[March 4, 2016] Most folks I talk to never heard this phrase but it fits so well with what I’ve experienced with various leaders today. When we say leaders are just feeding the dog, in the military we mean that a leader is only taking care of business. It also means that a leader misses opportunities when their attention is too focused on day-to-day issues.
“Too often, we miss out on opportunities in this life because we were too busy waiting for them to fall into our lap that we missed them tapping on our shoulder.” – Daniel Willey, author
I was given a piece of advice when I took command of my first Infantry company. An experienced Vietnam-veteran sergeant, who seemed to be too old for his position and rank, and too uneducated to have much to offer, told me that my job was to “see things others cannot see.” He said that anybody can command Infantry combat soldiers but only a few can see beyond what’s in front of them to see those things beyond that need attention.
Typical of me at such a young age, I didn’t really understand what he meant. I thought at the time he meant my job was about doing the hard stuff that needed doing to be successful. Of course, I misunderstood and continued to work extremely hard at doing everything I could to train and take care of my soldiers. Nothing wrong with that but what I lacked at the time was a real sense of a vision about how the U.S. Infantry company changing and how those changes needed a real leader.
Later in my career as I look back at that time as a company commander, I can see those things I lost an opportunity to do. But what I gained was a sense of seeing things others cannot see. When I transferred to the Engineer Corps, I took with me the sense that my job was to help transform the Corps to make it more effective, efficient, and less dependent upon logistical needs. That mission, we discovered later, after a huge team effort, was successful.
So, instead of just feeding the dog, leaders must see beyond what is in front of them to those things that need doing. They should learn what is important for the long term and not just spend their days on the mundane efforts with hard work. Seeing those hard-to-see things requires a special ability that is nourished only by intense intellectual curiosity and the desire to go beyond what we’re taught.
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