aspects do you consider vital in the personal courage to be a leader? How do you improve your personal courage? Is there any other aspect of leadership which you consider more important? I would love to hear your thoughts!

Read more:
The Personal Courage Required to Be a Leader

A good leader/friend inspires others with confidence in him;
A great leader/friend inspires them with confidence in themselves.

Being an efficient and effective dynamic leader is about lighting a fire in the gut of your followers…being a manager and boss is about lighting a fire under their butts.

Which would you prefer? A team of followers engaged from the neck up or employees engaged from the shoulders down?

Relationships are about respect. If your team respects you as their leader, friendship will not negate this fact. They will follow you even more diligently.

Leadership is about fairness. Don’t confuse friendship with favoritism. This engagement does not mean alienating part of your workforce as you favor the ones with whom you are friends. As a leader, you must treat everyone you lead with equal respect, opportunity and fairness.

Friendship is merely mutual feelings of trust and affection. What could better define a successful leader/follower relationship? You must trust each other. They trust you to look out for their best interests and you trust them to look out for the best interests of the organisation. Friends are kind and act as a positive influence in each others lives. The relationship revolves around honesty, trustworthiness, and loyalty…the same traits leadership is based on.

A relationship is about enjoyment of each other’s company. This statement relates to friendship as well as leadership. The truly dynamic leader develops an organization where people enjoy their time in the office and working with the Boss. Followers should enjoy interactions with their leader.

True Leadership is not a trait but a relationship. To be a successful leader, you have to be able to relate to all personalities, not just the ones similar t yours. The ability to lead involves learned skills of relating to your followers, a commitment to listen and understand their perspectives and a mutual respect for everyone in your organisation.

Some people think friendships within the ranks of an organisation are not scalable. The military is the perfect example of this point. Friendship extends across the ranks, but only to a point. Friendship does not mean addressing a superior officer by their first name, it means getting to know them, their family, their dreams. The key is knowing what lines you cannot cross, and knowing where the professional bounds are in every relationship. This does not complicate the relationship, it makes it simpler. Don’t you have friends at different levels of “friendship?” My bestfriend knows everything about me, because we have been together for 26 years, while a friend at my current office, that I have known for 8 months, knows much less about me and we are not likely to share the same details about our lives as I do with my best friend.

Finally, the most emotional aspect of this merger of leadership and friendship, is the taboo situation of firing a friend. Well, back to the definition of friendship…they look out for each other’s best interest. If a situation is to the point you must ask them to leave your organization, then they obviously are not upholding their side of the friendship and taking care of you and the team. Have you ever had a friendship that did not last? This is no different. Yes, this is tough. Leaders are paid to make the hard calls and tough actions. Being a leader does not deprive you of emotion, and you will probably shed a few tears, literally or figuratively, after this happens, but all friendships do not last.

Now, there’s no need to be best’ies with all of your employees, but a true leader does not present a superficial friendly demeanor. The dynamic leader truly cares about everyone they lead, wants to know them personally, and is responsible for looking out for their best interest. Friendship and leadership alike are based on accountability, commitment and authenticity. Personally, I do not think the two can be separated. Like leadership techniques, there are plenty of opinions out there to the contrary. You need to determine the best demeanor for your leadership style.

What do you think? Should a leader be friends with their followers? Please let me know in the comments section and we will discuss.

Read more:
Why a dynamic leader must be a friend to their team

For me, it was the opening line of my first speech as a new Air Force Fighter Squadron commander. It encompasses a mentality of limitless positive change and endless possibility.

Too many times in our lives, we do things solely because ‘it is the way it has always been.’ We are subconsciously desensitised to inefficiencies surrounding us in all aspects of our lives, both professional and personal. Next time you do something, ask yourself why you do it the way you do. Is it because it is the most efficient method to accomplish the task or just because that is how you were taught?

Millions of dollars are spent every year on change coaches and efficiency experts to aid mega-dollar companies in becoming more efficient when the reality is each of your employees is the most capable avenue available of positive change.

Each employee knows his or her particular job better than anyone else…better than the CEO and better than the commander. They know where the inefficiencies are in the process and how to improve performance. What they need is clear guidance on positive change, direction to question everything and the empowerment to affect the inefficiencies discovered.

POSITIVE CHANGE. Simple change is not positive and is the reason phrases like ‘continuous improvement’ become both white-collar buzzwords and blue-collar jokes. For a change to be positive, it must decrease the time required, increase efficiency, improve structure or increase simplicity. That’s it, simply put. No belt colors, no change coaches, no consulting fees. Every desired or required improvement must meet at least one of these criteria. If it doesn’t, don’t do it.

OLD DOG. The problem with this simple strategy is we all naturally become accustomed to our standard, repetitive duties. When you are new to an organisation, everything repetitive to others is new to you. Once you have been there a while, you do not realise how desensitised you become…Guess that is why we are always reminded ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.’ The old tricks, or methods of doing our duties, is what yields continual inefficiencies and the mentality which resists change.

