The Program

35Developing Leaders

TEACHING LEADERSHIP IS one thing, and for the most part, teams who hire The Program already do a decent job of it. Developing leadership is another matter.

Down by 17 at half-time, the coach gives a screaming, profanity-laced speech. Red-faced and with spittle flying, he grabs his star player and yells, “I need you to be a better leader.” After seeing her three-year team captain graduate, the coach calls one of her incoming seniors into her office and says, “Now it is your turn. I need you to lead.” A managing director or regional sales manager unexpectedly departs a firm. The CEO tells the next most senior person or best salesperson that they are now the new leader of that branch or region.

In all these scenarios, those athletes or individuals are set up for failure. Teaching leadership makes people aware of what good leaders (and bad) do. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make you one. To become a leader, we must be developed. In order to do so with the future leaders within your organization (family, athletic team, corporation, school, etc.), leaders must take—or more probably, find—opportunities to provide subordinates with three things:

1. A task they are to accomplish
2. Conditions under or with which they must work
3. A standard to which it must be completed

Nearly everything we do in the Marine Corps has a task, condition, and standard associated with it, from making your rack (bed) at boot camp to engaging a moving target with an M40A4 sniper rifle. We constantly ...