Mustang Leadership

What does leadership mean to you? In business it might point to a ranking system composed of roles and responsibilities. In personal life it could be about activating a cause and blazing a trail for others to follow. In the philosophical sense, it might mean standing for something and pushing that something forward, while leaving others behind either because they can't keep up or are not leadership material. Leadership is about setting the example and pushing forward, often against overwhelming odds to accomplish a mission.

I’ve learned over the years, through various experiences that leadership doesn’t always make one popular, and engineering your rabbit trail of followers often takes the “stick” as often as it does the “carrot.” Said another way, people in life are usually prompted into action through the application of pleasure or pain. Most leaders understand how to use this reality in order to get their followers moving. It doesn’t really matter if one prefers a method over the other as by themselves, inspirational techniques are neither right nor wrong . To get the best results however, it should stem from something deeper – from the qualities the leader is made of.

What makes people follow someone? Is it charisma, a great idea, forward momentum, respect or fear? The answer is, it’s all of those, depending on the nature of the leadership style.

In my time serving in the United States Marine Corps, I came to truly respect how leaders were made. Leadership in the military isn't an arbitrary appointment. Leaders in the military are carefully selected, forged from the fires of experience, and when they are placed in a leadership position, it has to be right, because when these leaders fail, it doesn't just mean lost dollars, it means lost lives.

I'm talking about the type of leaders who worked their way up through adversity, challenged themselves and set an example for those around them. The very best leaders do their time, earn their chevrons, and don't just have book knowledge of how to execute operational strategy -  they carry the bumps, bruises and scars to show that they have actually done the work.

In the military it's perfectly normal to operate with divisional perspectives. For example, say you are an enlisted service member, vs. commissioned officer. Enlisted service members are by definition, not officers - who are paid less well as compared to college-educated, commissioned officers who are always are paid more. As a result, you have this culture of enlisted vs. commissioned officers where both sides have the view that either side is uneducated either through practicalities or academia.

Now I'm not saying that sole military doctrine is the perfect construct for leadership in business, but it does have some excellent systems in place to self-vet it's leaders and generate respectable results. In the military,  those that lead do so by competing with their peers, and are natural mental athletes. The best of them, break ranks and keep rising to pursue the roles of commissioned officers.

For the best of them, we call them “Mustangs”, those who have served their time in both roles through ascension; by doing their homework, and getting certified by experience.

People who understand the Mustang paradigm are the types of people I always try to identify in businesses I've worked in, or work with. Mustangs are great leader-types that don’t just talk about ideas, they have executed, tested, failed and succeeded. Mustangs are leaders smart enough to assemble people that are strong where they are weak, and acknowledge the value of people as a combined force, but do not marginalize those that are different, and certainly when they don’t have a working knowledge of what it takes to do the real work. Unfortunately, many businesses do not have Mustang leadership running the show.

Many businesses have poor leaders in place.

People with no vision, no leadership qualities, and shaded moral compasses. When these leadership errors manifest, the symptoms appear in employee turnover, rampant degeneration of goals, and contrived divisiveness that can rip through a good businesses ability to operate like a knife through hot butter.

Mustangs are the types of leaders that everyone respects and aren't just the tailoring of a fancy title. Real Mustangs are forces of nature. Mustangs roll up their sleeves, have their brows beat, excel often, and fail with grace. Mustangs aren’t perfect, but they are well-rounded and through their application of skills know how to inspire people to accomplish important missions.

Mustangs are not elitists, or operate blissfully ignorant. They don't operate with their heads in the sand and standby while letting good people take collateral damage. They are the type who discourage group think and encourage thinking about how to lead from the front and succeed because they are simply good at what they do. They know when to release control of a conversation when they are respectfully outgunned, and know how to underwrite the value of ideas, and our most important asset – human capital. Mustangs don’t need to foster fear or betrayal to accomplish their ends. Mustangs take a "big picture" approach to operating and don't stonewall to succeed - they bring walls down with well placed C4.

They are made up of the stuff that leads from the front and view espionage as a tactic to win a skirmish, not a strategy to win wars.

I’ve been fortunate enough to surround myself with a great deal of Mustangs and could not have achieved the level of success I have without these people. I would encourage all of those who aspire to take things to the next level in business to not only become a Mustang yourself, but recruit some of your own.

If you do, you will end up on the winning side of the equation every time.