BANJO MAGBY
“Banjo” Magby is a former 19D Team Leader with 1 Deployment. He has transitioned to a 152H AH64D Pilot. He is a Texas A&M Graduate with a BS in Business, Minor in Leadership and Military Studies.
Follow him on Instagram @mouthbreathing_banjoman
So, you’re a Leader, now what?
Written by “Banjo” Magby
Throughout your career, as you gain positions of greater responsibility, nearly every organization has a “leadership” course that they will put you through. Many of these courses barely skim the surface, but this does not make them useless. I have found that most do a great job of getting you to the point of being a leader, but not necessarily what to do from that point forward.
The ‘Point Forward’ is what I will be discussing. When it comes to leadership, I believe that there are three constants; Everyone can be (and probably is, to some degree) a Leader, Leadership CAN be taught, and Leadership is Situational. The actual process of Leading, I break down into these 6 tenets: Develop Yourself, Develop Your Subordinates, Delegate Tasks and Grant Autonomy, Build Trust, Cover Down and Shield, and ultimately, Take and Teach Ownership.
Developing yourself is always going to be the first step. For the purpose of this paper, I’m talking specifically about developing your leadership skill. Read. Listen. Observe. Learn new ways to lead others. Leadership will ALWAYS be situational, so the more ‘tools’ you have in your toolbox, the more efficient you will be at leading.
Hand in hand to developing yourself is developing your subordinates. As a leader, you SHOULD be teaching yourself out of a job. Guess what, if you’re developing your subordinates, you will inherently be developing yourself. Teachers always learn more than the students.
As you develop your subordinates, you can delegate tasks to them. This both continues their development, and lessens your workload. Give task, purpose, direction, limitations and autonomy. My rule of thumb for delegation is: keep the sucky jobs for yourself.
Building trust is IMPARATIVE to being a leader. It’s a two-way street, and it can be easy to lose. We’ve all heard the library of adages about trust, so I won’t beat that dead horse. Instead, I will say that transparency in leadership has built more trust than any other act or word I’ve ever tried.
The second-best way to build trust is to cover for your subordinates and shield them from as much bullshit as you can. Take care of issues on the lowest level and fight off the micromanagement from higher up. Listen to lower when they express concerns (they’re usually valid).
Lastly, Take and teach ownership. If a subordinate fails a task, it was because it either wasn’t communicated or taught properly or because they didn’t respect you enough to complete it. There is pride in ownership. “Extreme Ownership. Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.” — Jocko. In summary, The Air Force once defined Leadership as: [T]he art of influencing and directing people in such a way that will win their obedience, confidence, respect, and loyal cooperation in achieving common objectives. Art is a combination of talent and skill. Even artists practice. Go forth and do great things.
The Leaders Huddle 