This I Believe: Leadership Philosophy

This I believe: Leadership philosophy is based upon leaders exemplifying the following through personal action – living a healthy, holistic lifestyle, professionalism, confidence, and integrity. These pillars when espoused, propagated, and enforced by the leader and key members, form the essence of an optimal organization.

A holistic lifestyle includes physical prowess, spiritual comfort, being mentally keen, and maintaining balance in terms of meeting personal and familial expectations and reaching professional goals. No organization, regardless of all other considerations, will function at optimal level unless formal and informal leaders maintain their respective well-being as well as ensure resources and motivation exists for subordinates to do likewise.

Confidence is the total absence or total control of fear, as fear is the single greatest inhibitor of performance. As a leader, do not be afraid to fail, as you will only mature and positively develop through failure. However, as the leader, your failure can never be dishonest and negligent in nature, nor place individuals or an organization in a negative environment from which neither can fully recover. Use failure as a tool to determine personal and subordinate weaknesses and assess your ability and the abilities of your subordinates to overcome adversity. More importantly as the leader, address your determined shortcomings to ensure you, your subordinates, and units do not continually fail for a specific reason. A unit becomes unstoppable when its soldiers are beyond redoubt in resolve and determination.

Integrity is the moral and ethical compass which guides not only one’s personal actions, but delineates the course the organization must follow. As the leader you must be the moral standard bearer and enforcer. Through your daily actions, display, reiterate, and inculcate in your subordinates the values of personal and outward respect, lawfulness, impartiality, and objectiveness. Moral and ethical corruptness will erode an organization from within.

The outlined leadership is applicable to all organizations, regardless of the associated missions, force structures, and resources. Why? Because at the fundamental level, all organizations are composed of people and the aforementioned tenets are human centric. Additionally, the role of the leader does not change- leaders lead by example, by sheer presence inspire faith and confidence in subordinates, and establish and secure the conditions and resources needed for individual and organizational success. My leadership philosophy will always focus on coalescing the attributes of the individual with the mission of the organization, assuring both are fully developed, secured, and realized.