QUESTION EVERYTHING. The military has an aspect most businesses do not: frequent 100% manpower turnover. Although many see this as a negative, an effective leader must capitalize on it. The welcome-aboard meeting with each new member of your organisation should include this simple task: question everything. These two words must be a condition of employment. Always question the way business is done to find a better way to function. The newness of a job will wear off in 6-9 months. Before this happens and you become the ‘Old Dog,’ ask why the organisation does each task the current way. Determine if your fresh, unvarnished opinion can yield positive change. The problem with this tactic is new employees are afraid of rocking the boat in the eyes of current ‘experts.’ For this strategy to be successful, leaders must instill in the culture of the organization a mentality that positive change is vital to the improvement of the team and continued success.

SIMPLICITY. That is it. The science of everything you need to improve your organisation. Now, we all know it is not really that simple or everybody would be successful. The art of successfully employing this simple strategy is to empower each of your team members with the guidelines contained here. …and in the leaders sticking to this rule as well: Don’t change for change sake. If it doesn’t meet one of the four rules, don’t do it. Always remember yesterday may have brought you to today, but it most likely will not carry you through tomorrow. Embrace new ideas, new methods and always question the assumptions which define your business model. Yesterday is interesting but irrelevant must be a concept of employment.

Read more:
Yesterday Is Interesting But Irrelevant

As military members, we are commonly told our most marketable skill after retirement is leadership. Yet, as you progress through the ranks and attend various military colleges, we always seem to be looking to civilian authors and courses for lessons on leadership. What is the magic dust that makes military leaders great? The answer is simple…dynamic followers.

Search your favorite online bookstore for ‘leadership’ and you will find in excess of 22,000 books. In contrast, a search for ‘followership’ will yield a mere 20 literary works. Why the dramatic difference? The answer reveals the great secret to why the military is able to produce profound leaders in quantity: the military deliberately develops dynamic followers from day 1 of basic training through retirement.

“Followers are more important to leaders than leaders are to followers”
— Barbara Kellerman

Dynamic Followers Are Continually Challenged: If, as a follower, you are becoming overly comfortable/confident in your duties, seek further challenges. The Air Force moves most Airmen to new areas/responsibilities annually. Although you may have more responsibilities and leadership tasks, all military members are still followers of the higher-level rank structure and challenged at new levels.

“If I had to reduce the responsibilities of a good follower to a single rule, it would be to speak truth to power”
— Warren Bennis

Dynamic Followers Do Not Avoid Crucial Conversations: An effective Leader does not want ‘Yes’ people, they want alternating viewpoints and respectful disagreement. In the military, we instill a firm adherence to ‘support in public, dissent in private.’ Dynamic followers are not afraid to disagree with their leader, but they do so respectfully in private, with fact-based logic, then support their leader’s decision in public once final.

“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort”
— Herm Albright

Dynamic Followers Are Aggressive in Positive Ways: Have you ever worked with some one who was “All thrust, No Vector?” That is code in the Fighter Pilot world for the follower who is always running at a dead sprint and has no idea where they are going or why they are working on a particular task. Dynamic followers are aggressive in nature but channel it into positive aspects of their surroundings. They aggressively build teamwork, collaborate with coworkers and advance the mission at hand.

“The most successful businessman is the man who holds onto the old just as long as it is good, grabs the new just as soon as it is better”
— Robert P. Vanderpoel

Dynamic Followers Enable Positive Change: For a change to be positive, it must decrease the time required, increase efficiency, improve structure or increase simplicity. Dynamic followers know that “Yesterday is Interesting but Irrelevant.” They question everything, from why the organization does a particular task to the process that is utilised to accomplish it. They continually search for ways to make a positive change.

“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him”
— David Brinkley

Dynamic Followers Avoid Excuses: Excuses are not beneficial to a relationship nor the success of an organisation. When you fail to meet your goal or expectations, own up to the shortcoming/mistake then learn from the situation to ensure the behavior is not repeated.

“One key to successful leadership is continuous personal change… Personal change is a reflection of our inner growth and empowerment”
— Robert E. Quinn

Dynamic Followers Seek Feedback: Always ask your Boss and peers for a debrief of your performance. In the military, this occurs officially through performance reports and informally through mentorship and peer reviews. Without an outside, unbiased review of our actions, mannerisms and techniques, we can not refine our processes and improve our ability to follow.

“Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms —to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way”
— Victor Frankl

Dynamic Followers, simply, are followers who take charge of both their personal and professional development, ensure complete competency at their primary duty, actively manage their relationships and exercise independent thought with both professional restraint and respect. Dynamic followers, and leaders alike, always remember yesterday may have brought you to today, but it most likely will not carry you to tomorrow. To continue success, we must make positive changes to improve both individually and collectively. This is the simple secret to military leadership; Deliberately development dynamic followers then allow leadership to develop as a result. Truth be told, there are not great leaders without great teams.

“It is the men behind who make the man ahead.”
— Merle Crowell

What characteristic of dynamic followership can you add to this list? Tweet to @ChrisRStricklin

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[box]Chris R Stricklin is a leader, mentor and coach in integrating the fields of negotiations, leadership skills, public relations, public speaking and complex organisational change. His unique experience as a U.S.A.F. Thunderbird coupled with Pentagon-level management of critical Air Force resources valued at $840B, multiple N.A.T.O. assignments and command-experience in the United States Air Force allow his unique synthesis of speaking, leading, management, negotiations and continuous improvement. Chris is also a Certified Manager with degrees in Economics, Financial Planning, Strategic Studies and Operational Art and Science.[/box]

Read more:
Dynamic Followership: The Secret to Leadership