British Army Mission Command: Don’t tell your people how to do their job, simply make clear what the Mission is and empower them to step up and achieve it.
How could you speed up the process of Covid testing drivers to get them through a bottleneck and keep supply lines flowing? How about learning Polish?
Currently many in the British Army are deployed supporting UK domestic and civilian roles. One of these areas is in supporting Covid tests at the pinchpoint of the English Channel, where lorry/truck drivers are given Covid tests before being permitted to travel to and from mainland Europe. Many of the drivers are from Eastern Europe, including Poland. This soldier has taught himself Polish so that he can more quickly and efficiently communicate with Polish drivers.
The British Army has a philosophy of Mission Command, one that has, over the last couple of decades, radically shifted them away from “command and control” to the empowerment of troops “on the ground”, enabling them to, react, to be agile, to swiftly respond in service of the mission rather than await instructions and orders. Simply put:
Mission Command: Don’t tell your people how to do their job, simply make clear what the Mission is and empower them to step up and achieve it.
This reminds me of a favourite quote on leadership:
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, adventurer and author of The Little Prince, as referenced in this post
Consider your own leadership. Could you do more to set a Mission and free your people up to achieve it? This is #OpenLeadership
I love that the tweet I saw the soldier in came from The Chief of the General Staff. Imagine how much more acknowledged and empowered that soldier must now feel!: