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Episode 34

Episode 34: Sir, You are the Brass: Enhancing Leadership Dynamics with Self-Awareness

Description

Roles, rankings, and hierarchy; they’re beneficial to personal growth and leadership goals, but when used incorrectly, they can also create a sense of disparity between you and your comrades. In this episode of Veteran Led, John Berry discusses the value of self-awareness when it comes to leadership and rank. John will emphasize the importance of understanding the perspectives of different roles and how self-awareness enables leaders to understand their strengths, weaknesses, tendencies, emotions, and blind spots.

Transcript

John Berry

Welcome fellow veterans. From the tip of the spear to in the rear with the gear, I went from active-duty Infantry to reserve-component logistician. I’m your host, CEO, entrepreneur, trial lawyer, and Lieutenant Colonel Retired, John Berry. The military lessons that I learned helped me grow an eight-figure business that has maintained consistent annual double-digit growth, landing on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing companies in America every year for the past seven years and has allowed me to continue to serve America’s heroes.

John Berry

You are the brass. Leadership and self-awareness. When I talk to veterans about the moment that they decided to get out of service, whether it was the moment they decided to retire or not reenlist or resign their commission, it usually comes down to more than one moment where they were in deep reflection about their decision to stay in or to get out. I had one of those moments when I was getting close to 20 years. I was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Reserve Component, and I was at JBLM, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, formerly known as Fort Lewis. I was speaking to a group of officer candidates who had just finished mount training, which is training in an urban environment.

John Berry

As I addressed the candidates on the bleachers, I noticed out of the corner of my right eye, a full bird Colonel sitting in the bleachers. Then a brigadier general sat down and joined him. When I finished, I turned to my left and I saw a master sergeant from my unit and I said, Sergeant, we got to get out of here. The brass is showing up. The master sergeant turned to me and said, Sir, you are the brass. That was the moment that I realized that I had been in long enough. It’s like when people talk about the ’80s, and I think that was 20 years ago when in fact it was 40 years ago. Similarly, I always prided myself on having the authentic leadership that we see away from the flag pool, and I tried to stay as far away from headquarters, as far away from the flag pool as possible. I loved being with the soldiers and training, but I did not like all the formalities. I did not like going to higher headquarters. That was just not who I was as a leader. That’s not who I ever wanted to become as a leader.

John Berry

I never wanted to become an administrator, someone who moved away from the soldiers, someone who showed up as the brass. As a junior leader, I knew that I was the standard bear. If I showed up late, then everybody else would think it’s to show up late. I had a bad experience with the brass when I was a captain. We were holding formation and we started on time. And this lieutenant colonel showed up a couple of minutes late. He said, Captain, what are you doing? You started formation early. I said, Sir, no, we started at 07:00. And the lieutenant colonel looked at me and said, Captain, the commander is always on time. And I just got this feeling the brass was wrong, but because they’re the brass, what do you do? You say, Yes, sir, and you’re Charlie Mike, you continue the mission. And My perception of the brass was always that higher ranking authority who really was out of touch with the soldiers on the ground, the person who was echelons above reality and didn’t really understand what soldiers went through. So I never wanted to become the brass. I never wanted to be so far from the soldiers doing the missions that actually mattered that nobody noticed whether I was there or not.

John Berry

More importantly, that nobody wanted me there. And you probably remember when you were deployed or even in garrison where a VIP would come into the area and everyone would hustle around to prepare for the brass coming, prepare for the VIP. It was such a hassle. It was supposed to be a morale boost, right? This VIP was coming. It’s going to be a great morale boost. Everything had to be clean. We had to prepare. We had to be in formation hours early just because this important person was coming to the organization. I can remember Thanksgiving, my deployment to Iraq, and a bunch of senators and congressmen showed up along with all the brass, the politicians and the brass. We had to ensure that we had so many soldiers sitting at the table with the politicians or with the brass, and so we jumped through all the hoops. Fortunately for us at the time, Nebraska’s congressman was Tom Osborne, the famous Husker football coach, and my soldiers got to sit with Tom Osborne. Later that day, a Marine walked up to me and said, Hey, Berry, how is it that my soldiers had to sit with some senator and your soldiers got to sit with football legend Tom Osborne?

John Berry

The Marine didn’t know that at that time Tom Osborne was no longer a football coach, but was in fact a member of Congress. For my team who got to sit and talk with legendary football coach Tom Osborne, it was a great day. But for most everybody else, it was just another day where the brass showed up and took a lot of time and effort away from their real mission. Whether you like it or not, you are the brass of your organization. You’re the leadership, and the atmosphere is different when you show up. There are atmospheric changes when you enter the room. The first time I heard this was when I took command of the Officer Candidate School. My predecessor said, John, it’s important that you’re around, but don’t be around too much. I said, What do you mean? I have boots on the ground. I want to be around. He said, No, what you need to understand is these candidates are already nervous. They’re already scared. We’ve got TAC officers that are on them all the time, and they know that if they don’t perform, they’re going to get kicked out of school. The tension level is already up to here.

