Page 205 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

THE LESSONS

When given his assignment, the lieutenant asked not a single question
and did not request help from anyone. He simply inserted the message in
a leather pouch strapped to his chest and set out on his mission, determined
to carry it out. Rowan sailed to Cuba aboard a tiny boat, weaving his way
among armed Spanish patrol boats and pretending to be a fisherman, until
he was able to sneak ashore in the dark. He and his Cuban guide traveled
on foot and on horseback, over mountains and deep into the jungle, until
at last he found General Garcia and delivered the president’s message.
However, his mission was only half complete: He still had to return safely
with Garcia’s response intact.
Miraculously, Rowan completed his assignment and quietly went back
to his everyday life. To him, carrying out that mission was his duty, plain
and simple. He didn’t complain that life wasn’t fair. He didn’t fret about
the seemingly impossible task of getting to Cuba, or slipping past the
Spaniards, or climbing the treacherous mountains, or finding one man in
a vast unfamiliar jungle whom a lot of dangerous people were looking for
too. He just did it, no questions asked.
With the spirit of Lieutenant Rowan on my mind, I made another run
at finishing General Galvin’s very difficult assignment, but this time it was
different. I focused on the solutions, not the problem, and thought about
how to tackle it from every conceivable angle. Through that exercise I
arrived at three possible resolutions. I then broke them down further and
chose the solution that I thought was best, and I prepared an explanation
of why I thought it was the best. I presented my solutions to the general,
and he was pleased. Mission accomplished.
Looking back, I now realize that General Galvin asked me to bring
him solutions not because he didn’t know how to solve the problem himself
but because by delegating the problem to me, he was trying to teach me
the process of developing my own workable solutions. Although the details
of General Galvin’s first assignment remain classified, I can disclose what
I learned as a result of it. I learned that a leader helps the people on his
or her team understand how to conceptualize and solve problems for
themselves. Great leaders hire, mentor, and develop young leaders who will
be good at digging themselves and their organization out of trouble and
coach those individuals from day one. Effective leaders resist the temptation
to micromanage, and they learn to trust that their people are capable of
creating their own solutions.

190