Many years ago, when I was a company commander, I had a conversation with an incredibly astute NCO on leadership. He told me in no uncertain terms that he would never want to be an officer because of how little control you have over your own career. As an officer, especially one in command, you are responsible for everything that happens under your command, even things you have no way to direct.
You are expected to wield enough influence over your unit that they are compelled to do the right thing, even when outside of visual contact. When that fails to happen, you, as the commander, end up paying the price for their failures. The cards you are dealt do not matter, only the way you play your hand. Because of this, command is one of the most stressful, and ultimately most rewarding, times in an officer’s career.
During that same period, I learned another powerful lesson in leadership from the Company First Sergeant. I had only been in command for a couple of days and was getting ready to brief my brigade commander. Before we went into the conference room, he looked at me and said, “Sir, no matter what, our soldiers have never done anything wrong. Any failures were our failures as leaders, not theirs. We failed to make them meet those expectations, and we will deal with them at our level.” That lesson hit hard, although not quite as hard as the brigade commander. He was correct; that really is the point of leadership.
When one accepts the mantle of leadership, they take all responsibility for the failure of their team. To do anything else means they were never really in charge. Sometimes leadership expectations are not fair. Sometimes it is virtually impossible to meet the requirements that have been put upon the shoulders of those in charge. However, that is simply the price that must be paid for accepting such positions.
These are lessons that Mitch McConnell needs to learn. McConnell, the Senate majority leader for that last two and a half years, recently lamented that the president has been putting too much pressure on Congress to actually accomplish what it promised. “Our new president, of course, has not been in this line of work before, and I think had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the Democratic process.”
Read the rest of the piece at OpsLens.
Matthew Wadler is a Senior OpsLens Contributor and U.S. Army veteran.
If you would like to write an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, please read our guidelines on submissions here.
