One may not imagine the military to be the most progressive of organisations. Yet, having served the US Army for over thirty years, I have witnessed many significant changes.

For example, when I first graduated as an officer in 1981, the US Army was task-focused with each individual expected to perform a set of ventures within a standard length of time, and repetitively. Like a formation of soldiers marching to beat, mechanical efficiency and effectiveness were the orders of the day. The soldier of today is expected to become a pentathlete – one who has multiple skills and the intelligence to know which skill to use at the right time.

Reflecting on my years with the US Army, below are 10 best-practice lessons I have learned on becoming a better leader in a changing world:

1. Understand what is changeable and what is not

With better education and information access, our people have changed. And, along with this, so too has the way we lead them. Today, it is no longer the commander standing in front of five hundred soldiers giving commands. Beyond saying, “March over there”, the leader now has to explain, “This is why we are doing it”.

Conversely, the values of the soldier remain unchanged. Today, these have been codified in the army and are collectively referred to as ‘LDRSHP’: loyalty; duty; respect; selfless service; honour; integrity; and personal courage. However, if I had to emphasise one above all others, it would be ‘selfless service’, for we as soldiers serve a cause greater than ourselves.

2. Understand the impact of actions

If we use business language and ask “what is the profit motive in the Army?”, it is to accomplish the mission and bring everyone home safe. It is about providing a secure environment in which people can live their lives and pursue their avocations. Our profit motive is to bring young people into the military, who may not know what they want to do, and give them discipline and values, so that when they leave the military, they are productive members of society and contribute to all that is good and right in our respective nations.

Because the military and society are interrelated, it is important that we are more than soldiers moving across the battlefield, we need to represent our nation and our values.. And, as a military officer, I also need to understand the impact of my actions on both the nation’s security and its business markets.

3. Apply the right solution

Take the example of drug eradication in Afghanistan. The US made a strong push early on in the campaign in Afghanistan to revitalise its agricultural sector. We brought in farmers and provided them with a crop that they could grow, harvest and sell. The aim of this was to move Afghan society away from the influence of terrorist ideology and provide economic hope for the future.

It was a very logical plan, but the profit that was made from growing soybeans was dwarfed by that of growing opium poppies. The difficulties in safely exporting a crop in a nation without the proper infrastructure further exacerbated the problem. Therefore, this proved to be the wrong solution to the problem. With a greater understanding of the socioeconomics that surrounded Afghanistan’s economy and system of governance, we opted for a more applicable solution. Our current emphasis on security, education, and traditional markets have proved much more effective.

4. Plan for a successful transition

The military learns lessons on economics from business. But, businesses can also learn from the military.

Unlike the business world, there are set limits on how long our senior leaders can serve in the military. These limits are independent of success. When the time limit is reached, the senior leaders step down in an orderly fashion and relinquish power to the next generation. The need to constantly develop subordinate leaders through talent management is vital to sustaining the organisation and preserving direction and vision.

The principle underlying our succession planning for the senior leadership is a strong emphasis on both performance potential and adherence to organisational values. Organisational values are essential in building trust between the military and our customer base - the nation we represent and the people of the world. I believe cultivating trust, based on organisational values, is also essential in the business world.

5. Build leaders of character

At West Point, our honour code is “A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do”.

When I was a cadet in 1977, over 1,600 young men and women entered West Point, but just under 60% of them graduated. At that time, we operated under an attribution-based model. A single mistake or flaw could cause a cadet to leave. If they lied and said they got a haircut when they did not, a cadet would be told to pack his or her bags and leave. Only those who kept from making mistakes in honour, academics, military, and physical training were allowed to continue and eventually graduate.

Today, we graduate around 85% of the cohort. There is a significant reduction in attrition, due to the developmental model that we have put in place. Now, we accept that we are going to get young men and women from every corner of society. And, they are going to arrive with their own set of beliefs, values, and abilities. It is our mission to develop and integrate them to our values and systems. The diversity that they bring to the larger organisation only makes us stronger.

Today, when someone violates our honour code – particularly when they are in their first or second year – we will initially conduct an investigation to determine whether any offense occurred. If it did, we will not dismiss the cadet. Instead, we put him or her in an honour mentorship program, where a commissioned officer (such as a captain, major or lieutenant colonel) is assigned to mentor that cadet for half a year. During this time, the commissioned officer interacts with the cadet on a weekly basis, with the aim of inculcating the latter on why honourable behaviour is important.

