Military prejudice

I have to confess to a certain prejudice against the military. I grew up as an ‘airforce brat’ on airforce bases around NZ. As a child of the 1970’s (ok, not born then – I was a teenager) the command and control philosophy offended my hippie sensibilities.

As I get older, it seems to me that my prejudice is shared in the private and public sector. And yet often military people have many of the attributes of stronger leaders than their equivalents in ‘civvy street’. In my recent interactions with senior military now working in the public sector, one of the significant leadership attributes is openess to learning. Many have talked of debriefs after operations where everyone, regardless of rank, contributes in an open environment to capture learnings. The people I have meet display a lack of ego-driven behaviour and a focus on achievement. That I think is still relatively rare in the public and private sectors.

There is much to learn from the military for today’s ‘civvy street’ leaders.