successful Companys are often led and rarely managed by great leaders. There are reasons for that.

Bad managers, good executives: With personality & empathy

Won the battle but lost the war

On the morning of January 30, 1968, North Vietnam launched a surprise offensive against the US and their allied forces. Over the next 24 hours, over 85.000 North Vietnamese soldiers and Viet Cong units attacked over 125 targets across the country. The American troops were absolutely unprepared. Some of the commanding officers were not even at their posts when the attack began. They celebrated Tết in the nearest town. The so-called Tết offensive took its course. Tết marks the beginning of the lunar new year and for the Vietnamese is as important a holiday as Christmas in the western hemisphere. And like the Christmas truce in World War I, Vietnam had a decades-old tradition of not fighting on that day. But because the North Vietnamese Guide saw an opportunity to surprise American forces and start the war fast To end it, she decided to break with tradition and planned her surprise offensive.

The amazing thing is that the United States was able to repel every single attack. Every. What's more, they noticeably decimated the attackers. When the main onslaught was over - about a week after the first attack - America had lost less than 1000 soldiers. North Vietnam, on the other hand, suffered over 35.000 casualties. In the city of Huế, where fighting dragged on for almost a month, 150 American marines died, but an estimated 5.000 North Vietnamese died. An in-depth analysis of the entire Vietnam War paints a remarkable picture. In fact, the Americans won most of the battles. Over the ten years that US forces fought in the Vietnam War, 58.000 Americans died. North Vietnam, on the other hand, lost over three million People. Applied to America in 1968, that would have equated to 27 million deaths. This raises the question: How can it be that a country wins almost every battle, decimates the enemy and still loses the war?

Why are managers so popular?

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I don't know of a single case where a Organization through their management from a Crisis was led. All, without exception, were saved by leaders. Despite this, a large proportion of our schools and courses still focus on training effective managers rather than developing people into leaders. Short-term gains are the measure of success, long-term growth and viability of an organization fall by the wayside.

This is not meant to be some new theory about proper leadership and its basic principles. My Objective goes far beyond that. I want those Welt do better. I have a clear vision: a new generation of Women and engaging men who understand that an organization's success or failure depends on great leaders, not good managers.

Employees come first

staff for Executives must have absolute priority. In forces like the US Marine Corps, there is a strong organizational culture, shared values ​​and a clear understanding of the importance of Teamwork, mutual Trust and focus on one goal; the most important thing, however, is the armed forces clearthat people and human relationships are essential to the success of the mission. You have also taken on a task where failure can lead to disaster. The failure of the mission is unthinkable. There can be no doubt, it is people who make our military successful.

If you watch Marines gather together, you'll notice that cadets are served first, and senior officers last. If you follow this ritual you will also realize that no orders are given. Marines just do it that way. And this Behavior shows us what leadership means in the Marine Corps. Officers in the Marines are expected to be the last to eat, because the price of leadership is a willingness to serve one's own needs subordinate to the needs of others. Great leaders have a genuine interest in the well-being of those they are privileged to lead and recognize that the price of the privilege of leadership is putting their own interests aside.

Managers need to know the purpose

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An organization is only successful if its leaders understand the real purpose of the organization - "the why". This realization is important to understand the phenomenon that some organizations are more successful than others. But what exactly does lead mean? It is not enough to know "the why"; You need to know the people in your organization and realize that they are more than expandable resources. Professional skills alone do not make a leader; good leaders need to have a real interest in the people who are entrusted to them.

Good management is clearly not enough to secure an organization in the long term. Because there are well-founded reasons why some organizations are successful in the short term, but ultimately fail: The management has not managed to create a corporate climate in which the human factor really counts. As Simon points out, organizations are successful in both good and bad times over the long term when their people share values ​​and are valued.

