On Leadership:

What is the difference between a Leader and a boss?

I had the privilege of watching an interview “How to Be A Great Leader: Inspiring Others To Do Remarkable Things”, done by Marie Forleo of Simon Sinek, writer of Leaders Eat Last.   Simon recounts the motivation to write Leaders Eat Last. The short story is that Simon was given an opportunity to join an Air Force unit in Afghanistan. Letting him see men and women performing military duties. This resonated with me, having been in the Marine Corps myself and getting the opportunity to serve by deploying to Afghanistan.

My trip was a little bit longer than Simon’s was, but it had a lot of the same ups and downs. For instance, the first time we got mortared in the middle of the night. Consequently, not exciting, at all. Imagine sitting in a building that offers about as much protection as Oscar the Grouch’s garbage can. All you can do is hope your luck isn’t too bad. On top of this experience and more, what we really had in common was our trip home. After landing in Qatar, we had room on our C-130 for fallen brothers. We unloaded all of our vehicles and containers, in order to clear room for three men that gave all. We had a long flight home. The mood setting was somber,which gave us all a lot of time to be grateful of where we were heading, and where we came from.

Lessons Learned for a Leader:

I learned that the natural human response to safe conditions is trust, which is especially relevant. Also, the environment is the variable that changes and we can control that environment. Seems like the most important thing I took away from this video was balance. We need to ensure that there is a balanced environment for those we lead. It is our job to take care of each other. By the end of this interview Simon had reminded me  what I already knew was my take away, “Look after each other”.  Almost seems like this is just a restatement of the golden rule. Thanks Simon.

To see the interview of Simon Sinek

Created by: Jacob Cromwell