Common Goal Leadership

At the USMC School of Infantry, our objective was to assault a series of pop-up targets scattered across a field. There were 16 of us, split into two fire teams: Alpha and Bravo. We were meant to learn a crucial skill: how to shoot and move in a live fire exercise while communicating our position.

The Infantry Instructor taught us that Alpha Fire Team would be running forward on one flank while the other was shooting. Then Alpha would hit the ground and begin firing while calling out to Bravo Fire Team to bound forward. In this leapfrog style, we would assault forward, providing never-ending fire against the enemy. The Instructor assigned a student the role of Fire Team Leader who would give us the commands to coordinate the attack.

And it all fell apart when the machine guns opened up. 

My Fire Teams were part of the 0311 specialty, so we learned basic infantry tactics like this one. Assault and attack your enemy. Push your position into theirs. Aggression wins the day. Meanwhile, the 0331s, or machine gunners, would be learning to man and shoot their crew-served, belt-fed guns right over our heads. They would be sitting on a raised elevation and locked into position so they couldn’t physically shoot at us, but the effect of bullets whizzing just feet over our heads was memorable.

Couple that with the constant barrage of shooting from our own rifles, and both Alpha and Bravo were stuck waiting for our assigned Fire Team leader to tell us when to bound forward. We waited. We continued shooting. The targets popped back up. The instructor watched. We all knew what to do, but no one did it.

So I stood up and took command.

“Bravo set! Alpha bound!” I yelled and ran forward with my group. We ran forward 10 yards and dropped. I yelled back to Bravo Fire Team. “Alpha set, Bravo bound!” And Bravo got up, ran forward and dropped while we covered the enemy with suppressing fire.

Defining Leadership

I have witnessed many types of leaders. Some were compassionate, some were fatherly, some were policy-driven, some were innovative. These are leadership styles. They don’t tell people what to do. More importantly, not every method works in every situation or for every person. One leadership style might work for one employee but not fit the leader or vice versa.

Let me give you two great examples. General James “Mad Dog” Mattis is an exceptional leader. Proven and refined. Developed from the ground up. It is inarguable that he can get results from an organization and his units value his direction. What does he say about leadership?

“Competence, caring, and conviction combine to form a fundamental element—shaping the fighting spirit of your troops. Leadership means reaching the souls of your troops, instilling a sense of commitment and purpose in the face of challenges so severe that they cannot be put into words.”

I use this leadership method in my own units. It is a great way to begin to form a culture which he calls the “fighting spirit.” But being competent, believing in your work, and caring about your employees does not define leadership. They show part of what a leader does but it does not get to the root principle.

James Comey was one of my FBI Directors and made some questionable decisions about disclosing investigations to the public. But regardless of what you thought of him as a public figure, his leadership style was excellent. He cared about his people. He ate with them. He took purposeful action when making decisions. He described his leadership this way:

“Being confident enough to be humble—comfortable in your own skin—is at the heart of effective leadership.”

And he’s right. I just completed my employee annual wrap-ups and I ask my own teams, “where have I misstepped? What would you do differently if you were me?” A leader doesn’t have all the answers. If he thinks he does, he will trample over others when they bring some. But having a humble confidence doesn’t tell us what leaders DO.

A leader isn’t the smartest, strongest, most competent, have the best ideas, or any other superlative. The leader likely began that way but that isn’t a scalable, sustainable model. No, a leader needs to find those smart, strong, competent people and rally them. How? We’re closer to the core principle.

The Common Goal Method

A Leader directs the group towards a common goal.

This is the single greatest and simplest derivation of the leader’s basic fundamentals. Developing and adapting that goal, resolving internal conflict about how to achieve that goal or pursue a different goal, overcoming obstacles impeding that goal, finding and maintaining resources to reach that goal. These are all additional, critical, and important skills but they are supplemental to the Leadership core principle.

All leaders at every level of any organization need to practice that core principle.

I will explore each of those additional fundamentals in other articles. But if you aspire to be, or are a leader in an organization, you need to start at the beginning. Before you define your leadership style, your communication method, your organizational culture and policy, you need to set down your unit’s Common Goal.