Protection from above

A thick layer of cloud shielded any light source. There was no moon and no stars to be seen. Everything was black. The unit worked its way slowly down the valley, the rocky subsoil making it impossible to move faster than a snail's pace. What was worse, they knew they were being watched. Everyone was nervous. It was not a year since the September 11th terrorist attacks. The Taliban government was only recently overthrown after a massive attack by US forces following the Taliban's refusal to extradite Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda. At that time, many commando operations were carried out in the combat area, which are still kept secret today. The unit was one of those special forces on a secret mission. We only know that the 22-man unit was operating deep in enemy territory and recently captured a target that the government described as a "high-value target." They now worked their way through a deep valley in a mountainous part of Afghanistan to bring the high-quality target to a safe haven.

That night, Captain Mike Drowley, also known as Johnny Bravo after his call signal and nickname, circled above the thick cloud cover. Apart from the buzzing machines, it was completely quiet and peaceful up there. Thousands of stars twinkled in the sky, and the moon lit the top layer of the cloud so brightly that it looked as if snow had fallen. It was nice.

No other choice

Johnny Bravo and the pilot of the escort plane circled in their A-10s, ready to intervene when needed on the ground. The A-10, affectionately known as the warthog, is technically not a fighter pilot; she is a ground attack aircraft. It is a relatively slow, armored single-seater designed to provide close air support to the ground forces. It's not as fast or as sexy as other jet fighter (hence its nickname), but it does its job efficiently. The two A-10 pilots in the air and the ground forces would have preferred to stay in visual contact. It builds the soldiers' self-confidence when they see the planes in the sky and know that they are protecting them. And it gives the pilots the assurance that they will be able to help when necessary.

But given the thick cloud cover and mountainous terrain, only occasional radio contact was needed to confirm each other's position. Without visual contact, Johnny Bravo couldn't see what the troops were seeing, but he could tell how they were feeling from what he heard over the radio. And that was enough for him to take action. Following his instincts, he decided to do a dive, that is, drop down through the cloud cover to see what was happening on the ground. It was a daring manoeuvre. The thick, low cloud cover, the storms in the region, and the fact that Johnny Bravo would dive into a valley even though his field of vision was limited by night vision goggles, made flying blind through the clouds a highly dangerous endeavor for even the most experienced pilot . Nobody had ordered Johnny Bravo to perform this risky maneuver. At most, he would have been ordered to follow events closely and intervene when called for help. But Johnny Bravo is not like most other pilots. Though he was thousands of meters above them in a safe cockpit, he could sense the great uneasiness of the men below. Despite the danger he was putting himself in, he knew the dive was necessary. But that meant Johnny Bravo had no other Choice would have.

What makes real leaders

And then, just as he was preparing to dive through the clouds into the valley below, his vague instinct was confirmed. Three words came through the radio. Three little words that make a pilot's blood run cold: "Troops are in contact." "Troops are in contact" means someone's in trouble down there on the ground. It is the radio call used by ground forces when under attack. Although Johnny Bravo had heard those words many times during training, it was on that night, August 16, 2002, that he heard the "troops have contact" for the first time in a combat situation. Johnny had found a way to empathize with the men on the ground. To feelwhat they felt. During each training flight over the combat zone, he replayed the scene from Saving Private Ryan, in which the Allies landed on the beaches of Normandy on a stormy night. He imagined the landing craft ramp falling down and the men wading to the beach under German fire.

The bullets whistled around them. Stray bullets hit the steel hull of the boats. There were the screams of those who were hit. Johnny Bravo was calibrated to remember this scene every time he heard the radio call, "Troops are in contact with the enemy." With this image vividly before his eyes, Johnny Bravo responded to the call for help. He instructed the escort aircraft to fly close to the cloud cover, announced his plans to the flight controllers and the troops on the ground, and dived his aircraft into the darkness. As he passed the layer of cloud he was tossed wildly back and forth. A hard push to the left. A sudden air hole. A jerk to the right. In contrast to the civil aviation aircraft with which we fly, the A-10s do not take into account the comfort of the occupants, so the aircraft jumped in the air and was shaken strongly as it dived through the cloud cover.

