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Praise for The Three Meter Zone
“I have read plenty of leadership books and find this one to be the most realistic . . . This book is down to earth, with plenty of scenarios, quotations and situations that can easily be related to a reader’s past, present and future. I highly recommend this book.”—Army Magazine
“Pendry’s book is both timely and useful . . . I encourage all battalion and brigade commanders to add it to their unit’s professional reading list . . . Read this book, take up his challenge to critically examine ourselves and our styles.”—Armor Magazine
“[J. D. Pendry] does a superb job of relating his own personal experiences and tying them into everyday leadership and management principles ... It is not too difficult to transfer the lessons presented here to any other military service or civilian application.”—U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings
“Business and corporate leaders would do well to take [Pendry’s] lessons to heart.”—Ocala, Florida, Star Banner
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780307548047 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Random House Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 12/30/2008 |
| Sold by: | Random House |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
INTRODUCTION
Noncommissioned officers (NCOs) are great teachers—arguably the best in the world. Still, we don’t always do a good job teaching leadership. What we teach and how we teach it cause soldiers to memorize lists of traits, principles, characteristics, and leadership theories. When they can recite these lists, we believe we’ve taught them leadership. We need to concentrate on how soldiers really learn to lead and follow. We’ll do a better job of teaching them if we do.
I believe there are three types of soldiers. I call them three-meter, fifty-meter, and 100-meter soldiers. Each type requires a different level or style of leadership. This book talks about each in detail. I also believe that all levels of leadership are important. The most important and critical leadership, however, takes place between the soldier and the first line noncommissioned leader. This is the leadership that happens at the first level—in the three-meter zone.
Soldiers don’t learn to lead or follow from generals. They learn from other soldiers. Reading what is written by and about our nation’s greatest generals teaches them about our army, its history, and the generals’ careers. Leadership theory written by professionals holding impressive credentials teaches how leadership could or should work in a perfect world. Soldiers learn our basic leadership manual and commit many principles and factors, and all the be, know, and do attributes to memory. At the end of the day, though, all a soldier learns about leading and following is learned from another soldier—a noncommissioned officer.
By example, we teach soldiers how to follow and lead. Both are arts for soldiers to master. A soldier is exposed to many leaders in the army. The most important and influential leader for a soldier is always the closest one: the one in the three-meter zone.
Every soldier is a leader regardless of his rank or position. His attitude, opinions, desires and deportment mold the approach to mission taken by those above him and his subordinates. It is the summation of this leadership by ‘every soldier’ that makes our Army a winner.
—Department of the Army Pamphlet 600–65, November 1985, author unknown
Leaders are not always senior in rank. For me, the most valuable leadership lessons always have come from the example of the leaders closest to me. I still learn from them every day. Some exceptional men and women have taught me valuable lessons over time. Conversely, I have learned from some pitiful ones, too. The soldierly values and work ethic passed to me from those exceptional soldiers taught me to discern between good and bad, right and wrong. They also taught me to examine critically all issues from a soldier’s perspective.
I have read books by famous leaders. They are great for personal development and leadership quotes. These great leaders, if they were soldiers, usually attributed some of their success to noncommissioned officers. Most were adamant about that. What I never got from any of these stories was how the noncommissioned officers felt about these relationships and their part in them. What’s missing from our leadership teaching of soldiers is the soldiers’ and NCOs’ perspectives and the realization that we actually teach leadership by our actions.
In The Three-Meter Zone, you won’t find any lists to memorize, or theories from some doctoral thesis on leadership. There are no career maps or lists of things a leader or NCO is supposed be, know, or do. What you will find is a soldier’s perspective on everyday leadership in the three-meter zone.
It’s not the intent of this book to provide noncommissioned officers or anyone else a chiseled-in-stone formula for becoming effective leaders. Although many well-credentialed and distinguished scholars of leadership will argue that there is one, I have never been able to find a magic formula for successful leadership. What works for one does not always work for another.
The hope for this book is that it will cause noncommissioned officers to take a critical look at leadership. The purpose of each chapter is to start a discussion and encourage noncommissioned officers to enter their voices into the discussion of leadership. If some of my writing sounds like I’m preaching a sermon, it’s because I’m hoping that by offering you a point of view, I’ll encourage you to offer yours. That’s how we can fill the void in the discussion of leadership. Who better to fill it than the real on-the-ground leaders of our army—noncommissioned officers?
PART ONE: THE LEADER
Leadership is a matter of intelligence, trustworthiness, humaneness, courage, and sternness.