John Berry

It goes up a notch when you show up. They can feel your presence. If you’re here too much, one of two things is going to happen. Either number one, you’re going to stress them out to the point where they can’t perform, or you’re just going to be a distraction, or worse, you’re going to be here so much that they don’t even notice you. In fact, you don’t raise the tension level. As a leader, raising the tension level when you show up is actually a good thing if you do it the right way and you do it with purpose. I took my predecessor’s advice, and I was present for PT, ruck marches, and some of the more grueling activities where I felt that the soldiers needed a boost, but I didn’t show up to just hang out in the classroom all day, follow them around and just be present. I showed up when it mattered, and it was intentional. As leaders, we have to decide where can our presence matter most? The key is to show that we care but not be so present that our presence no longer matters. The other thing you have to be cognizant of as a leader is that the team is always watching you, just like your kids.

John Berry

It’s not do as I say, not as I do. They will see you and they will behave according to your actions. As the saying goes, you can’t pick your nose while you’re in a Lamborghini. Why? Because if you’re in a Lamborghini, people are watching you all the time. And so every step you take is being watched. And that’s a good thing because as the leader, it puts pressure back on you. You need to show up in a way that will energize the team but keep them focused on the mission. If you, as a leader, become a distraction, it’s a problem for the entire organization. You go out, you drink too much, you say something stupid, you didn’t even think about it. That has circulated through the entire organization. You need to be very careful about what you say to the members of your team. If you lose your cool, the entire team will know about it. They’ll know when you’re mad. They’ll know exactly what you said. That information will spread throughout the team like wildfire. It is important that you’re able to stay even keel. Now, sometimes it’s good to show emotion, show passion, show you care, and show that you’re going to stop at nothing to complete the mission.

John Berry

That can be infectious. But once you lose your cool, the entire team knows about it. Once you break down, they know about it. On the other side, your words carry more weight than you will ever know. You have to have that debate. To chew on someone or not to chew on someone. You see something wrong. Do you address it publicly or do you address it privately? There’s arguments both ways. I’ve been in organizations where people were publicly reprimanded, and they didn’t like that. It aided their morale. It embarrassed them. On the other hand, I’ve been in organizations where the commander decided that all reprimands would be private. And then the sense of the organization was the commander never held anybody accountable because they never heard about the accountability. Even though the commander very quietly and gently take nonperformers to the back room and have a counseling session with them, the team didn’t see that. The team never knew what happened. Now, that commander said, Well, look, I don’t want them to be embarrassed. I don’t want to call them out. I don’t want to drop a dime on them. I don’t want to call out their leadership.

John Berry

I don’t want to embarrass them in front of their peers. But the way the team saw that was this commander is weak. This commander holds no one accountable. We can get away with whatever we want because Jimmy gets away with anything. The commander never says anything to him when in fact, the commander is constantly taking Jimmy back to the back room for some counseling. With that being said, as a leader, you have to decide where you’re going to fall. Are you going to call things out publicly so that everybody can learn the painful lesson like the drill sergeant? The drill sergeant saw you walking across the grass. What did he do? He called you out, and then he dropped the entire platoon so that we could all feel the pain of your mistake. It was humiliating. It was embarrassing. You’re the reason why the team is suffering. But the drill sergeant called that out so the team could learn. This was a cheap lesson because the entire organization learned from your failure, and they didn’t make that mistake later. There are no right answers. Every situation is different, and you as a leader must have the situational awareness, and you must be discerning enough to decide what it will be most effective to make that example public, that real live example, make it public, or whether you step back, understand that this is not something that needs to be made public.

John Berry

This can be resolved as a one-off. This is a private counseling session. Now, the other way your words can carry weight is in praising soldiers, praising soldiers in front of the entire organization. When you have a great organization, the team is receptive. When you have a really bad organization, people get jealous. I can remember at one point, I was afraid as a civilian to give out monthly awards because other people would be jealous of team members and say, Well, they should have picked me, not that person. That person is friends with the boss. That person is getting special treatment. Look, if you have an organization that is not a meritocracy, that stuff will happen. When you decide you’re going to start doing things on merit, everything must be based on merit. Otherwise, your awards, your ceremonies will all ring hollow because the team will assume that someone got some type of preferential treatment. On the other hand, when you have a team that’s a true meritocracy, your team members celebrate each other’s success. They understand that there is no shortage of opportunity for success in your organization. And that means that everybody can be successful.

