Veteran Lesson IX: Rebuke in Private, Praise in Public (Ten Veteran Lessons for Every Day)

Topic: Leadership

It doesn’t take an experienced leader to realize that possession of exemplary intellect and “book smarts” does not always go hand in hand with superior emotional intelligence.  Understanding how to relate to subordinates does not signify weakness; rather, it displays an innate ability to develop moral authority, rather than just legal authority, when properly applied.

I spent six years in uniform and can attest to the abundance of toxic leaders in the military.  In my first assignment, the operations officer of my unit was a major, a female Apache pilot who made it her personal goal to demoralize and burden her subordinates, and amp up her legal authority, rather than develop moral authority.  She often berated junior officers and reminded them that she outranked them (as if the insignia on her uniform were insufficient to show that), and once pinched me on the arm and twisted as hard as she could from behind, a couple of months before cancelling a pass she had approved for me, which caused a substantial loss of money at a time in which did I not have very much.  Her toxic brand of “leadership” made everyone hate her guts, and later in her career, she was removed from battalion command for the same problems.