Leadership Lessons from the United States Naval Academy – Make the Decision Your Own

Nations entrust their military personnel with the responsibility of providing for the national defense and securing the rights and liberties of their people. This goal places many who serve in harms way, whether during peacetime or when at war. Ambiguity in how these outcomes are to be achieved on a strategic or tactical level can be disastrous for both service members and their country.

As future military officers, United States Naval Academy midshipmen learn the importance of eliminating uncertainty for those they lead. The orders they issue must align with the organizational decisions made to achieve their unit’s strategic and tactical mission goals. To achieve this, directives must not only be consistent with higher-level commands but must also be personally owned by the issuing officer. Orders presented as directions from another authority conveys less than full support by the issuing officer; creating doubt among subordinates and resulting in less than complete commitment. It also causes subordinates to question the issuing officer’s authority to give such orders, a critical risk during times of crisis. This uncertainty can lead to execution hesitation and deviation; diminishing outcome achievement.

Lost Organizational Alignment, Productivity, and Moral

Ambiguity in direction setting and decision-making degrades organizational alignment and results achievement within any organization. Too often, managers assign ownership for unpopular directives or those they don’t full agree with to executives or senior managers. Employees readily recognize this lack of commitment and consequently put off such work, take shortcuts in its performance, and become disgruntled for having to perform what is viewed as low value work. The organization’s overall performance suffers as does employee moral.

Diminished Managerial Authority

Issuing directions as coming from another, often higher authority, causes subordinates to question the manager’s authority. Each time a direction is given as coming from someone else, the manager creates the appearance that he/she does not have the right to direct such action thereby limiting his/her own authority. This effect is additive and over time can so diminish the manager’s perceived authority so much as to render him/her incapable of effectively executing the management role.

Disagree In Private

All organization members are obligated to challenge those directives that are unethical, illegal, or exceed the issuing manager’s authority. Employees should convey these and other concerns related to received assignments in private; vetting issues with their manager before action is taken but out of sight of others who might be negatively impacted by the opposing opinion. Good leaders welcome this type of dialog as a way to both improve on their decisions as well as to train subordinates. After such discussions, if the directive is ethical, legal, and within the manager’s authority, subordinates should themselves own the directive and see that it is faithfully executed to the best of their ability.

Additional Resources

Leadership training at the United States Naval Academy includes reading and in-depth discussion of Damn Exec by Lieutenant Commander Stuart D. Landersman. This story clearly illustrates the importance of assuming ownership for organizational decisions and issuing directives as such.

About the Author

Nathan Ives is a StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal, and Class of 1992 graduate from the United States Naval Academy. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.