How to deal with unfamiliar situations

As Johnny Bravo plunged into the unknown without knowing what to expect, he focused on his instruments so much Information record as possible. His eyes wandered from one meter to the next, interrupted by brief glances through the windshield. Altitude, speed, course, and the windshield again. Altitude, speed, course, windshield. "It. Must. Good. Go. Please. It. Must. Good. Go. Please,” he whispered. When he finally broke through the cloud cover, he was barely 300 meters above the ground in a valley. He had never experienced what awaited him before, neither in training nor in the cinema. Enemy fire came from both sides of the valley. Massive barrage. It was so intense that the tracers - the streaks of light that followed the bullets - illuminated the entire area. Bullets and shellfire aimed in the center, all firing directly at the task force pinned down in the valley below.

In 2002, on-board electronics were not as mature as they are today. His instruments couldn't keep Johnny Bravo from crashing into the mountainsides. Worse still, he had old Soviet maps, relics from the invasion of Afghanistan in the 22s. But under no circumstances would he abandon the troops. "There is a fate worse than death," he would say later. “A fate worse than death would be the mistaken killing of one's comrades. It would be worse than death to come home unharmed when XNUMX others were left behind.” And so, on that pitch-black August night, Johnny Bravo started counting. He knew what speed he was flying at, and he knew it Distance to the mountain slopes. He made his calculations quickly, then counted aloud the seconds he had before he hit the wall of the valley. "One thousand, two thousand, three thousand..." He aimed his gun at a spot where a large number of enemy fire was being fired and pulled the trigger on his automatic Gatling autocannon. "Four one thousand, five one thousand, six one thousand..." Running out of space, he pulled on the stick and made a sharp turn. Its engines roared as it ducked back into the clouds to avoid colliding with the mountains. His body was pressed into the pilot's seat by the acceleration of gravity as he started the next lap. But the radio remained silent. It was an unbearable silence. Did that mean his bullets had done nothing? Did it mean the radio operator had been disabled? Worse, did it mean the whole squad had been taken out?

Just did the job

Then the call came. »Big hit! direct hit! Keep it up!” And he went on. He flew a second loop, again counting to avoid crashing into the mountains. "One thousand, two thousand, three thousand..." Another sharp turn, and then another pass; another one; and another one; he landed good hits and had plenty of fuel. Be Problem was that he was running out of ammo. He steered his plane up through the clouds, back to his escort plane, which was still circling above the clouds. Johnny Bravo quickly briefed his partner on the situation below, then said simply, "Follow me." The two A-10s dove into the clouds, wing to wing, a meter apart. Emerging from the cloud layer less than 300 meters above the ground, they launched a joint attack. Johnny Bravo counted, the escort pilot followed him and fired. 'One thousand. two one thousand. three one thousand. Four one thousand . and they went lap after lap, over and over. 'One thousand. two one thousand. three one thousand. Four one thousand.” Twenty-two men returned to the base that night. There were no casualties on the American side. The Value of Empathy That August night, Johnny Bravo risked his life so that others might have a chance to survive. He didn't get a bonus payment.

He was not promoted and received no award in front of the assembled troops. He wasn't looking for an inappropriate one awareness , he didn't need a reality TV show to put his credit in perspective. For Johnny Bravo, it was just his "JOB," as he put it. The greatest reward for his service was meeting the people he had provided such excellent air support to that night. Although they had never met before, they hugged like old friends when the time finally came. When we work in hierarchical structures, we want the people at the top to see what we have accomplished. We're making ourselves known recognition to harvest and receive a reward. Most measure their success by the attention they get from the top of the hierarchy. That is a System, which only works as long as a specific manager guides us in the Company stays and doesn't feel excessive pressure from above - but that's exactly what can hardly be avoided in the long run. Johnny Bravo and his ilk are not motivated by recognition from above to be successful and serve the interests of the organization; they are essential parts of a culture of self-sacrifice and service, and protection at all levels of the organization. There's something, according to Johnny Bravo, that gives him the Courage gives to venture into the unknown, sometimes in the Backgroundthat he may not return. It's probably not what you would expect. Valuable as it was, it's not the operational training. Despite all the training he went through, it's not his either Vocational Training. And as extraordinary as the technical devices at his disposal are, neither are his aircraft and his highly developed systems. It's not her Technologythat he has at his disposal, says Johnny Bravo, it's his empathy that empowers him to do his job or risk his life for others.


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