Page 131 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

THE LESSONS

Evans to be one of six battalion officers at the Naval Academy—the first
female battalion officer in Navy history—placing her in charge of the train-
ing and well-being of hundreds of midshipmen. The academy was meant
to be a place of discipline and decorum, but occasionally a lower classman
would slip up by wearing nonregulation clothing, which caused the acad-
emy’s commandant to crack down on the youngster’s battalion officer.
“We’d go every Monday morning for a meeting with the commandant,
and he’d wring his hands and embarrass my fellow battalion officers about
their midshipman turning up in Budweiser T-shirts and that sort of thing,”
Evans explained. “So when I saw one of my third classmen in a Budweiser
T-shirt, I summoned the entire chain of command between me and that
youngster. I remember the lecture so well. I said, ‘You know, my own basic
leadership belief is that people generally want to do the right thing, and if
they’re not doing the right thing it’s because they haven’t been trained prop-
erly. They haven’t somehow had the benefit of the teaching and the lead-
ership of their seniors. So, I can only come to the conclusion that this
youngster is wearing this T-shirt because he has suffered from faulty com-
munication by his midshipman chain of command.’ Each person in the
third classman’s chain of command was held accountable and punished.
That’s the last T-shirt problem I had in my battalion. And, it was simple
and maybe silly, but word went out far and wide that Commander Evans
was not fooling around about holding accountable the people that were up
and down the chain.”
Evans’s commonsense approach to encouraging better communication
in her organization helped her create a more cohesive team and also gar-
nered the Navy’s attention. She was promoted steadily throughout her
thirty-year career and retired as a two-star rear admiral, one of only a few
women to attain that rank. Since leaving the military, Evans has used her
outstanding communication skills in her roles as director of the Girl Scouts
of the USA and president and CEO of the American Red Cross.
Great leaders communicate through their spoken and written words
and their nonverbal actions. For instance, when you “set the example,” that
communicates to your people that you would not ask them to perform any-
thing you would not be willing to do. When someone fails you and you
hold the highest people in the chain of command responsible instead of
the little guy, you communicate that you are serious about this issue because
you choose to hold those truly responsible accountable.

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