Page 92 - Wish Stream Year of 2018

Servanthood and reflections from Exercise NORMANDY SCHOLAR
OCdt Redman
September seems like a very long time ago and here we are, halfway through the com- missioning course. After a term of exercises
and focusing on leadership in the field, EX NOR- MANDY SCHOLAR gave us a feel for what com- mand and leadership are like in the most testing of times. It also allowed us to reflect. What did we all expect the course at Sandhurst to be like? Ini- tially many of us seemed to think that it would just be a matter of learning military basics and physi- cal fitness. Anyone can learn the principles of management, but effective leadership is far more demanding. If you look at the careers of success- ful officers, you will find that no matter how clever they may have been, what really matters is how they related to people under their command.
The Sandhurst motto ‘Serve to Lead’ encapsu- lates this, and is the essence of what the Acad- emy attempts to imbue within us Officer Cadets. However, it is often perceived to be a paradox. How can you be both a leader and a servant? Perhaps the simplest analogy is that of a parent. A parent puts the lives of their children before their own and wants their children to grow up to achieve more than themselves. With this in mind, there are three reflections, which I believe can help us all to better understand this model of leadership:
It’s not about being served; it
is about serving others.
In the King James version of the Bible the word ‘leader’ appears six times. The word ‘servant’ appears 900 times. By serving we earn the respect necessary to lead.
It is not about position; it is about example.
Leadership is not about bossing people around. Eisenhower said: ‘You don’t lead by hitting peo- ple over the head – that’s assault, not leader- ship.’ You do not need position to lead. Nel- son Mandela led a nation from his prison cell. Martin Luther King said: ‘Everybody can be great... because anybody can serve. You don’t need a college degree to serve. You don’t have
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