Four Rules of Tactical Leadership

As a leader, the style you utilize in the interaction with your subordinates determines the culture of your organization as a whole. Largely, a transactional leader will build a culture of short-term goal-seeking killers focused on doing well for the boss in order to either gain a reward or avoid a punishment. Transformational leaders, on the other side of the spectrum, will build a culture around a vision/ mission statement geared toward the success of a larger, long-term goal. Excluding the obvious need for leaders to become adaptive and adjust styles to meet the needs of particular situations, it is easy to analyze a military leader and place them into one of these two categories of leadership.

Ultimately, the greatest thing that a military leader can offer to his subordinates through their style of leadership, is to remain consistent in style. Yes, as previously stated, style will fluctuate by mission set, however, the baseline style a military utilizes must be consistent in order to allow the subordinate to best operate within the limits of intent, based on an understanding of leader reaction.

At the tactical level, I have found it useful to cut through the detailed study of leadership style, and focus more on leadership actions. When I was a new Lieutenant, my Company Commander, then Captain Joshua Powers, beat into our fertile officer brains four rules by which to live. Being too scared to ask what he meant by these rules, I never asked the “why” of each. Being much older and certainly wiser, I have winnowed explanations for these four main rules at the tactical level that a leader should exemplify. Those four rules are: Look good, run fast, delegate, and spot check.

1. Look Good: Always represent the image of what you feel your subordinates would want to follow.
2. Run Fast: Be proactive. Be first in all things.
3. Delegate: You are responsible for a multitude of things, entrust your subordinates with taskings.
4. Spot Check: Vote with your time. Trust, but verify. If you don’t check up on your subordinate after delegating a task, you don’t deserve to be able to delegate.

The presence of a leader is the most important aspect of leadership in my opinion. It is better for a leader to have an appearance of fitness than to actually be fit. Don’t want to believe that? Think to yourself how often you look at a person and analyze them based on appearances, versus how often you take an APFT (the Army’s measurement of fitness). Decision-making is also a conclusive factor in “looking good”. The Army is good at codifying and standardizing a baseline from which to pivot, let’s call this, “the box”. With our mission set being as it is to fight an unknown and unknowable future enemy force, the leaders of today must be able to firmly understand, “the box”, and to be able to think outside of it. This system is what enables quick decision-making. As a Company Commander, I would say that my duty was to say yes or no and to sign things. And that is true, Companies are guided by the decisions of their head officer. If one wants to give the impression (presence) of knowledge, then they must be decisive, for better or worse.

Leaders action from the front, they do not delegate from the rear. The statement “run fast”, does not mean bluntly that leaders are sprinters, it means they are first in all things. First to volunteer, first to ask questions, first to posit solutions. Leaders build a strong subordinate backing through a display of action taking. If a problem is presented, it is the leader who first tries to solve the problem. Not because they have the answer, but because of the knowledge that they can break the ice and encourage further participation from their subordinates. This action is displayed down to the smallest detail; I would always encourage my subordinates to steal the front row whenever the boss, or a guest speaker would hold us in their audience, with myself in that row with them. This displayed to the speaker we were present, and ready to listen, but also that we were excited to work. Excited to be leaders.

The above two rules are expected and demanded of leaders at all levels, however, I consider them to be lower-level leadership rules. If you can follow: “right time, right place, right uniform”, then you will probably hit both of the above rules. For the next two rules, I consider these to be higher-level leadership tasks, and ones that have to be conducted in sequence, and synergistically.

Once one is a higher-level leader with subordinates placed underneath them, the conclusion that a strong base is better than a weak base is easily to understand. This being known, the idea that developing that base, becomes a primary mission for the leader. I find that the best way to develop those under you is to challenge their decision-making and responsibility/ task completion muscles. Delegating tasks is what serves as the trigger for this exercise. Give duties to those below you, allow them to fail safely, and then be there to have discussions with them on why things went the way that they did and how to be better next time. Is this a time-saving technique? No. At least, not in the short term. It is a junior development technique though, and when your subordinates make fewer and fewer mistakes, you as the more senior leader will see time available to refocus on higher-level topics, such as the direction of the Platoon/Company.

If a leader delegates without spot-checking, that leader should not be in charge of anything. At the very least, that leader should expect a poorly ran organization, with an underdeveloped leader at its helm. Do leaders know everything? No. That is why we delegate tasks to experts in the field. What leaders do know, is Commander’s Intent, and the intent of whatever task was delegated. If an order is given and the leader doesn’t show that they have the time to ensure that the task is accomplishing its intended result, then that order should not have been given. To me, this is the most difficult ability to master as a leader, and it is also the most critical to mission success.

These four rules will keep you out of trouble as a leader. Establish a strong presence that your subordinates will be proud to resemble, show them that you will always be the first through the breach, empower your subordinates with challenges and responsibility, and follow up on those taskings with guidance and support to ensure they are accomplished to your standard. This is a recipe for success.

CPT Jon DeGreeff is an Infantry Officer and 2013 graduate of Maneuver Captain’s Career Course/ 2008 graduate of Minnesota State University, Mankato. He’s served as a Platoon Leader with 3–187 IN Regt, 101st Airborne, and C Co/ HHC Commander with 2–505th PIR, 82nd Airborne and is current the A/PMS at Maranatha Baptist University.