Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Leadership Influence

"Furthermore, leadership is less about control and all about influence. Truth is we control very little, but WE can influence just about anything we choose to (and everything is a choice). Personally, I wish we would spend more time influencing the things that matter most, vice attempting to control the things we fool ourselves into believing we can."

More thoughtful posting here at CONNECTING THE DOTS.

Knowing that one person can change the world - certainly a group of thoughtful, purposeful Naval officers can change the Navy.

3 comments:

Navy Grade 36 Bureaucrat said...

So true! Great example: I spent the past 2 months arranging people to upgrade our computers at a detachment site. I didn't have any authority, but after getting people on the phone and explaining what I needed and why, almost every person agreed to help. Yet for months before hand, people had constantly complained but done nothing, with the excuse that they lacked the authority to do anything.

You'll never have the full authority to do most things on your own. You can play it safe and say that you can't do anything, take your standard looking FITREP and move on...or you can start digging and figure it out, and you'll be surprised at how much teamwork you can build when you try and solve a problem.

Anonymous said...

Ah, you were successful because you started with explaining why you were doing something and the how naturally followed!

Anonymous said...

Captain Lambert,

When I first enlisted in the Navy I made the choice to do that rather than being drafted in the Army. Before we were sworn in the officer in charge gave us inductees a talk that probably lasted 5 minutes with no interruptions, he then asked us if we had any questions before we were sworn in. This officer, a full Lieutenant, spoke to us probably like we had never been spoken to before, duty, honor and country seemed to be his primary concern because he mentioned those things a couple of times, like he did not want us to forget those words. He also said we would miss our Mama’s cooking, and the easy life we had lived, but now that was going to change a little. He mentioned Shipmates a strange sounding word when first heard but as we departed Boot Camp we knew what it meant to be a Shipmate even though the closest we got to the sea or a ship was the USS Neversail and a whaleboat that we rowed for experience. Before we left the Recruit Training Center, San Diego we had been required to work and train together as a team that entire 16 weeks, I believe it was, and we thought of each other as Shipmates.

Back to the point; we had been molded into Sailors by Boot Camp, and it was by choice, we had some way to go before we could be recognized as real Sailors, but we had proven to others that we had some spirit and we had all chosen to be where we were.

We had all chosen to support and defend the Constitution of this United States in accordance with the oath that we had sworn to, and I certainly never took that lightly nor did my Shipmates, that ideal was constant in my mind for the next 20 some years, and I never felt that my Navy career was anything other than a choice, my choice.

Very Respectfully,
Navyman834