What makes a good leader, what specifically engages your ‘troops’?
Is it sitting on your horse and supervising, or is it being with them in the trenches?
History provides a litany of answers to this eternal questions.
I explore one of those answers today
Enjoy
Warmly
Diederik
TRANSCRIPTION:
Blog – Getting Into The Trenches
Hi, it’s Diederik Gelderman here, and I’ve got a bit of a different vlog for you today, and it’s called ‘Getting into the Trenches’.
About 200 years ago, or a little bit further back than that, on a battle field, a man in civilian clothes rode past a group of exhausted soldiers who were digging a trench, an important defensive position trench.
He noticed that the section leader, the sergeant, the boss was sitting on his horse while the poor exhausted soldiers were digging away and digging away and he was yelling at them; “Work harder, dig faster, dig deeper, get on with it.”
You could almost imagine him mentally, verbally, whipping, these poor soldiers.
And, he had his canteen and he was drinking, he had his lunch and he was eating, and the poor guys in the trenches didn’t have anything; they were exhausted, no food, no water, lots of sun…I’m sure you can get the picture.
The civilian on the horse that rode up went up to the sergeant, to the supervisor, to the overseer, and said, “Why aren’t you in the trenches with your men helping dig that trench?”
The supervisor got irate, the sergeant got irate and said, “I’m the supervisor! I’m not digging trenches,” and then he said, “I tell the man what to do. I don’t help them do it. I’m just in charge, I’m the oversee, the supervisor.”
And he said to the gentleman on the horse, he said, “If you feel so strongly about the men in the trenches digging,” he said, “feel free to get off your horse and go down there and dig with them.”
The guy on the horse did exactly that, he got off his horse in his civilian clothes and went and helped the men dig the trenches.
Eventually the trench was finished, everything was done and then the stranger went to the men and congratulated them and thanked them for digging the trench and working so hard on such an important project.
The sergeant was still sitting there on his horse, there were no words of encouragement or thanks or anything coming from his lips.
The gentleman, as he got back on his horse, went up to the sergeant again and said, “Sergeant you should notify the men in command, the general in command, the Brigadier in command, the next time that your rank prevents you from supporting your men in the way that you should – so that they can help you resolve that problem.”
And he continued… “Just for your ‘efforts’ today, I’m going to provide you with a more permanent solution, I’ll help you fix this right here now.”
And the man then got out of his saddlebags, a general’s cap, and put his general’s cap on.
In that army at that time, there was only one general and that was George Washington.
The guy who had gotten off his horse, the guy who had helped the men dig the trench in the blazing sun, the apparent civilian, was George Washington.
He had gotten into the trench and helped dig the defensive trench while the sergeant sat there on his horse not doing anything.
The moral of the story is exactly what George Washington just pointed out; the men digging the trench were extremely thankful to General Washington for helping them.
George Washington obviously has a lot more relevance to Americans than to those of us from other nations. Yet – I find him to be one of the greatest leaders who ever lived…..
My question to you today is…
… are you getting the men and women who work for you and with you, are you getting them to do things that you’re not prepared to do?
Because, real leaders, true leaders, they won’t ask people to do anything that they’re not prepared to do themselves.
If you’re a true leader, then you should be leading from the front and also doing the unpleasant things that you’ve asked your men and women to do, because then they will look up to you and respect you and work harder for you because you have been in the trenches with them and you’ve worked in the trenches with them.
That’s the take-home message.
I’ll see on the next video.