John Berry

Everyone can grow exponentially. Everyone can be rewarded. When you have a team that understands accountability, responsibility, and accepts your vision of a meritocracy, the most powerful thing you can do is publicly recognize team because that recognition has true value and true weight, and every team member wants to aspire to get that recognition to be a hero to their team. Recognize that your words not only have more weight than you know with your team members, but also with their families. I learned this from a book I read about a naval officer, where that officer talked about every time he would have a high performer, he would send a letter home to the parents, acknowledging that their son or daughter did such a great job today that he wanted to take the time to write the family a letter and thank them as a parent or loved one for raising one of America’s best. I’ve adopted that practice in my organization as well. It’s great because when the parents are on your side, they’re going to encourage your high-performing team member to keep performing and encourage that team member to stay with the team. Showing parents’ gratitude for how they raised one of your top performing team members not only makes the parents feel great, it trickles down to the team who feels great, and it is an amazing retention tool.

John Berry

Now, the opposite of expressing that genuine level of gratitude can be found in the book Shoe Dog by Nike founder Phil Knight. For those of you who don’t know, Nike was co-founded by Bill Bowerman, a highly He was a specially decorated World War II army officer, and Phil Knight served as an officer in the reserves when he created Nike. According to the book, Phil Knight’s first hire was a salesman who moved somewhere in California to sell his shoes. This salesman would write Phil Knight incessantly about what was going on, and he’d ask for help. In every letter, he would ask for words of encouragement. Please send words of encouragement. In the book, Knight admitted he never sent words of encouragement. As I read the book, I got a little bit frustrated, and I kept thinking, Send the words of encouragement. Encourage that team member. But Phil Knight never did. He said, The salesperson kept sending me letters, long, detailed letters, and at the end of the letter, he kept asking me to send the encouragement, and I never did. As a leader, we know that it’s important to send encouragement to our team, whether they ask for it or not.

John Berry

We are the brass, and our team members seek our approval, and that approval can be crucial in retaining that team member, keeping that team member motivated, and keeping that team member focused on the mission. So yes, as leaders, we are the brass, and our approval matters more than we know, but so do our flaws. Our flaws will be magnified. We will become a caricature of ourselves. You are someone that the team will make fun of. Anybody who’s served has made fun of an officer or an NCO in their chain of command. There’s a leader who has some crazy idiosynchrosy at some level of command that we love to make fun of. As a leader, they’re going to make fun of you. But don’t let that bother you. Laught at it. If they’re making fun of you, they get you and they see you and they realize that you are important in their lives. If you’re important enough for them to make fun of you, that is a great thing. So never, never, never get upset if your team is poking fun at you. When they make fun of you, it’s actually a demonstration of their endearment toward you.

John Berry

We all remember RumINT, rumor intelligence. Unfortunately, when you’re the brass, rumors will start. And sometimes rumors start because there’s a basis in the truth for something stupid that you did. Other times, the rumors are just rumors. And there will be attention seekers who will claim to know something about you. These are individuals in the organization that will claim to have some special insider information about you personally or about a decision that you’re about to make that they already know. And they do that to get attention from the rest of the team. And these attention seekers can be dangerous because they can often kill a message before you even deliver it. In other words, they’ve already created expectations that may not be realistic or they’ve infected the mood or the motivation of the team before you even get there. So it’s very important to understand that there may be individuals on your team who are seeking attention and appear to have power in the organization when they don’t. People don’t like to talk about this, but that just is the reality. That is part of the power dynamic. There will always be individuals in the team who will play politics.

John Berry

As a leader, you cannot play politics. You have to quash that. You have to be very direct with your messages. This is no different than OPSEC. If there is something that needs to go out to the entire organization at one time, don’t tell other people about it unless it’s within your tight leadership circle. You will have to have a circle where you completely trust everybody, whether that’s your executive assistant, your chief operating officer, or your executive team, where you will have to have those conversations. You will need a sounding board, and those individuals need to keep those communications absolutely confidential. The key is that your words are not used for unintended purposes. Anytime you have anyone other than your direct report in the office, you should probably have another team member with you because you as a leader may not be able to understand the world as that team member sees it. Someone else needs to be there to make sure that the communication is clear. Ask the question, What did you hear me say? It’s amazing how a team member can come in, they want to talk to the brass. They want to talk to the top.

