[June 18, 2017] One thing about leadership that should never be forgotten is that talented leaders allow others to make mistakes without holding them against anyone. In the early 1980s my unit commander allowed me to take a platoon of armored vehicles across some complex terrain without a physical reconnaissance of the route. Predictably, I got lost.
Good leaders recognize that it is often best to allow junior leaders to make poor decisions and fail to do those required of them. They do this because they understand that fundamentally this is a learning technique that’s been around since the beginning of humankind. A mentor of mine called it learning from the school of hard knocks. He couldn’t have been more accurate.
I’ve witnessed firsthand the flight of talented people away from toxic work environments and poor leaders on many occasions. People are motivated by both good and bad reasons. When a team of social scientists did a study many years ago at the Texas A&M University, the goal was to find out what differed among those from cities versus small towns in reasons for joining the U.S. military.
They discovered that there was little difference overall except in two areas. First, those from small towns were more likely to cite positive reasons like patriotism and desire to give back to their community. Second, and unexpectedly, those from the city had a slight edge of negative reasons, like divorce, breaking up with a significant other, and financial troubles for joining. It appeared that some events in the lives of folks push, as well as pull, them to make decisions.
Any organization, especially large complex organizations, is likely to have within itself poor leaders who rise to the top without the normal checks on their progress. These leaders can hide within the bureaucracy. We’ve all seen them; many are narcissistic, heedless of the wishes of others, inexperienced, and power hungry. A toxic brew of issues invariably surround them.
This is when we see individuals depart to find employ elsewhere. The most talented are first to go. We see this is nations that have a poor record on human rights, economic troubles, and political turmoil. In this case it has been referred to as a brain drain or capital flight; usually from poor, troubled areas to richer, better nations; Africa, the Middle East, parts of Central America are the most affected by the flight of the talented.
I was allowed to keep my job as Platoon Leader. After a good ass-chewing by my commander, he gave me another chance to prove my leadership skills by making me the Safety Officer on the rifle range the following week. Fortunate for me, I made no grave errors and stayed in the military for several more decades. I never forgot the experience with my lost platoon.
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