Day of Days
In our last discussion, we compared the actions of two leaders in an effort to answer the question "What does leadership look like?". In this episode, we will focus on one of those leaders, Lt. Richard "Dick" Winters. As Easy Company makes the "jump" into Normandy, France, the story follows along with Winters and several members of Easy. In the early morning hours, Winters demonstrates TIER leadership. He gathers up several soldiers and Takes Initiative and Engages. When he has the first opportunity, he also Reports his actions. In other words, he begins to show us answers to the question:
What Does a Leader Look Like?
How would you describe the characteristics of a good leader? Depending on the book you read, you will find a long list of character or behavior traits. As it has been said, "You don't need an interpreter to understand someone's character." So what kind of leader do you want to be? How do you determine which character traits are important to develop? If you are part of an organization like Chino Valley Fire, it can be helpful to align you Personal Values with the Organizational Values:
Faithfulness Integrity Respect Excellence
As you watch this episode, pay careful attention to how Winters behaves, as actions speak much louder than words. Consider the following:
Discussion questions to consider...
- How does Winters demonstrate FAITHFULNESS?
- How does Winters demonstrate INTEGRITY?
- How does Winters demonstrate RESPECT?
- How does Winters demonstrate EXCELLENCE?
Leaders possess many characteristics that make them effective. Lt. Winters has many great leadership characteristics, but the most important ones were on full displayed during the Normandy invasion. In my opinion, he demonstrated the most important leadership qualities through his ability to plan and make decisions while engaged in battle. Due to these abilities during an extremely challenging assignment, he displayed his faithfulness to duty, and his integrity. In return, this commanded him respect as a leader. Creating an alternative plan after having planes fly off course, paratroopers jumping early, personnel being scattered far from their objective and losing many positional leaders would be difficult at best. In spite of this, he organized his men, came up with a plan to take out the German machine guns, and made to decision on how to best achieve this.
ReplyDeleteFor me personally, this is just another example as to why I must continue in striving to be a leader of competence, character, and courage.
Great insight and personal reflections Mike. I agree that competence, character, and courage are values and characteristics of great leadership.
ReplyDeleteWinters demonstrates a certain faithfulness to his plan of attack on the guns. He sticks to his plan to execute it effectively by clear and concise instruction.
ReplyDeleteWinters integrity to his men by doing his part in the attack and following through with his own plan and leading from the front.
Winters respect comes from his ability to lead efficiently, confidently and calm. He respects his men by the faith he has in them to complete there objective efficiently.
Winters excellence on the battlefield extends from his ability to develop a plan assign the duties and have it work without fail or large loss of life. His ability to lead by example and calm demeanor motivated the men to do the same. Rather than give orders and stand back Winters is in the middle of the firefight with the men.
Something that sticks out to me about how they write Lt. Winters character is that he doesn't seek approval from his men. I feel that it's natural for fire service leaders to desire to maintain relationships and approval from our crews and our leaders. There's an interesting dichotomy between military leaders and fire service leaders. They both lead people into danger. They both spend exorbitant amounts of time with those they lead. But in all of that, there is far more likelihood for fire service leaders to fraternize with their crews. I believe this lends to the challenge of resisting our innate personal desire for acceptance. We will have to make decisions that are not popular. A goal of mine is to be better at having confidence in my decisions rather than the acceptance/approval of them.
DeleteOnce again, Lt Winters demonstrated many qualities of a great leader. He demonstrated faithfulness to his crew by educating himself on the mission and developing a workable plan for his crew. He also showed integrity in working his plan with his members, ensuring the mission would be a success. He did not send his men into battle to report back to him. He provided leadership while working with his crew, engaging with the enemy and completing the mission.
ReplyDeleteLt Winters had the respect of his men on and off the field. He began with a clear briefing, explaining all the components of the mission. He also demonstrated the ability to keep his men loose. He would make comments that would get his crew to laugh. This interaction was a great quality that would assist the crew with getting through a very tough battle.
As stated at the end of the episode, Lt Winters tactics for taking out the enemies’ guns are still being utilized today. Lt. Winters demonstrated excellence with his tactical decisions during extreme conditions.
Great discussion everyone!
ReplyDeleteAlso worth considering...how would you apply the same characteristics of leadership (Faithfulness, Integrity, Respect, and Excellence) to the ideal company officer and/or chief officer?
In response to this question Jeremy, I would say that FIRE can be multifaceted. Faithfulness is shown to our Mission, Vision and Values. By this I mean we show our faithfulness to our community our fire district as an organization and our people by the job we do; how we treat our customers; how we treat each other. Our integrity is on display throughout each shift in how we respond to assignments, challenges and opportunities. I believe respect is a rather large characteristic of leadership. I believe its much more than how we treat or speak to people. If I respect someone then I shouldn't say anything about them that I wouldn't say to them. Personally, this is an area that I have grown and still have room for growth. When I'm speaking about something or someone I need to consider the worth and the weight of my words. Having a thought or a feeling isn't enough reason to give it breath. Many times I've realized holding onto those thoughts/feelings is the better choice. I want to be better at only giving breath to words that bring life. If I could draw a correlation to episode 2, I would direct our attention to how Lt. Winters responded to the great challenges he faced. His company had to jump under heavy fire, while aircraft were not able to maintain proper speed, altitude or course. He was shown to have landed without all his gear nor his weapon. He had to find his way out of a dangerous location, without his men, unsure of his location, collected a motely crew of paratroopers and engaged the enemy with a guy that didn't show him respect. He did all of this without complaining or giving breath to all that he was up against. One could consider that Lt. Winters displays excellence of character.
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