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To be a warrior leader, you must have the warrior ethos. The warrior ethos, quite simply, is the character traits, attributes, and fundamental values of a warrior.
The most defining trait of a warrior leader is to be a person of influence; this starts with being a person of character. Character is often described as the ability to do the hard right thing instead of the easy wrong.
Just last week, my mentor, Col. Ralph Puckett, was awarded the Congressional medal of honor by the president of the United States for actions he and fifty-one Rangers took in fighting off wave after wave of communist forces surrounded on a lonely hilltop on the Peninsula of Korea in the early 1950s.
Col. Puckett is a man who has lived the warrior ethos for his entire adult life. The first principle of the warrior ethos is to be competent, tactically, and technically proficient at accomplishing all tasks given to you and execute them to standard to achieve your wartime mission. Then, of course, the Ranger creed, Col. Puckett and I both espouse to, says that you will give 100% and then some.
On that lonely night in Korea, wounded, outnumbered, and fighting for his life, Col. Puckett gave more than a hundred percent, and in doing so, encouraged his fellow Rangers to do the same.
I often teach young leaders that there are only two highly respected people in any organization or unit. The first person that garners the most respect is the warrior leader in that organization, who is the best at what they do. The second person that garners the most respect is the hardest worker. What's interesting about being the best at something is that that is a determination that only someone else can make for you. You may want to be the best, but you can never determine that about yourself; others must nominate that and believe that in you.
Interestingly enough, you can determine that you will be the hardest worker; no one can prevent you from that; it is a self-determining feature.
Now, in this crazy world of micromanagement and bureaucracy overstepped, I might add that the hardest worker must also be the most intelligent worker. You must make hard decisions every day about what you will focus on, what relationships you will build, and your direction in life. No one can determine that for you.
But certainly, the path to being tactically and technically proficient requires someone to apply hard work to their professional life. It is an incredible feeling to be taken seriously and respected by others whom you respect because they understand that you take your work seriously, and as a result, they take you seriously.
Let's break this down further. What does it mean to be tactically proficient? A tactically proficient warrior leader is the leader who does the right task or action at the right time in the right place to influence the battle toward the outcome that they are looking for.
To be tactically proficient means understanding how to operate correctly and effectively within your specific context and environment. Many people call this situational awareness. I have concluded that we need to take situational awareness a step further to situational expertise. If you combine situational awareness, which is the ability to understand the context of which you or your team is currently operating, and you combine that with situational intelligence, which is the ability to know exactly what to do in a specific or particular context to achieve the outcome that you're looking for, you arrive at situational expertise. Situational expertise is a requirement of being tactically proficient.
The second concept is technically proficient. To be technically proficient is the ability to complete a mission, task, or purpose given to you by a commander or team. To be tactically proficient is to know what to do; to be technically proficient is to understand how to do it and to be able to do it in difficult or adverse circumstances.
The old saying is Murphy is alive and well. Murphy's Law, described as "a supposed law of nature, expressed in various humorous popular sayings, to the effect that anything that can go wrong will go wrong," is a practical law that shows up exactly when you least need it to. So to defeat Murphy, you have to expect him to show up.
Warrior leaders live by the PACE acronym: primary, alternate, contingency, and emergency. To be tactically and technically proficient, you have to prepare for Murphy. That means that you must have a primary plan to accomplish your mission. As soon as you have a good 80% solution with your primary plan, you, as a leader, must develop your alternate plan. Once you get your alternate plan to 80%, you must start developing your contingent plan. Finally, once you have your contingent plan at 80%, you develop your emergency plan.
In real-world situations, you may not have the ability to have your primary, alternate, contingency, and emergency plans worked out before you board the helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft that will take you to your infiltration location. That's okay; you at least need to have your primary and alternate worked out. If you do so, you can take some time, even on a flex mission, to work out your contingency and emergency plans as you begin your infiltration. Is that optimal? No, it isn't, but it may be your reality.
You will never be a person of influence if you don't have the tactical and technical expertise and proficiency within your profession. So if you want to think, act, and look like a warrior leader, start with becoming tactically and technically proficient at your specific mission.
This is the first step to becoming a warrior leader and person of influence.
