Leading Software Teams in 1917
After graduating from the Naval Academy in 2000, I was a new officer working a critical mission to support of the National Security Agency. While running a division, I met a Marine Corps officer named Captain Miller. He was funny, confident, and well respected. Obviously, he had faults like a normal person, but he was always true to his word and worthy of emulation. We quickly became friends. During one of our chats, he brought with him a snippet of Major Christian Albert Bach’s remarks, in 1917, to the graduating officers at Fort Sheridan in Chicago. The name of the article was “Know your men, know your business, and know yourself”. To this day, I pull this up every time I enter a new role, I have to learn a new technology, or have to lead a technical team. Even though this article was written for infantry officers fighting in the horrific trenches of France, these lessons are just as valid today in the high tech software space. You can listen to the full speech here.
Mastery is Foundational
Self-confidence results, first, from exact knowledge; second, the ability to impart that knowledge; and third, the feeling of superiority over others that naturally follows. All these give the officer poise. To lead, you must know! You may bluff all of your men some of the time, but you can’t do it all the time. Men will not have confidence in an officer unless he knows his business, and he must know it from the ground up. The officer should know more about paper work than his first sergeant and company clerk put together; he should know more about messing than his mess sergeant; more about diseases of the horse than his troop farrier. He should be at least as good a shot as any man in his company. If the officer does not know, and demonstrates the fact that he does not know, it is entirely human for the soldier to say to himself, “To hell with him. He doesn’t know as much about this as I do,” and calmly disregard the instructions received. There is no substitute for accurate knowledge! Become so well informed that men will hunt you up to ask questions; that your brother officers will say to one another, “Ask Smith – he knows.” And not only should each officer know thoroughly the duties of his own grade, but he should study those of the two grades next above him. A two-fold benefit attaches to this. He prepares himself for duties, which may fall to his lot any time during battle; he further gains a broader viewpoint which enables him to appreciate the necessity for the issuance of orders and join more intelligently in their execution.
Leadership = Self Sacrifice
If you have a rotten company it will be because you are a rotten captain. Self-sacrifice is essential to leadership. You will give, give, all the time. You will give of yourself physically, for the longest hours, the hardest work and the greatest responsibility are the lot of the captain. He is the first man up in the morning and the last man in at night. He works while others sleep. You will give of yourself mentally, in sympathy and appreciation for the troubles of men in your charge. This one’s mother has died, and that one has lost all his savings in a bank failure. They may desire help, but more than anything else they desire sympathy. Don’t make the mistake of turning such men down with the statement that you have troubles of your own, for every time you do that you knock a stone out of the foundation of your house.
Know You Team
And, lastly, if you aspire to leadership, I would urge you to study men. Get under their skins and find out what is inside. Some men are quite different from what they appear to be on the surface. Determine the workings of their mind.
References:
Speech = https://swordarm.in/?page_id=384