—Sun Tzu, The Art of War
If you spend even a short amount of time in the army, sooner or later you will have to perform as a leader. It doesn’t matter if you have to lead in combat arms, combat support, or combat service support units. It’s important to realize, however, that your opportunity may come on short notice, and it may not be in an environment conducive to your gradual development as a leader. It’s never too early to begin your preparation for the eventuality that some day you will lead.
CHAPTER ONE
BUILDING THE FOUNDATION
A foundation is the basis upon which something stands and is supported. A leader, like a structure, must have a solid foundation to stand erect and weather the inevitable storms.
Your Leadership Philosophy
Communications, or the ability to inform people what you expect of them in understandable terms and the ability to transmit to them your interest in them, is the key to successful leadership.
—Gen. Harold K. Johnson
Everything we do and are comes from our value systems. How we view and treat others, our work ethic, and our ability to discern right from wrong all stem from our values. We express our values to others by our actions. It’s important for us to communicate them orally and in writing, too. Approaching our philosophy like this causes us to do some deep, critical thinking that’s probably past due.
The first time I ever thought about the term “leadership philosophy,” I figured it was something dreamed up by some old, retired soldier who finally had time to reflect on his greatness. Philosophy, to me, was one of those nerdy college subjects to be avoided. It was the father of some odd discussions. Which came first—the chicken or the egg? Or—If there is no one in the forest to see the tree fall, does it make any noise? I didn’t see how any of this applied to being a soldier or leading one.
Curiosity forced me to the dictionary. There I found at least a dozen definitions of philosophy. Reading down the list, I was reaffirming my initial belief that philosophy and leadership were like water and oil. To use a modern buzzword, the synergy just wasn’t there. I was ready to chuck the whole notion until I got to definition number eleven. Old number eleven read, “The system of values by which one lives.”
The first battalion commander I had as a command sergeant major sat me down and told me that he wanted to share his leadership philosophy with me and give me a written copy of it. I was instantly leery. I had heard about these guys who gave their command sergeants major letters telling them what their jobs were. I sat back, squinted one eye a little, folded my arms, and listened.
He went over his couple of sheets of paper with me line by line. My scowl began to relax as he started telling me what he was going to do—not what I was going to do. He told me how he liked to be dealt with and how he dealt with others. He laid out his views on training, discipline, quality of life, team building, communication, and many other issues important to leaders. The only thing he said about me was how he viewed our command-team relationship and its importance to the success of the command.
He also laid out for his staff and commanders his expectations of them. He gave a copy of his philosophy to all of his key staff and commanders. He gave us his contract. He gave us his views on important issues and told us how he operated. Then he said, “And you can hold me to it.” I punched three holes in that paper and put it in my walking-around notebook. I did hold him to it. He never came up short of what he said he was or what he said he would do.
I figured there had to be something to this idea of writing down a leadership philosophy. So I thought I would try my hand at my own. It made me think about how I felt about communicating, training, counseling, quality of life, and the leadership competencies that are important to leading soldiers. I was surprised at just how little deep, critical thought I had given to what I called my profession—leading soldiers. For things about which I should have had a solid, experience-based opinion, I was drawing a blank.
I was in a real dilemma. I didn’t know or couldn’t discuss how I felt about important leadership topics. Unit first sergeants and other key noncommissioned officers (NCOs) could not support my position if they didn’t know where I was going and how I planned to get there.
Developing, committing to writing, and sharing your philosophy on leading with key people that you rely on is a critical step in taking a leadership role in an organization. As you write down and prepare to share your philosophy, consider some important points. Make sure it’s yours. Don’t put some words onto a piece of paper because they sound good, and don’t make the mistake of writing down how you’d like to be. Write down how you are. It has to be your philosophy. You have to believe it and live it. Because whomever you share it with will hold you to it, just as I did with my commander.
Table of Contents
| Acknowledgments | vii | |
| Foreword | ix | |
| Introduction | xi | |
| Part 1 | The Leader | 1 |
| 1 | Building the Foundation | 3 |
| 2 | Establishing Direction | 36 |
| 3 | Being the Example | 68 |
| 4 | Communicating | 91 |
| Part 2 | The Soldiers | 103 |
| 5 | Standards and Discipline | 105 |
| 6 | Know Them | 119 |
| 7 | Respect and Reward Them | 161 |
| 8 | Motivate Them | 186 |
| 9 | Train Them | 195 |
| 10 | Physically Train Them | 212 |
| 11 | Final Thoughts | 228 |