TheMaverickSergeant

Having recently been asked an interesting question (on Twitter) by and after a chat via DM to a couple of other Twitter followers; here’s my condensed take on the subject. While the below pasted tweet was intended as leadership-orientated, with the would-be reader as the subject encouraged to think; it was suggested to consider the ‘follower’ angle... and rightly so. The leader could be the best in the world, but without their followers they’re nothing. "Your subordinates do 1 of 4 things when you’re not around: [1] Boast about you to peers in other Depts/Units [2] Correct others when you’re being discussed in a negative way [3] Go quiet when you’re being discussed in a negative way [4] Destroy you behind your back You own this. Fite me" Previously, as Retention SNCO, I was too aware that a common gripe with service leavers was a chronic lack of appreciation. In my honest opinion this permeates across a lot of the organisation. We have to celebrate successes, not always down...

This review was first published by the  thearmyleader.co.uk     Published in February 2019, this book is the second volume of Donald Vandergriff and Stephen Webber’s  Mission Command  series, following on from their first edition published in 2017.  Mission Command II: The Who, What, Where, When and Why: An Anthology  (known by its abbreviated title  MC2)  consists of a diverse and complementary collection of essays on the concept of Mission Command. At its core, Mission Command is a philosophy that tells subordinates what to achieve but not how to do it – subordinates control how best to achieve the commanders’ intent. It is an approach used by the UK Armed Forces that decentralises command by empowering subordinates, at every level, to act freely within specified constraints to achieve success. The anthology draws eighteen authors together, many of them serving or retired officers from the USA, Norway and the UK (including one Non-Commissio...

This review was first co-published by the  Centre for Army Leadership  and  Wavell Room  in June 2020. To open with a bold statement, of all the thousands of leadership books out there, every single one of them should be supplemented with  Leadership is Language  by L. David Marquet. In spite of some expectations to the contrary, what is leadership if it is not language? A powerful thing about leadership is that if you think about the words you choose to use, as is the focus of this book, you can change the world around you. Leadership is Language drives home the idea that leadership is about people, and the author argues that leaders cannot lead effectively without an appropriately balanced interplay using words. A quick assumption about this book might be that it perpetuates overly soft, sympathetic, sensitive leadership approaches. It does not. Rather, it is about the leader detaching themselves from notions of invulnerability, certainty, coer...

Conquer This. “ A soldier will fight long and hard for a piece of coloured ribbon.” - Napoleon My sodden combat assault boots pound the tarmac one by one like the sound of a war drum as I double through a seemingly airless, hazy country lane in the five-miles between me and the finish line back at the Commando Training Centre. I grimace with each step as the build up of lactic acid in my muscles burns as I move forward. My soul yearns for me to break into a walk and allow my heart and lungs to catch up and I despair at the impossibly thin air as I draw it in, hopelessly trying to satisfy my body’s crushing demand for oxygen. We’d set off in groups of three at the start point and over the initial two miles of tunnels, mud obstacles and water obstacles through woodland terrain I managed to lose the other two in the distance to my rear. I’m alone in this fight and although it is an individual test I looked at it as a race with these men. My   overly competi...

It was a searing hot and dry day. I still hadn’t acclimatised to the overwhelming heat yet and even after four days I couldn’t believe how intensely bright the sunlight made the desert sand seem. Sunglasses and shadows were my new best friends. I felt as though the air just wasn’t dense enough and at forty-three degrees celsius the heat was easily the highest I had ever experienced. If only I was wearing shorts and a shirt instead of combats, body armour and kevlar helmet. Camp Bastion’s air strip was a furiously loud and busy place. In the waiting area it was only too easy to tell whether the soldiers around me were coming in or going out by their facial expressions, by their kit and how they carried themselves. Some pairs of eyes stared a thousand yards away into nothingness. Their minds were further still. My face harboured the obvious signs of an outward Chinhook flight; fresh faced, clean-shaven, pasty white skin, focused and receptive of all around. However eager and con...

“In doing what we ought we deserve no praise, because it is our duty.” - Saint Augustine   Introduction This is an article about shifting and maintaining focus from compliance through to commitment, about investing time and taking the (nearly always) slow and sometimes difficult route. It’s not about developing soldiers; it’s about setting the conditions where soldiers can develop themselves. Why? Effective leaders foster and maintain genuine trust in order to nurture commitment… not mere compliance. Because committed followers begin (or continue) their shift from being your follower to a future leader. The Task Recently, I was tasked with developing a subordinate in order to deliver a presentation to senior management within the workplace which would qualify him as a competent tradesman. This thirty minute presentation is the culmination of twelve months of field army trade training as an electro-mechanical engineer. It allows the presenter to showcase theoretical and practica...