Leadership: Your Most Underestimated Job Skill
As a military veteran, you have tenfold the leadership experience as your civilian counterparts.
by Shane Christopher

An acquaintance of mine, Randy, owns a small insurance agency, employing about 15 people. Randy approached me for advice on dealing with a problem employee. He had recently hired a new agent with 20 years experience who was not pulling his weight. Despite the fact the agent was working strictly for commissions, Randy was upset the new agent didn’t show up for work until 9 a.m. and often left by 3 p.m. Even when he was at work, Randy often caught him working on his daughter’s basketball team line up or spending a lot of time on personal phone calls.

“Do as I Say, Not as I Do”
While I was giving Randy my advice, which included setting ground rules and clear expectations with the new agent, it became clear that Randy was uncomfortable approaching the new agent with these issues. Randy went on to tell me that the new agent would accuse him of the same conduct, but that since he was the “boss” he was exempt from the “ground rules.” Randy was a “do as I say, not as I do” guy. Ever had a boss like Randy?

Leadership by Example
The military may have an occasional Randy slip through the cracks, but if you’re like me, your bosses in the military were stellar leaders and set the pace on work ethic. It’s called leadership by example and it’s perhaps the most fundamental tenet of leadership. The military teaches leadership by example at every stage of development for both officers and enlisted. Most of us who are prior military don’t even realize we’re leading when we are because it’s so ingrained into our behavior. We take care of our troops first, ourselves second. As a result, we often underestimate our leadership value for civilian employers.

While bosses like Randy are everywhere, bosses like Randy typically don’t get promoted or stay around long. As a result, bosses like Randy provide you an opportunity to move into their job!

Don’t Underestimate the Value of Your Leadership Skills!
Every job has a learning curve, new processes to learn and industry knowledge to master. When you start a new job, everybody will know more than you. This can easily make you feel inferior. Remember, processes and industry knowledge are simply tools of the trade that are easily learned in time. What you can’t easily learn and the reason civilian companies want to hire you is for your intangible skills: leadership most importantly.

Leadership provides the fuel to drive an organization’s most important asset: human beings. Leadership takes new ideas to market. Leadership inspires people to work harder and smarter. Leadership produces winners. As a military veteran, you have tenfold the leadership experience as your civilian counterparts. Don’t forget it.

Listen to “Goat”
My old commanding officer, “Goat” Lawson, used to tell his officers and NCOs that we weren’t there to fly and fix airplanes. After quizzical glances around the room, Goat went on to tell us that a monkey could fly or fix an airplane and that we were there for one reason: to lead and inspire troops. Listen to Goat, not Randy. Lead your troops. Get ahead.