Since I was 18 years old, my career has been groomed around the concept of leadership. I made the decision to join the United States Army shortly after high school and I flew off to Ft. Benning, GA for 14 weeks of basic/advanced training. Aside from the stereotypical images of young men and women navigating obstacle courses, beating each other up with pugil sticks, and marching in formation, we were all taught to live by the seven Army core values: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage (LDRSHIP) (US Army, n.d.).
Figure 1
Army Confidence Tower
These values are instilled in every soldier because collectively they define and provide a foundation for the process known as leadership. According to Northouse (2018), leadership is a process of influencing a person or group of individuals to achieve a common goal. The United States Army (and other branches alike) trains and develops the world’s best leaders to inspire and influence people to accomplish organizational goals (The University of Akron [UA], 2008). I was trained and groomed over the course of six years for leadership, whether I was a machine gunner within an Infantry weapons squad or was a Non-Commissioned Officer leading a fire-team in Baghdad, Iraq.
Figure 2
US Army Infantry
I officially left the military in 2010 with these developed competencies, attributes, and real-world experience only to find myself entering the civilian world with limited transferable hard skills, unless I wanted to be in law enforcement, a government contractor, or apparently a teacher according to Gross (2019). It wasn’t easy finding a job during The Great Recession (Boyle, 2020), but my transferable soft skills combined with a recommendation from a close friend got me a job as a manufacturing technician for a startup solar company. These soft skills are hard to quantify because they are also what are known as “people skills” or “interpersonal skills” (Doyle, 2020).
Some common soft skills are effective communication, flexibility, leadership, motivation, problem solving ability, teamwork, and time management (Doyle, 2020). I worked as an individual contributor for a little more than a year before I was promoted to a lead position and subsequently to other leadership positions as the years followed. After seven years I had held six distinct positions, three of which were responsible for inspiring and motivating groups of individuals. I often questioned myself on why I was chosen for certain roles or attempted to look deeper within to understand why I felt comfortable to lead people. Was it because I was born this way? Was it based on those six years I spent in the military? Or was it just the right fit given the situation and circumstances?
Figure 3
Leadership Traits
According to Northouse (2018), Ralph Melvin Stogdill conducted two surveys to analyze the traits associated with effective leadership. The first one concluded that the traits a leader possessed must be relevant to the situations in which the leader is functioning, and the second study argued more in favor of both traits and situational factors being an equal determinant of leadership (Northouse, 2018). This view of the trait theory of leadership appears to be accurate with what I have experienced and how I view my successes and failures as a leader. I have been able to develop traits that are most commonly associated with effective leadership, such as courage and resolution, assertiveness, decisiveness, need for achievement, self-confidence, and task competence, but they haven’t always translated perfectly from one team, company, organization, or industry to the next, which is why it’s important to analyze the working relationship between yourself as the leader and your followers (Cherry, 2021).
Recognizing my talents and strengths, I opted to take on a new leadership position within my current organization, a leader in the aerospace and defense industry. This seemed fitting because our customers were those among the U.S. federal government (something I was familiar with) and the role specialized in manufacturing, another specialty area that I had the ability to become proficient in. I succeeded in this role for almost five years before making the decision to finally try something different, join the ranks, and learn to follow rather than lead. This was easier said than done because I had become so accustomed to feeling responsible for the lives and successes of others and quite frankly, it’s what I had become to know.
Northouse (2018) mentions that being a follower and the process of followership has negative connotations for many people. I think many would agree there is a perception in the workforce that being a supervisor, manager, leader, or executive is more compelling or glorified than being an individual contributor. Conversely, I would argue that it is situation dependent like most things. I’ve worked with many manufacturing, electrical, and material engineers who prefer technical/hands-on work, as opposed to being tied up in endless meetings, budgets, reports, and dealing with never-ending personnel issues (Zenger, 2014). Nevertheless, I stepped away from being a leader in my organization and wanted to focus on new hard skills.
Five months into being a project engineer with zero leader/manager responsibilities, I find myself questioning the transition I made. Somedays I feel ecstatic to arrive at work, look at my inbox with a manageable number of unread emails, and the comfort of knowing that I can focus on my work and tasks at hand without interference from personnel/behavior issues. Other days, I find myself and my other teammates lacking motivation because we aren’t receiving the support, guidance, leadership, or even personal connection from our leadership team. This insider-look (and reminder) of what it means to be a follower again has been eye opening for me, allowed me to see what I may have done right, what I did wrong, and how the smallest actions and behaviors can have a dramatic effect on motivation, inspiration, and performance.
