Leadership 101: Body, Mind, and Soul Required
January 9, 2012
By W. Thomas Smith Jr.
January 9, 2012
Welcome to Leadership 101, a new feature here at LowcountryBizSC.com and our sister publications. I call it Leadership 101, because basic leadership is exactly what we are going to address – tackling the fundamentals ofgood leadership – but from a unique perspective. We’ll do it in such away as to give you the tools needed to both ramp up your leadershipskills (yes, seeing results immediately) and develop your leadershipcapabilities for the long haul. And we will do so no matter what yourleadership experience and skill level may be.
This unique version of Leadership 101 is based on my own perspective,gleaned from other leaders (many of the world’s great masters of the art of leadership) as well as my own training and experience leadingpeople. It is a perspective based on years of serving as a military(primarily small-unit infantry) leader and yes, a follower; learningfrom the best military leaders and counterterrorism experts in peace and in war; being a business, committee, and team leader; and – like mostof us – having been thrust into unexpected (sometimes unwanted),immediate, temporary, varied positions of leadership at variousevolutions throughout my life to this point.
As I told a group of cadets and midshipmen from West Point, Annapolis,and the Air Force Academy back in 2010; “Leadership – that sometimesvague, somewhat ambiguous magic of getting people to do what needs to be done – has been discussed, written about, and mused-over since armiesfirst marched and navies first sailed, and every leader has tried toconvince others that he or she has the perfect formula for thatparticular kind of magic.”
But far too often we are so focused on the so-called fast-track formulas and all the great soundbites associated with those formulas that weneglect or completely ignore the pure fundamentals necessary to goodleadership, whether we are talking about military leadership or business leadership (both of which are related yet different, and we’ll discusshow in a future piece).
I’m not going to waste your time (or mine) with a bunch of feel-goodnonsense about leadership. Nor will I attempt – like so many so-calledexperts – to wax philosophic about what leadership really is by talkingover readers’ heads with clinical terms and jargony formulas.
This, you will discover, is red-meat, right-now leadership.
Let’s jump into it; first with the foundation (before we get to thefundamentals) because if we don’t have a foundation upon which to buildthe leader, the end result – no matter how good that result might lookon paper or in person – might fail at the front, in the trenches, wherethe leader finds himself or herself struggling to make decisions inthose terrible, unforgiving, high-stakes moments when direction iscritically needed.
I will refer to this all-important foundation as simply the developmentof the whole man or whole woman. The idea being, you will never be agood leader if your own physical body and brain (including yourintellectual capability and capacity), emotional state, intuition, andsoul (spirit) are not first in order, and with each of the five livingcomponents working in concert with one another. And they will never bewhat they need to be – for you as a leader – if you neglect any one ofthem by wrongly convincing yourself that you are a good person withintegrity.
You have to work at it, and it has to become a daily lifestyle thing.
For instance, you might see yourself as a great person of integritybecause you are running five miles a day, hitting the gym several times a week, eating right, and being a nice guy or gal who handles all of hisor her daily responsibilities. And those things are important to besure.
But if you truly desire to develop yourself as a leader, it is notenough to work-out regularly and generally be a good, responsibleperson. You must also exercise your mind (reading, intellectual problemsolving). You need to work diligently to eliminate that secret or overtanger problem (people with anger problems do not do well underconditions of extreme stress) or that fear problem you so-often ignore(you need to do what needs to be done despite your fear). You need toenhance your ability to always-be situationally aware. You must serveothers (and not just those you love, which requires no real effort orsacrifice). You must deepen your spirituality and relationship with God. And you have to begin doing these things every day; starting today.
U.S. Navy SEAL (Res.) Commander Mark Divine – an experienced combatveteran, martial artist, the honorman graduate of his Basic UnderwaterDemolition/SEAL class (meaning top man in his SEAL class), and thedeveloper of the successful SEALFIT program – refers to theaforementioned development of the physical body, the mind (brain),emotional control and awareness, intuition, and soul (spirit) as“mastering the five mountains.”
He tells us, “It is accepted among the SEALs and all authentic warriortraditions that you can’t master yourself intellectually as a means toan end. You must develop [oneself] in a ‘whole-person-integral’ manner,guided by spiritual principles and supported by strong intellectual,emotional, physical and awareness development.”
Divine – my good friend of many years who I’ve worked with on myriadprojects and who today directs an amazing warrior mind-conditioningprogram I’m presently enrolled in (http://SEALfit.com) – is right on target when it comes to developing the whole person as afoundation for leadership. But we’re just scratching the proverbialsurface.
In the coming weeks, we will have more from Divine and other leadershipexperts. So stay with us. I believe in time you’ll view this feature tobe an interesting and important educational tool in the development ofyour life as a leader. If you have questions or suggestions, I’m at [email protected].
