Deckplate Leadership

This is a translation of “A Teen’s 10 Commandments For Parents” from Kevin Lemans book, Adolescence Isn’t Terminal, into what I would call “A Junior Sailor’s 10 Commandments For Their Senior Leaders”, inspired by E-Royal’s blog post with the same title as the book.

I find that the parent/child relationship is extremely similar to that of the senior enlisted/junior enlisted relationships in the Navy. When someone joins the service, they become someone new, a Sailor. They are sort of born again into a whole new world that requires nurturing and development by their senior enlisted leaders, much like a newborn child needs the attention of a loving parent. Only, these new Sailors aren’t really newborns. They are adults by the time they get into the Navy. But the approach to leading and developing remain the same as when they were children. I am not saying that people should be treated like children, but rather, as Deckplate Leaders you need to think of them as your children. If you do that then you will take ownership of their development and be proud of their successes as if they were your own kids.

The Junior Sailor’s 10 Commandments For their Senior Enlisted Leaders:

1. Please don’t give me everything I say I want. Saying no shows me you care. I appreciate guidelines.

Ensuring that your people are “taken care of” means giving them what they need, not necessarily what they want. Often, people want things that aren’t necessarily good for them.

2. Don’t treat me as if I were a little kid. Even though you know what’s “right,” I need to discover some things for myself.

There are a couple of things going on here. First, the new Sailors are struggling to find their own way after leaving home. They get treated like children by their parents, people they meet out in town, and older co-workers. The last thing they need, or even want, is for their senior enlisted leaders treating them as children too. When you do that you actually push the Sailor away, and most times you will get less than positive results with that approach. Again, you can’t treat your junior Sailors like children, but you must instead internally think of them as your children…and take ownership of their development. Treat them like babies, you’ll raise babies. Treat like adults though…

Second, you can’t learn your job skills or leadership from a book, lecture, or even this blog. You can only learn about it from those sources. The next step is then to apply what you have learned in the real word, and this means making mistakes. Making mistakes is healthy though, for making mistakes is really the best way to learn. As deckplate leaders, you need to let your people learn for themselves by allowing them to make mistakes sometimes.

3. Respect my need for privacy.

This clarifies the need to be intrusive leaders. This does NOT mean being nosy, or even pushy. We are not parents or professional counselors, so we have no right to medle in personal affairs. By staying out of the Sailors’ personal affairs you respect their need for privacy. But by doing so you then need to be able to be approachable so that you can have candid conversations with your people, and be able to ask them the tough questions in order to get to know them well enough that you know almost everything going on in their private lives without really needing to know all the gory details.

4. Never say, “in my day…” that’s an immediate turn off. Besides the pressures and responsiblities of my world are more complicated than they were when you were my age.

This is true. The generation behind us faces new and unique challenges that didn’t exist when we were growing up. It’s not to say that there isn’t a place for sharing our sea stories to help teach a lesson, but people don’t generally like our experience crammed down their throats all the time. It tends to make the Sailor feel as if their experiences are insignificant because we always had it harder. In fact most times, the fact that we had it harder is pretty much already inferred by our age or seniority in rank. So there’s really no need for us to continuously announce it.

5. I don’t pick your friends or clothes; please don’t criticize mine. We can disagree and still respect each other’s choices.

This of course does not include inappropriate clothing that violates the Navy’s uniform regulations and policies determined by the Commanding Officers. People definitely still need guidelines. After all, we have a standards to uphold! But, we need to let our Sailors find their own voices by expressing themselves and live their own lives in nondestructive ways. By respecting their personal choices we teach tolerance, and in turn we teach professionalism.

6. Refrain from always rescuing me; I learn most from my mistakes. Hold me accountable for the decisions I make in life; it’s the only way I’ll learn to be responsible.

Letting our people make mistakes does not excuse them from being held accountable. This is how making mistakes allows the Sailor to learn. Sailors must understand that they control their destiny and that all choices come with consequences, positive or negative. The longer you let people go without making mistakes, the harder it is to help them learn from those mistakes and the harder it is for them to recover from making them.

Now, if it is possible to intervene in order to keep your people from making a career ending mistake then as Deckplate Leaders you need to step in and do something. The mistakes I am speaking of are minor and do not negatively impact the lives or careers of themselves and/or others. For example, have your Sailor write their own evaluation. It will not be perfect and there will be plenty of mistakes. So hold them accountable by giving it back to them with some suggestions to improve it and have them re-write it instead of accepting it and making all the changes just because it will get done faster. It makes it all a longer process at first, but the rewards come back ten-fold in the long run. It is up to your creativity as the Deckplate Leaders to create controlled environments where you can allow your people to make mistakes, but not negatively impact their lives or careers, or the success of the mission at hand.

7. Be brave enough to share your disappointments, thoughts, and feelings with me.

Your people, just like everyone else, just want their leaders to be honest with them. Too often do we stand by until things have gotten way out of control because we are too afraid to tell someone in person that they’ve disappointed us. Telling our people when we are disappointed with them lets them know we still care and that we are paying attention.

8. I’ve had years of good instruction; now trust me with the wisdom you have shared.

In the beginning, you hold the Sailors’ hands with a death grip. Then over time you loosen the grip until, ultimately, you let go of their hands and let them go it alone. If you’ve taught them well, they will go on to make good decisions and become successful. After you’ve let go though, it’s time to hold back the advice giving–or at least keep it to a minimum–until they come asking for it.

9. I respect you when you ask me for forgiveness for a thoughtless deed or word on your part. It proves that neither of us is perfect.

Deckplate leaders are not always perfect. Nobody is. Being able to admit when a mistake has been made on our parts makes us more approachable. And it let’s our people know that it is okay to not be perfect either. Also, being the rolemodels that we are, we want to be the person that we want our folks to become, or the goal that we desire our people to reach. Owning up to our own mistakes allows us to become more attainable goals for them because it means that we are not without fault too.

10. Set a good example for me. I pay more attention to your actions than your words.

Actions will ALWAYS speak louder than words. You can have someone that is always grumpy and gruff, but always has time to let you cry on their shoulders. A good example of this is the father that never actually says “I love you”, but you can bet he’ll be at every ballgame, or whenever you need his help. He never says it, but you will never doubt his love because he demonstrates it everyday. Conversely, you can have the father that says “I love you” every other minute, but when he’s not saying it he’s beating you. Or makes you fend for yourself. Or leaves without a trace.
Words are important, but even more so are the actions. So the actions ought to match the words for them to have any meaning or value. The important thing to remember here is that the difference between a promise and a commitment is that a promise is only words.