Category Archives: “The Spirit of the Student”

It seems that we all become a little more philosophic and retrospective as one year slowly wanes and another begins. One year ago I was working in rural West Africa generally unaware that the conditions there were closer than I knew to what many experience in the United States. I never imagined that I would be learning more about those very conditions and their impact on health a year later.

Yet here I am in a new position, two thirds of the way through my Michael Watkins First Ninety Days, wondering whether I have almost reached the point where I am more of a contributor to my new organization than a drain on it. As a brief reflection, several things have struck me this month about this transition to a civilian job after 31 years working in and with the military. (I think my last civilian job interview was with Ponderosa Steak House when I was in high school!) I am working in a new organizational and geographic culture, carrying a new position and title that I sometimes wear with the same awkward discomfort as I do one of my still new suits. (“Should I button or unbutton my suit-coat button?”) Here are some of the things I remind myself of these days:

• You have earned the right to speak by nature of your background and experience. You have not earned the right to be listened to, at least not yet. Choose your words carefully.
• No one really cares where you came from or what you did there. Certainly no one cares as much as you do. Think about that the next time you are tempted to say, “When I was at…” It gets old faster than you think.
• To modify a quote from Larry King, “Nothing that you say today will teach you anything.” If you want to learn a new culture you need to be quiet, open your eyes, watch and listen.
• You are not who you were. As Michael Watkins says you have to “promote yourself.” It’s not a matter blowing your horn by dropping into every conversation just how extraordinary you are but by believing that what it says on your ID badge or office door is who you are supposed to be. We always do best what we did best last. But you weren’t hired to do what you did no matter how good you were at it. You were hired for what they believed you can do now. So do it.
• Stop looking backwards. Some of the most embarrassing falls I have taken through the years happened when I wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking and instead glanced over my shoulder or focused too far ahead. (One on the steps outside the Rutgers Commons as a college student comes to mind; a spectacular aerial display of flying notebooks and papers.) Relax. No one’s gaining on you and it wouldn’t really matter if they were. Pay attention to putting one foot in front of the other.

One of my very good friends, also retired from the Army, provided the most crucial encouragement of my “retirement transition.” It came at a time when the road ahead was unclear and I was still hearing the echoes of the things I didn’t get to do in uniform.

“You have to believe that the best years of life are still ahead of you,” he told me. It is a matter of faith, but also a matter of sanity. I suspect that with the potential influence of attitude, it can also be a self-fulfilling prophecy. But as is often the case with faith and vision in leadership – personal and corporate – it is a matter of choice.

The leader chooses to believe. And so believing inspires faith in others.

Chuck Callahan Henry V 4.3 – Lead from the Front https://henryv43.wordpress.com/

Some bad leadership habits follow us home.

I was talking with my wife early one morning a week or two ago. She was discussing her social work call schedule. She mentioned that there was primary and secondary call, and that she was generally on “second call.” From my frame of reference as a doc covering intensive care units I wondered how often the person on second call was actually called in. It became my “bottom line” question and I almost interrupted her several times as she spoke about her concerns regarding training for call to get my question answered. I came close to the exercise of a bad leadership habit: the drive toward “BLUF” – bottom line up front. Only it was my bottom line I was interested in, not hers.

But I caught myself.  And I allowed her keep talking. She needed to process her experiences. And I needed to hear what she had to say. The experience reminded me of a leadership lesson I have had to repeatedly learn; one that I know I have mentioned here before and I think is related at least in part to having a temperament of extroversion.

I have often found myself as a hospital leader being briefed by subordinates, paging through the briefing slides to see where the briefing was going and then cutting to what I thought was the main point without allowing the argument to be built. It was a bad but perhaps learned behavior. Once while I was briefing a very senior Army general about our hospital construction as we drove to the site in his vehicle, he cut me off at the third slide and asked, “Bottom line doc: is it on-time and under budget?” Well not exactly, Sir…

I know we are busy and that this is a technique to keep things moving and our schedules manageable. But perhaps we are missing opportunities to develop leaders at work. We are certainly selling ourselves short in missing opportunities to expand our own perspective. And at home when listening to family and friends, we need to take care that we don’t allow efficiency to replace empathy.

On the savanna among our ancient ancestors, the leader was often the first one to move. We need to remember that the leader’s courage to move has to be balanced by the willingness to “be moved” by those whom we lead.

It happens through careful attention and intention to their need to know they’ve be heard and listened to.

Chuck Callahan Henry V 4.3 – Lead from the Front https://henryv43.wordpress.com/