References
Boyle, M. J. (2020, October 23). The Great Recession. Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/great-recession.asp
Cherry, K. (2021, March 8). Understanding the trait theory of leadership. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-trait-theory-of-leadership-2795322
Doyle, A. (2020, January 20). Hard skills vs. soft skills: What’s the difference? The Balance Careers. https://www.thebalancecareers.com/hard-skills-vs-soft-skills-2063780
Gross, N. (2019, December 15). Jobs for infantry vets: What you need to know. Military Times. https://www.militarytimes.com/education-transition/2019/12/15/jobs-for-infantry-vets-what-you-need-to-know/
Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership: Theory and Practice (8th ed.) [VitalSource Bookshelf version]. vbk://9781506362298
The University of Akron. (2008). Introduction to Army leadership [PDF]. https://www.uakron.edu/armyrotc/MS1/24.pdf
US Army. (n.d.). Living the Army values. goarmy.com. https://www.goarmy.com/soldier-life/being-a-soldier/living-the-army-values.html
Zenger, J. (2014, February 27). Individual contributors are ‘forgotten leaders’: Are you developing them well? Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackzenger/2014/02/27/individual-contributors-are-forgotten-leaders-are-you-developing-them-well/?sh=5826b6d47469
William, I think you did an excellent job writing this blog. Your organization flowed well, you defined terms as they came up and you were very reflective and thorough.
My dad began his career in the Army, and he spent five years stationed in Hawaii. Not a bad gig, right? However, he hated the Army. Despite this, he had a passion for serving our country. So, he came back to the mainland and began working with the Air Force. He finished his military career with the Air Force thirty-something years later. He spent time in both the guard and the reserve, and during that time he went on several deployments.
He shared with me, at length, about the things he loves about the Air Force, specifically working on tankers. However, he never shared in detail the things you wrote about in regards to the Army. All of this to say, I think you pose very valid questions.
You reflected on the idea of nature, nurture and a third variable, circumstance. Circumstance could be lumped under the idea nurture within the nature versus nurture topic; which is the debate of whether a person’s genetics or upbringing and culture determine the person’s behavior (McLeod, 2018). In this scenario I would argue that circumstance stands alone, and it could be put in other words as “being in the right place at the right time.”
Personally, I would argue that it is a mixture of all three. Life is too messy to try to simplify it down into one, easy explanation. Who you are (nature) has been shaped by all of your past experiences (nurture), including your time with the Army. Additionally, your time in the workforce has likely contributed to your circumstances, aka right place at the right time. Hence the promotions. This is not to say that you are not qualified, but rather had the timing not been right, you may have not have received the same offers.
In other words, what I have discussed is what you and the text described as the trait theory of leadership (Northouse, 2019, pp. 19-20). Stodgill (1948, 1970) indicated that not only does the leader need leadership traits, but those traits should be relevant to the leadership position (Northouse, 2019, p. 20). You mentioned that this is accurate in regards to your life, I agree with you, but do you think that any of the other theories may describe you as well?
I might suggest the skills approach as an answer to my own question. You discussed hard and soft skills in your post, and I think those fall under the three skills approach described by Katz (1955) (Northouse, 2019, p. 43). After reading up on hard and soft skills, from the source you provided, I believe hard skills fall into the technical category and soft skills fall into the human and conceptual categories (Doyle, 2020). In short technical skills are skills or proficiency within certain activities (Northouse, 2019, p. 44). Whereas human and conceptual skills are being able to work with people and being able to work with ideas, respectfully (Northouse, 2019, pp. 44-45). To me, these sound very similar to what you and Doyle (2020) described.
Based on the text, technical (aka hard skills), are the least important of the three for top management positions (Northouse, 2019, p. 45). You mentioned holding various higher-up positions, so again, I thought this sounded like you. The text notes that human skills are important at all levels of management, but conceptual and technical skills are inversely related (Northouse, 2019, p, 45). I think the Army prepared you well for the human skills area, and you noted this too. You also mentioned not having many hard skills (aka technical skills), but you figured out the soft skills quickly. I think that is part of why you found yourself in higher-up management positions so quickly.
I hope you take some time to reflect based on the skills model, perhaps it could prove to be insightful. Again, great post, I really enjoyed reading it!
References
Doyle, A. (2020, January 20). Hard skills vs. soft skills: What’s the difference? The Balance Careers. https://www.thebalancecareers.com/hard-skills-vs-soft-skills-2063780
McLeod, S. (2018). Nature vs. nurture in psychology. Simply Psychology.https://www.simplypsychology.org/naturevsnurture.html
Northouse, P. G. (2019). Skills approach (pp. 43-45). Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Northouse, P. G. (2019). Trait approach (pp. 19-20). Los Angeles: Sage Publications.