The mentorship program has been hugely successful, but at a cost – particularly in light of the time invested by the officer. But, we are willing to pay that cost at the Academy, because ultimately we are building leaders of character for our nation, not just officers for the military.

6. Maintain situational awareness

The value of a good mentor cannot be over-emphasised. I remember my own role model – a gentleman who was at one time my brigade commander when I was a captain. Once, we were sitting next to each other on a flight and he was reading a book. I started to ask what I thought were smart, deep and probing questions.

Suddenly, he cut me off in mid-sentence, and asked: “Captain Stafford, what colour is the dress of the woman sitting two rows behind us?”

I replied: “Sir, I don’t know.”

“It’s red,” he pointed out. The conversation continued: “How many children does the couple on the other side of the airplane have?”

“Sir, I don’t know.”

“They have two – a young child and a baby-sitting on the mother’s lap. What country is the person sitting in front of us from?”

“Sir, Mexico?”“No, Costa Rica. Why am I asking you these questions?”

“Sir, I don’t know. Because I have been asking you a lot of questions?”

“The single most important sense you need to have as a senior leader is situational awareness. You must always be aware of everything going on around you, even the most insignificant of things. That’s what sets a leader apart. For that leader to see, the leader needs to both perceive and envision, and to truly understand what’s going on around him.”

He picked his book up and started reading and I just sat there. He had taught me a lesson that I did not expect to learn, but will not forget.

7. Foster a sense of tradition and heritage

Aside from mentoring, we pass on our values and organisational identity in other ways. For example, with regards to our uniform, why does the colour of the jacket not match the colour of the pants? In the westward expansion of the US, our cavalry units wore dark blue pants with yellow stripes. As they rode in the desert in the sun every day, they left the jacket off because it was hot. With time, their pants faded and ended up a lighter blue than the jacket. And, that is why we wear this uniform today.

Every soldier needs to know that he is not simply wearing his pants, but the pants of the Buffalo soldiers who rode across America and worked through our nation’s westward expansion. Certainly, the uniform can make people appear homogeneous, but it also provides a greater sense of purpose and belonging.

8. Share your values

In passing on this sense of purpose to the next generation, it must be said that society also plays an important role. The military exists for selfless service to society, and in turn, society helps reinforce this value.

If we consider the number of people who participated in World War Two, an outcome of that is a system of elders in every family and hometown that can tell the story of what it means to be an American, to truly fight for the world, to give oneself up and possibly sacrifice one’s life. The families of World War Two veterans tell and teach their families this tradition of service.

If I have to name a benefit of this ten-year war we are currently in – if there truly is a benefit of war – it is that we have created yet again a generation of Americans who will be those family elders thirty years from now. These elders will talk about what it means to serve and to sacrifice, and I believe this will help build America’s next generation.

9. Live your values

We can mentor, don uniforms of heritage, and pass on our values and identity through storytelling. But, it is also in death that values and who we truly are become real.

A few years ago, a major at the Academy was responsible for 136 young men and women, and trained them for two years to become leaders. He did a fantastic job and his next assignment was to go deploy to Afghanistan with an operational unit. Two weeks into this assignment, an improvised explosive device killed him.

We returned his body to West Point in order to bury him, and conducted his funeral at the Cadet Chapel. In that moment of grief, I looked around the chapel at the faces of the cadets and saw that they had for the first time in their careers acknowledged the reality of what it means to be a soldier. Yet, it was not aspect of death that became real, but the sense of tradition, heritage, and belonging to something larger than even West Point. “We, will never forget a fallen comrade.” What became real for those young people was that these were not slogans on paper, but how we live our daily lives and how they were going to live theirs.

To me, it was an unbelievably sad day, but it was also a happy day, seeing this lesson taught to these young people.

10. Achieve a greater cause

As individuals, our role is to help others, and not to simply look after oneself. This is because we are all servants of a greater cause, whether it is to the military, business, society or the government. In life, one should strive not for personal accolade, but for goals that are accomplished collectively. This epitomises the value of ‘selfless service’.

In business – as in the military – many things are changeable. However, values and a sense of purpose must be kept constant as they remind us of what we are about. While a leader needs to evolve with changing times, one should do so remaining on point and on path, focused to the True North of their traditions and values. 

This article was first published in HQ Asia (Print) Issue 05 (2013).