Leadership 101: Emotion and the Three M’s

By W. Thomas Smith Jr.
January 18, 2012

The first article in our series – Leadership 101 – describes theseries going forward, then touches on the five elements of thefoundation upon which we build the leader from the ground-up (beforegetting into the fundamentals of leadership). If you’ve not read Leadership 101: Body, Mind, and Soul Required, I urge you to do so now.

Today we continue building the foundation. But we will also includesome red-meat, right-now leadership tools because (despite our building) many of us are already leaders, and – as I learned years ago in U.S.Marine Corps boot camp – all of us may be thrust into leadershippositions on a moments notice.

Let’s flash-review the five elements of the whole man (or whole woman)that we must master as our basic building-blocks of sound leadership. My good friend, Mark Divine, a U.S. Navy SEAL Res. commander, refers tothese five whole-man elements – (1) the physical body, (2) the mind orbrain, (3) emotional awareness and control, (4) intuition, and (5) soulor spirit – as the five mountains.

(ref. SEALFIT Unbeatable Mind Academy)

A lot has been said and written about the body-mind connection, so wewon’t spend a great deal of time on the body or the mind right nowexcept to say that a physically sound body and a physically sound mind(or brain) are critical to one’s quality of life.

This is straight out of my old Boy Scout handbook. We cannot takeeither the body or the mind for granted, though we all have at times inour lives. We have to eat right, exercise daily, and sleep for the body. And we must condition the mind through a mix of reading, instruction(which you are receiving right now), and problem solving. And we have to learn to embrace the connection between the body and the mind. More onthis further in the series.

Today, let’s look more closely at the third element (or mountain) – emotional awareness and control.

EMOTIONAL AWARENESS AND CONTROL

Just as it is hard work to develop the body and to condition the mind,mastery of our emotions requires focused – perhaps even harder – workdaily. We begin controlling our emotions by first becoming aware ofemotion, knowing what emotion is, and recognizing those particularemotions which are the toughest to tame (and this will differ fromperson-to-person).

Emotion is a difficult-to-describe state-of-mind operating at the nexus of the mind, intuition, and soul. And it is both a blessing and acurse.

Emotion is a blessing in that it is the empowering energy found inthings like the physical expression of love, passion, pleasure, and thevarious forms of zeal. It is also a blessing because it stirs thedesires of service and sacrifice, both of which are vital callings toany true leader. And it is a blessing – for instance, in the case ofproperly managed fear – in that it energizes reason, fuels ourphysiological defense mechanisms and helps trigger those behaviors which enable us to survive in life-and-death situations.

In other words, if the emotion of fear makes a young rifle-squad leader not want to lead his men down a particular route of a dark ravinebecause (based on good tactical intelligence) he reasonably fears thesquad will be ambushed and destroyed, that emotion of fear – fueled bythe squad leader’s brain and intuition – may be saving lives bycompelling him to choose a different route. And that’s a good thing.

But as marvelous as it is, emotion is like nuclear material. If youdon’t fully understand it and learn to control it (particularly asemotion pertains to you in stressful situations), it will quickly flashout-of-control and explode into those unwanted meltdown experiences like panic, rage, and general indecision or poor decision-making.

A leader’s properly conditioned mind and soul (remember emotion is atthe nexus of mind, intuition, and soul) will ultimately control emotion, and we will discover ways to manage our emotions when we examineintuition and the soul (spirit) in a forthcoming edition of our series.

In the meantime, assuming most of us are already leaders, we need a bit of red meat while we continue building the foundation.

RED MEAT: THE MISSION, THE MEN, AND ME

Perhaps one of the most intense leadership incubators in the world isMarine Corps boot camp, which I mentioned earlier. There – nearly threedecades ago – I learned what I personally believe to be the most perfect red-meat maxim for military leadership in existence.

If you get nothing else out of this series, I hope you will rememberand embrace this maxim, which we’ll refer to as simply the mission, the men, and me. And by the way, when we say men, feel free tointerchange men and women – or make it both – depending upon who you are leading at the time.

The maxim is simple: The heart of it is that in every instance of sound leadership, you must always put the mission first. You have to take the hill. You have to drive the enemy off the high ground. The objective is paramount.  

Secondly, you take care of your men. This doesn’t mean the men aretaking a backseat to the mission. In fact, many of us like to say, Themission first, the men always.

Lastly is me.

Yes, me definitely does take a backseat to the mission and the men.In fact, as Maj. Gen. James E. Livingston, a Medal of Honor recipient,once told me, the ‘me’ part of the maxim must be far removed from themission and the men.

This doesn’t mean you neglect yourself, because that would beirresponsible. But it does mean, leaders eat last, and put their peoplefirst.

So we have the five mountains we want to master; and we have the red-meat, right-now maxim – the  mission, the men, and me.

Stay with us, leaders. There’s so much more. If you have questions or suggestions, I’m at [email protected].

W. Thomas Smith Jr. is a former U.S. Marine rifle-squad leader andcounterterrorism instructor who writes about military/ defense issuesand has covered war in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. He directsthe U.S. Counterterrorism Advisory Team. He is a field grade officer inthe Joint Services Det. (S.C. Military Dept.). He is the author of sixbooks, a New York Times bestselling editor, and his articles appear in a variety of publications. Smith’s website is uswriter.com.