Article Excerpt
“The pandemic revealed that we need better leadership,” Mr. Willink said. “When people aren’t coming into work and you no longer see them every day, you have to use better decentralized command. That’s a classic law of combat leadership.”
Mr. Willink recalled a frightening operation during his time as a SEAL when he had to send his team to an isolated area where he wouldn’t be able to support them. “A lot was riding on my guys being able to execute their mission,” he said, adding that business leaders also have to constantly weigh risk. “It’s not the same consequences, but you have a lot riding on your shoulders.”
Analysis
The business world has been dramatically effected by Covid. Even post Covid, people work from home and far from their colleagues. This puts more responsibility on each individual worker for self autonomy. Will these individuals be okay on their own?
This concept of decentralized command, requiring every individual to not necessarily need a single boss but to make the right decisions on their own, is the type of mentality needed when confusion occurs and teams are split. Now obviously an office separated because they’re willingly working from home is much different from perhaps a team of responders handling a disjointed crisis scenario, but I believe the strategy may be very similar. You equip each individual with the information, skills, strategies, and plan in order to achieve a common goal in a situation where the boss isn’t able to dish out commands. Every member of the team becomes an equal part of the symphony, working on their own instruments but within the same score to bring together a melody. Except in this situation, the challenge is doing so without a conductor.
