The dilemma of Leadership - made Simple

What comes first? - Me? the company I work for? Or my employees?

Ever so often I see employees, managers and even human resources professionals struggling with this dilemma.

To answer this, I went back in time 25 years, to the time when I was introduced to the famous words of Field Marshal Philip Chetwode - Commander in Chief of the then British Indian Army (10 Dec 1932).

The words which I refer to are also known as the Credo of the Indian Military Academy and embedded into the walls of the Chetwode hall for all Gentlemen Cadet to imbibe before moving on to become Officers in the Indian Army.

“The safety, honour and welfare of your country come first, always and every time.

The honour, welfare and comfort of the men you command come next.

Your own ease, comfort and safety come last, always and every time.”

I remember sharing the Credo with one of my teams and asked them to replace "Country" with "Company" which was well accepted, however, the part which was the struggle was putting the "Men you Command"(aka Employees) before your "Self";

Let me walk through each paragraph and what it means to fully appreciate these words, especially for us as Leaders and HR professionals in the civilian world.

Safety, honour and welfare of your company, comes first always and every time:

Let’s call Safety as "Survival", Honour as "Reputation" and Welfare as "Success". Needless to say, the Survival of the organisation, the business and ethical reputation and the need to make our organisations successful are paramount in order to ensure business continuity.

As leaders, becoming role models in commitment and holding the interests of the company at the forefront is critical. It is a well-known fact that employees mimic their leaders and hence if we uphold the loyalty to the organisation, so will the rest of the organisation.

The honour, welfare and comfort of the men you command come next:

Over here let’s call honour as "Respect and dignity", welfare as the "Success, progress and well-being of our employees" and comfort "the ability to understand the strengths and limitations of our employees and provide the right support and infrastructure to keep them safe and see them progress".

Let’s not mistake Welfare and Comfort as the need to provide a bed of roses. Quite the contrary the focus is on preparing the "employees" for what they will face in their future and ensure that they are equipped with the experience and the knowledge to triumph over the challenges of the future.

Your own ease, comfort and safety comes last, always and every time:

This is probably the most difficult to follow where a leader puts his / her own interests second to those of their employees and the organisation. As a survival instinct, we put our own interests, ambitions and career goals at the forefront and everything else tends to be slotted in to follow.

This last paragraph may be difficult to understand if one has not worked in close teams and has not practised servant leadership. It is a well-known saying within most combat units “if you look after your troops, you don’t need to look after yourself, for they will look after you”.

Many readers might call the message in this article as idealistic and some cultures may even frown at it.

I am tempted to give examples of leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela who put a cause before themselves, instead, let me try with an example from normal day life

"This was during the outbreak of the Ebola virus in Nigeria and it is difficult to explain in a few words the anxiety and the fear of the unknown, especially not knowing how the virus would spread. However, we did know the simple precautions, symptoms and the high probability of death once infected.

Being the crisis management team for West Africa, we needed to put in an Emergency response plan as well as a robust communication plan to cater to the situation, which changed on a daily basis. Our primary objective was to keep our resident employees, expatriates and families in the country safe while maintaining continuity of operations.

As the office was restricted and it was important to work long hours, we were invited by the Managing Director to use his house as the war room, while he saw the crisis management team working to deliver to the need of the hour, he decided to cook food for us and ensure we were fed and attended to work while he provided the food and the leadership.

A small example where a leader puts the company first, his employees next and himself last. We were all there to accomplish our respective role and he realised he could better serve the team by cooking food for the team while the rest of us worked."

A thought which might come to mind of some may be that the message in this article conflicts with work-life balance, but this is not about sacrificing work-life balance. Instead, it is about using the work time to focus on ensuring the companies interests are kept before self and the interests of our teams and subordinates are not kept below ours.

Another common belief when we speak about leadership is that a leader is only the seniormost person or the person in command in that particular unit or organisation and that the message in this article would only apply to them. In my opinion, that's not true as each employee has a responsibility to lead in their domain of influence and if we have organisations with the culture of empowering the employees to think and behave like leaders with the mindset being mentioned here, it paves the path for a very strong organisation. To some, this may sound scary and to others, it may make absolute sense.

I must caution the reader, the path being suggested in this article is not an easier path, but definitely a more satisfying path.

The next time you are asked the question of what comes first, I think you may have an answer to overcome the dilemma.

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This article is dedicated to a brave doctor and her team who stood up against all opposition after identifying the first case of Ebola in Nigeria in 2014. Thereby triggering a timely response which probably saved millions from losing their lives.

?The views and interpretations in this article are solely the views of the author.

This article would not have been complete, had it not been for the inputs and encouragement from Eric Tabet, Isabelle Tabet, Tan Yi Ling, Eke U Eke and my brothers in arms who cannot be named.