Well, here are we again. This time, I’m pleased to share a blog post I wrote for the Travis Manion Foundation as part of the Spartan Leadership Program and my experiences thus far. I was also blessed to spend a week at the Crooked Butterfly Ranch with more than a dozen other highly motivated individuals, both participants and staff members, in learning a bit more about ourselves, each other, and what really defines us as leaders (philosophies, purposes, experiences, etc.). With that said, here’s the post–I do hope you enjoy it and/or find some utility in it. Keep up the good fight everyone! #fight #ringthebell #hithard #dontstopfighting #noquit
“Breathe, Zach. Just. Breathe.”
I repeated this mantra multiple times at the airport, on the plane, and as I walked to the van awaiting my late arrival. I was entering a new environment, with a relatively new group of like-minded people, and hoping to learn something new about myself, my leadership philosophy, and how I view the world. But, I felt like I had a couple answers to the exam in advance: I had worked with our host, Brian “Tosh” Chontosh, previously during my time at the Naval Academy as an instructor and training coordinator. I had been on a previous expedition to Parkland, FL 18 months earlier and had confidence that some of those topics would be revisited. No problem, right?
I’ll paraphrase Socrates when I say this: “…for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”
Leading up to the expedition in Colorado, we as a cohort dove deep into our personal beliefs: our strengths, our mindsets, and our personal purposes. Each of these exercises was intended to test us at our core and reveal unforeseen biases and preconceptions and counter them with passions and strongly-held beliefs. Speaking for myself, I know that during these first three evolutions, I realized just how little I knew about what I held dearly vis-a-vis leadership beliefs and self-awareness.
Have I taken the VIA strengths test multiple times with similar results each time? Yes.
DId I see a few of the TED talks assigned previously? Sure.
Did that matter once we got into the deep conversations on Sunday evenings and around the campfire in Colorado? Absolutely not!
The first major reflection came during Dr. Clifford Stanley’s (a retired MGEN in the United States Marine Corps) guest appearance during one of our Sunday evening sessions. During the class period, he mentioned a quote that stuck with me: “I refuse to give up on people.” Previous to this, I had believed that my leadership philosophy centered around problem solving and taking on the biggest challenges. But Dr. Stanley’s quote, paired with his tragic experiences as a Black man in the military, made me think deeply about my personal philosophy. Did I strictly want to solve problems? As Dr. Stanley continued, I harkened back to MSGT King’s motivational speech at the kickoff in Atlanta: “don’t allow broke to break you.” I needed to take that advice and not only apply it personally, but around my community.
First change in my leadership philosophy: it’s about more than just the problem at hand–it’s about the people affected by the problem and helping them back to their feet.
As the weeks passed by, we crafted our personal purpose statements and brainstormed over ideas for our Community Impact Projects. I kept hearing Dr. Stanley and MSGT King in the back of my mind, imploring me to take my experiences with loss and grief, be demonstratively resilient, and make something happen. One question remained: where do I find a group of people who have likely been given up on and have lost a sense of self-worth or are victims of their own self-deprecation after making mistakes?
One might think that my thinking took me to veterans struggling with transitions to civilian life. A good idea–one that I know is being actively worked on by some of the incredible members of this program–but my mind went somewhere else. All I could think about was my children, a pair of smart, well-mannered, and socially adept eight-year olds.
What if they didn’t have their mother and I to teach them what right looks like? What if they had to learn how to be completely self-sufficient before being able to pour their own milk and cereal in the morning? What if they never had the comfort of a constant roof over their heads and love in their hearts and had to find a different place to sleep every night?
Short answer: they could end up like many of the at-risk youth in the Detroit metropolitan area, and be locked away in a juvenile justice facility, thinking that they are failures at their core and bound for a life of destitution and shame. Worse, they could grow up thinking they are worthless and suffer through mental anguish, never realizing their full potential because they are too caught up in their own fixations that they are not important enough to be helped.
Next leadership philosophy change: allow great trials and tribulations to be a source of strength as you adopt a growth mindset. Failures aren’t setbacks–they are gifts of experience of the highest order. Fail, learn, grow, and try again–four simple steps that can take a lifetime of learning to implement.
As we worked our way through the Colorado expedition, I reflected back on both sets of quotes as well as the discussions we had during our time with Tosh and his whiteboard. One lesson in particular stuck with me–a group discussion about permission. More specifically, we talked at length about leaders giving permission to their subordinates to be their authentic and most creative selves. By doing so, we allow people to freely express ideas, but we also must be patient and understanding enough to let them fail, learn, grow, and try again. As leaders, we are expected to be the examples of what to do, but on occasion we can be even better examples of what not to do. If the latter becomes the case, then the permission we give our charges also allows them an open channel to provide constructive feedback. In short, permission and empowerment are critical to leading teams that excel during times of crisis as well as times of peace. But, since this course is reflective, where do I fit in?
Third leadership philosophy change: give yourself permission to be authentic, to fail and learn, to be creative, seek feedback, and grow with the team, not because of or in spite of it.
I had always believed that success begets success, and while that statement rings true, it is only half of the argument. Success happens because of failures, and not because you got it right the first time with every shot. As Tosh mentioned, not every round is going to be a bullseye. Heck, maybe the first 10 will be “high and right” until you can fine tune everything. That fine-tuning exercise is the permission given to oneself to understand a three-parted elemental truth: we are human, we are flawed, and we are capable of amazing things…if we accept the first two truths.
Where do we go from here? I suspect the next evolutions will start to tie it all together as we grow as a cohort and begin to see our community action plans take shape with the help of our personal leadership philosophies. We will continue to question what it means to espouse Spartan leadership and how we live the mantra of “if not me, then who” daily. Our instructors and leaders will press us for more reflection, more depth, and more soul searching. But, and perhaps most importantly, as the Beatles once sang, “we (will) get by with a little help from (our) friends.”
Fighting For One 