Lead your peers when given the chance–they want it, you need it, and the mission requires it. Though we all understand this dynamic, we often see hesitation, doubt, and lack of confidence when faced with the opportunity (or requirement) to lead our peers.
Ranger School is often referred to as the U.S. Army’s premier leadership development course. We don’t disagree, but we would suggest that while graduating Ranger School requires you to demonstrate some leadership ability, your ultimate success has far more to do with your ability and willingness to be a great teammate…especially when you don't want to be. You learn how to prioritize the have-to-do’s when all you crave are the want-to-do’s. When you figure that out, you graduate and earn the right to handle some pretty cool get-to-do’s of leadership back at your unit.
In Ranger School, you cycle through a series of peer-led, graded patrols, allowing students to take different leadership roles on a continuously rotating basis. In the span of a day, you could be a rifleman responsible for watching your sector of fire from a fighting position to the patrol leader responsible for leading the 40-person patrol through a raid. You may go from managing your rifle and your ruck to leading your peers and being responsible for the entire platoon’s performance. You learn a lot about leadership in this fluid environment, especially about what works, and what doesn’t, when it comes to leading peers. Some folks are comfortable with this dynamic and handle it well. But most are not, and tend to struggle in a couple of major areas. We call these common problem areas: “failures between the ears” and “failures between the peers”.
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Some aspiring leaders fail before they ever give themselves a chance to succeed, succumbing to imposter syndrome and self-limiting beliefs. The internal talk track of imposter syndrome sounds like, “Who am I to tell these folks what to do?” “They probably won’t like me,” or “I feel like a fake.” This kind of thinking creates self-imposed limitations. The internal noise is so loud that it drowns out the external interactions. Peers have no chance to follow because the leader has already taken themselves out of the game before it even started.
None of us are impervious to this. And while I didn’t experience this as much in Ranger School, I can assure you I felt it in the healthcare sales. When I became the sales director of a multi-state region, leading sales professionals with ten to fifteen years of experience on me and other former soldiers who outranked me while we were in uniform, the internal mixtape of imposter syndrome struck. I doubted myself before allowing my team to doubt me–or follow me, for that matter!
Fortunately, my mentor and boss sat me down at the onset and asked me how I was doing. Surprisingly, the biggest self-limiting belief I harbored rested in my service.
“I’m unsure about leading these former military officers since they know I was a former non-commissioned officer,” I said.
“Last I checked, your title read Sales Director, not Sergeant,” he replied.
I needed to hear that. I suspect someone reading this needs to hear it, too. Fulfill the role and responsibilities you’ve been given. Whether you wanted it or not, you’ve earned it.
We also acknowledge that there are times when peers (or former peers) make it difficult for us to lead. We may get some ribbing about “being the boss now,” and we may get asked to do favors for teammates we’ve worked with in the past. Some of your teammates will prefer to continue considering you “one of the guys/gals”. These situations do occur, and they test our ability to fully embrace the role of a leader. And this is where we have to set the tone and be a professional. Whether you’re at Ranger School or working in a corporation, it is always acceptable to take your role seriously and do it to the very best of your ability. Remember that YOU haven’t changed. Your ROLE has changed. Being a leader doesn’t require you to be a totally different person or disavow previous friendships, and it simply requires you to do the job.
That’s why the first step to overcoming both of these pitfalls is accepting your role as the leader. When in charge, be in charge. If you feel the common pull of imposter syndrome, acknowledge it for what it is and why it’s there. It’s a natural reaction to the unknown, and it’s there because you care. You care about your people and your mission and want to succeed. It’s not there because you’re a self-saboteur, and it’s something that nearly every high performer I know has experienced. You’re normal. And you’re the leader, so lead. Even when you doubt it and especially when you’re scared. Lead. Because your people want to be led by you. You learn that in Ranger School - that most of the doubt occurs not amongst your peers but in the six inches between your ears.
Very little is more frustrating in Ranger School than a peer leader who won’t lead. Stuck in their head or lost in the moment's pressure, they drift like a leaf in the wind. And they take the team along for the topsy-turvy ride, making a tough situation significantly harder. All the while, as the peer, you wish they would settle in and take charge. Even if they make a few bad calls here and there, you would rather they make them confidently and give the team the chance to rise to every occasion–good, bad, and in between.
Though decades in the rearview mirror, I recall peer-patrol leaders confidently making decisions I disagreed with. And I followed them because they took charge. Sometimes, they solicited input; other times, they didn’t. Sometimes, I was wrong, and it worked out fine. Other times, I was right, but we rallied to pull off an ugly win. And sometimes, we lost, but we lost together. But each time, I followed because they led. And that’s the point. I wanted them to lead. Regardless of whether we were droning in the foxhole together or I was in charge of them before, when they were put in charge, I needed them to be in charge.
Growth is always accompanied by some discomfort. Leading peers can be intimidating and stressful, but doing it well doesn’t take anything magical…it just requires you to lead.
