Why You Have to Lead From the Front

This post kind of follows on from The Secret To Motivation, in that post I detail how I have and do motivate people. This post will draw on some of my own experiences in motivating people by leading from the front. I want to go deeper into this subject because motivation is something you can’t buy, but if you have motivated readers or customers, you have officially cracked it;

• First In

I used to run a course in which soldiers had to volunteer to attend. It was a high failure rate due to the intensity of the arduous physical training. One morning the troops had orders to be on parade in full kit at 0530hrs. It was dark, wet and cold. I was already waiting for them before they turned up, in true Physical Training Instructor style I was waiting in the shadows, unseen, in order to listen and watch the squad to see who wasn’t being quiet, who was messing about and who didn’t have the mental strength to listen to simple instructions.

45 minutes went by, shivering in the harsh rain, I was being called all the names under the sun. One of the troops suggest they move slowly back to get into some shelter so they wouldn’t get as wet, people were talking etc etc. I finally broke cover from in front of them to stunned silence.

I didn’t have to scream and shout, I didn’t have to remind them how they had let themselves down, but that morning they learnt an important lesson and more importantly they realised that I was leading from the front, I was working a lot harder than they were. They knew I was just as cold as they were and had been there longer because they hadn’t seen me.

• Last Out

Sometimes it’s easy to forget how much work goes into something, if you are working on a presentation at work, the effort being put in may get noticed but what about after the presentation is over? It doesn’t end there. I did an Ultra Marathon a few years ago, which was followed the next day by a half marathon, it wasn’t for charity or anything, just a group of us decided to do it to see if we could do it.

That Ultra Marathon (54 miles with weight) was really quite an emotional experience. The mental strength it took was incredible and what made it worse was having to keep making sure everyone was OK and going back for the odd one who dropped behind. We did it as a team but everyone was wiped and although no one said it, the half marathon the next day was a serious doubt due to the amount we had suffered on this day.

As soon as we all got back, everyone crashed too tired even to eat. I left the guys to it and went to the canteen. Now I don’t condone this, but it illustrates the point a bit;

I broke into the fridges and containers and ‘aquired’ as much food and soft drinks as I could fit into a trolley which I also came across. That night we ate a massive amount of fresh fruit (which was rare being in the desert) fresh juice, steak, eggs and cakes while we sat round a heater watching the film ‘Dude Where’s my Car’

That extra effort for those guys transformed a painful experience into a lasting memory and yes we did the half marathon the next day and the lads were boasting about it for years!

• Pathfinder

Being unique is the beauty of the internet, you can be exactly who you want to do and you can pretty much say there will be people out there who like what you do. The same can be applied for paving the way for others. Not surprisingly I have a quick reference to this too, but when I first passed my Physical Training Instructors course, I was one of the youngest ever to pass it and I wanted to prove I was worthy of the badge to my fellow comrades.

We had a regimental physical fitness test, everyone in the regiment was there, including he Commanding Officer, now I didn’t set out to do this, but I ended up failing him on the test because he wasn’t meeting the grade. Bad move? Well the next few months were hell, especially when I said he had to attended extra training with everyone else at 0600hrs every morning including weekends.

As the months went on though you could see all the other senior officers training like mad to make sure they didn’t end up with the same fate and the respect from the junior ranks was incredible. It had never been done before, someone had actually stood up and said ‘no matter what rank you are, rules are rules’.

If you want to do something a certain way and believe in it, then do it, you never know it may just become the industry standard.

• Hot drink

Now the above ways are great ways of motivating your readers and customers, but sometimes all they want is an ear. We had a 6 week exercise in eastern Europe one year which was pre-deployment training before we went on operational tour, in which one of the guys died in a road traffic accident. I was first on scene and was with him when he died. Usual military sketch, chests come out, you get on with it and remember him the way he was not how he should have been.

I looked round and saw my senior officer sat on the embankments with his head in his hands, I walked straight over and sat next to him (with a bit of a clout to be honest as I slipped but that’s a different matter), his first reaction was to tell me to leave him alone, as I was known for the motivator no matter what the circumstance, he rightly didn’t want any of that.

I didn’t, I got my brew kit out, little firelighter, cup, I didn’t have enough hands to do it quickly so I asked him to hold my water bottle, then asked him to pour the water in while I got some food out too. We watched the water boiler and the food get hot. It finally got hot enough to finish everything, so I made him a coffee with extra sugar and left him with the hot food. We didn’t say much, but it’s exactly what he needed to accept it, grieve and move on.

Being the person who understands doesn’t have to be the person who always has something profound to say.

If you lead by example you really can have brand and website loyality for life!

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