Guest post by
Ken Marlin:

There are also a fair number of
military-themed books, many of which take advantage of things such as the 14
Leadership Traits I learned while serving in the Marines, or they leverage the
teachings of Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese general, military strategist, and
philosopher. But there too, there is a link missing.
A fundamental premise of the Marine
Corps approach to leadership is that it is inextricably linked with winning. It
begins with a clear articulation of a unit’s long term strategic objectives—and
the development of a disciplined strategy to achieve those objectives. Simply managing
effectively—killing more bad guys or making more profit—isn’t a strategic
objective, and it isn’t enough. Leaders decide which battles must be fought as
part of a longer term effort to win strategic objectives. And they decide
which ones to skip. They decide what resources to allocate. They think three
steps ahead.
It never ceases to surprise me how
many CEOs don’t understand the concept of linking leadership to actually
winning—not just managing. Like too many politicians and too many on Wall
Street, they just keep pushing forward along some path, such as reducing costs,
improving profit margins, growing the company 15 percent, getting promoted or
re-elected. That’s not leading. It kills companies.
Marine Corps Leadership also
requires that leaders have true “domain expertise.” There are far too many
organizations led by generalists. My father is a retired engineer with his
Master’s degree in thermodynamics. He worked on the Mercury and Gemini space
programs before moving to Cummins Engines where he helped develop the small
diesel engines now used in pickup trucks. He used to bemoan senior managers
that knew a lot about finance, labor negotiations and “leadership” but couldn’t
tell a crank shaft from a piston rod. “Develop real domain expertise,” he told
me. Unless you do, you will be at the mercy of subject matter experts. You
won’t be able to challenge them and you will never be able to lead the
organization to the next level. Marines embrace that concept.
Leadership also requires that
leaders actually lead. Managers work within the realm of what’s possible
believing that they are constrained by what they see as the facts on the
ground. Marines (and other leaders) certainly take note of the facts on the
ground but often they see those facts differently—and then they bend them in
their direction. They motivate a team to accomplish things that
others believed impossible and lead them to victory. Dwight Eisenhower; Douglas
MacArthur, Chesty Puller are military examples. Nelson Mandela, Lyndon Johnson,
Martin Luther King, and Aung San Suu Kyi are political examples, Henry Ford,
Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are recent business world examples.
George Bernard Shaw once said: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world;
the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

Ken Marlin is founder
and managing partner of the award-winning investment bank Marlin & Associates and the author of The
Marine Corps Way to Win on Wall Street (St. Martin’s Press; August 30,
2016).
1 comment:
Re: Leaders Need to Lead, 15 September 2016,
by Mr. Ken Marlin
Dear Sir,
Thank you very much for you thought-provoking piece. I would
like to offer another opinion.
I have long believed that winning is a false god. Winning a
contract in business or winning a sports competition can
be satisfying as a confirmation of our business or athletic
skills. However, if we make winning the overarching goal, we
run the risk of compromising certain values. The key to
customer satisfaction is increasing product and service quality.
By investing time and effort in improving quality, we increase
our value to our customer. If that improvement means that we
can offer him better value than a competitor, we may be
rewarded with a contract. In that case, we may take winning
as an indication of that value. However, I believe that the
risk lies in confusing winning with quality and improvement.
If we don’t get the contract, the competition may be stronger
we are. If we do get the contract, it might be that the
competition was light or even absent.
While I respect USMC culture and training, winning and losing
in combat – as in boxing – has a great deal to do with
opponent selection. The same may be said of sports in general,
which offers many lessons about improvement and winning.
If all I care about is winning at tennis, I can simply
choose a weaker player for my opponent. By contrast, if I
care more about improving, I am better advised to seek out
opponents whose game is stronger than mine. If I use that
approach and I am fortunate enough to win, the victory holds
a higher value.
The biggest risks associated with a single-minded focus on
winning arise from the temptation to compromise ethical,
legal, and moral standards. We need only observe the
current, endless presidential campaigns to be reminded of
that. And how many receivers in football ever admit that a
pass, called complete by a ref whose view was blocked,
actually touched the ground?
Having said all that, I agree that we need to work smart
and play to win, but losing has much to teach us.
Respectfully,
Maniel
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