What Is The Hardest Part of Leadership?

Leif Babin:

People are often surprised to hear that the hardest part of combat leadership is not about maneuvering troops under fire, is not about planning, executing operations. The hardest part about combat leadership is trying to get a diverse group of people with a bunch of different skill sets to work together as a team busy supporting one another in order to accomplish a strategic goal. And obviously that is something that applies to any team in any situation. And that is how these combat principles that we actually learned in combat apply to any team in any arena in business or life.

Yeah, leadership is leadership, and it doesn't matter if you're trying to go out on the battlefield and assault a target, or if you're going into a new market area to try and gain market share. The leadership principles that you utilize to get a team moving in the right direction, those leadership principles, they don't change regardless of what your ultimate goal is.

Not only do these apply to teams, but these leadership principles that we talk about, they apply to you individually as a person as well. So when we talk about these leadership principles, don't always think about how you're going to utilize them externally and how you're going to utilize them to lead other people.

Think about how you apply these leadership principles to yourself. Think about what the priorities are in your personal life and how you should execute on those priorities. Do you understand what your mission is? Is it simple? Can you stick to it every single day? What about cover and move? How about in your family how are you supporting each other and helping each other out? How is that working?

Decentralized command. Same thing. What are do we doing with our children? Are we allowing our children to step up and grow as leaders? Are we stifling them and spoon feeding them everything that they're doing every single day? You can apply these principles yes on the battlefield, but you can also apply them in your business and beyond that your family and your life as an individual. These things work everywhere.