John Berry

They want an answer, and you tell them something, but they only hear what they want to hear. They leave the room hearing something completely different than what you told them. Now, I personally have experienced this, and this is why I love to use this tool. At the end of the meeting, you ask, What did you hear me say? If that individual says something that seems to come from outer space, then that team member that you have next you who’s there for the conversation, you could turn and ask them, What did you hear me say? Hopefully between the two of them, they understood what you said because it could be the individual that you’re talking to across the desk who wants to hear from the brass, it could be that they just don’t understand you, or it could be that you as a leader and a communicator are doing a horrible job explaining it, and they’re hearing something that you didn’t mean to communicate because you don’t understand where they’re coming from. You’re not meeting them at their level. You only understand it at your level, which may be echelons above reality for them. When I’m in court and I’m in trial, I always have another lawyer with me.

John Berry

Why? Because they can hear things and see things that I can’t hear and see. I’m in my own world when I’m doing my cross-examination. I need someone else to pay attention to what’s going on, to watch the jury, to see how people are reacting. The same is true in one-on-one communication. We may not perceive everything. We may miss something. So it’s always good to have a buddy there with you when you’re having those conversations. I know it can be disheartening to believe that you as a leader may be prone to miscommunicating things from time to time or even often. But the good news is the team genuinely cares about your opinion. They wouldn’t be on your team. They wouldn’t be asking if they didn’t care. And so your opinion carries a greater weight. And that’s a good thing. If you’re running an organization, building the organization of your dreams, building the best organization, building your organization, your opinion should matter. Remember RHIP? Not RIP Its the low-cost energy drinks they gave us during deployment. But RHIP, Rank Has Its Privileges, R-H-I-P. That has a negative connotation in the military. But the truth is, it’s important as a leader that you understand that you do have privileges.

John Berry

Rank has its privileges, and it also has its pressures. And you should ensure that you are maximizing those privileges for the good of the organization. So as a leader, you should have an executive assistant. You should have someone who’s helping you. Same way that general officers have an aid to camp. As a leader, you should be getting enough rest because you need to make key decisions. You’re responsible for the results. I can remember as a lieutenant, I would come in from a mission, the company commander would be racked out. I’d leave for a mission in the morning, the company commander was still racked out. That’s okay. That’s actually a really good thing, and that’s great leadership because I know that that commander is going be rested and is taking care of himself so that he can make the right decision. And that gives me a lot more trust and faith in the commander. I don’t think the commander is lazy. Well, maybe we did at the time. We all joked about it. But the reality is, rank does have its privileges, but also its responsibilities. And leaders need to ensure that they take care of themselves, because if they don’t, no one else will.

John Berry

So the question you may be asking yourself right now is, why would I want to grow an organization so big that I’m considered the brass? That was the question I had. That’s why I wanted to get out. I never wanted to be the brass. But there are some advantages. The bigger your organization grows, the better leaders you will have. And that’s not by choice, it’s by necessity. When you start off with a 10-person team, you may be the only good leader on that team. But if you grow to a 100-person team, you’re going to have several good leaders on that team. Otherwise, you would have never made it to 100 people. It would have fallen apart at 12, 15, 20. We all know the saying, leaders do not create followers. Leaders create more leaders. If you’re the You’re the only leader in your organization, you just need one more, and then someone else will develop into a leader and another, and you’ll be able to bring on more team members, take on more complex and meaningful missions. You’ll be able to fulfill your purpose with more leaders. The great thing is by the time you get to about 100-person organization, your leaders will be focused on developing the mid-level leaders, and the mid-level leaders will focus on developing leaders below them. So the entire organization will grow downward, but opportunity will grow upward. And this is where companies scale.

John Berry

After Action Review, you are the brass. Leadership and self-awareness. Number one, as Jerry Spence said, it all starts with you. Recognize that you are the inertia, and you are the standard. Number two, your messages are magnified, speak less. Number three, when your team makes fun of you, that’s a good thing. Three down. In any organization, perception can become reality. As a leader, deal with the perceptions. Number two, your team sees everything. Number three, your words, your actions, and your flaws are magnified in the ears and the hearts of your team.

John Berry

Thank you for joining us today on Veteran Led, where we pursue our mission of promoting veteran leadership in business, strengthening the veteran community, and getting veterans all of the benefits that they earned. If you know a leader who should be on the Veteran Led podcast, report to our online community by searching @veteranled on your favorite social channels and posting in the comments. We want to hear how your military challenges prepared you to lead your industry or community, and we will let the world know. And of course, hit subscribe and join me next time on Veteran Led.

Berry Law

The attorneys at Berry Law are dedicated to helping injured Veterans. With extensive experience working with VA disability claims, Berry Law can help you with your disability appeals.

This material is for informational purposes only. It does not create an attorney-client relationship between the Firm and the reader, and does not constitute legal advice. Legal advice must be tailored to the specific circumstances of each case, and the contents of this blog are not a substitute for legal counsel.

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