Living and thinking as a leader. Reflections on the leadership mentality applied to a real work experience.

This line has been repeating in my head all week long, since I first heard it on the Jocko podcast while working at my desk last Monday morning. Jocko Willink is a retired Navy Seal Commander. He coaches businesses on values like leadership and discipline. He also runs the very popular Jocko Podcast. After listening to a clip on youtube about leadership, I literally put Jocko's advice into practice only days after hearing it. And I'm happy I did.

As the newly-hired, fresh-out-of-college "kid." I've been trying to earn my stripes with each of the people that I work with. This can be difficult for someone who doesn't look a day over 17. It's not as if I'm condescended to or patronized in any way, but there is a certain "tone" I occasionally get from a few individuals while in meetings. It's as if I'm not taken seriously, just because of my boyish looks. (I'm 22 years old.) This certainly doesn't stop me from contributing to the discussion, and I'm not afraid to challenge the status quo when I have reason to do so. So how exactly does one lead from a position like this? 

As Jocko puts it, leadership can happen from any position. This had a profound effect on my thinking. And that effect on me permeated through to my professional relationships in a matter of days. I can give a brief overview of what happened.

As the resident designer, I was asked by the sales manager to keep my eye on a specific high-priority job that involved a lot of new product components. Because the job was for an important client, the sales team decided to push our new upcoming stock of lights to showcase our product to potential future customers that this client could bring to us. However, as the products were new from the vendor, no one on our team had worked with these components previously. In-short, this lack of experience with the new product opened up a pandora's box of complications and unforeseen screw-ups. 

As the guy trying to prove himself in his new position, I took it upon myself to make sure this job got handled as best we could. I took the time to learn the products, fix the problems, and ensured the job was executed by our design when being installed. This may sound like a brag, but I essentially saved a priority job from being completely FUBAR to only being somewhat screwed. I'll take somewhat screwed as a win.

Sucking up my insecurities as the "new" guy, and taking my opportunity to lead allowed this job to be salvaged. But thats not where I stopped. I wanted to understand WHY we screwed up where we did. Why did we not order the right parts? Why did the designer not correctly reference the parts in the design? Why is our CAD program not updated with the latest options? And so on. Those questions led to answers, which led to actions. Most of the problems and difficulties we encountered had to do with communication. I feel like when working in large teams like this, things can get lost very easily in the fog. So I wrote an email. I addressed it to everyone on the team: sales, fabricators, stock managers, install managers, schedulers, designers, everyone. I wrote out each point in which we failed in the job in question. After that, I wrote out the problems that contributed to those failures. And after that, I wrote out my detailed proposal of how we were going to fix those problems. After that, I hit send.

Here's the best part, I got recognized for it. Almost immediately after the job was completed, I came to find my inbox full of notes from the team. One from the designer for the job, thanking me for saving her neck with the client. Another note from the sales manager, thanking me for taking initiative to do what was needed. And a last note from the owner of the company, who's praises echoed the last two. 

This experience proved to me that anyone can be a leader, regardless of their position within a given hierarchy. All that mattered was that I was thinking like a leader. I put that thinking to use and offered my thoughts to my superiors. I feel now as if I had earned a couple of those stripes, even if I still look like I'm seventeen.