Battle Tested
Texas MBAs Share Leadership Lessons Learned in School and Service
by Pam Losefsky
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Top brass. Rally the troops. Lead the charge.
Business lingo often borrows heavily from military vocabulary, but the overlap between the two worlds extends far beyond metaphors.
Former military officers are well-represented among our corporate chiefs. Research conducted in 2005 found that military officers were three times more likely than other Americans to serve as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. And they’re more effective—they tend to stay in the job longer and achieve better performance than other Fortune 500 CEOs. Notable examples include Clayton M. Jones of Rockwell Collins, Michael H. Jordan of EDS and Frederick Smith of FedEx.
That comes as no surprise to Gil Manalo, MBA ’05. A few months after he graduated from college and was commissioned as an ensign in the Navy, Manalo reported in 1993 for his first tour of duty. He was immediately put in charge of 45 men.
“In the military, you’re a leader from day one,” Manalo says. “That’s not something you find in the civilian world too often.”
Just imagine how long it would take for a more traditional college graduate to be given that amount of responsibility.
Now imagine an officer with significant military experience returning to school for an MBA. The result is a person with the discipline, teamwork and focus of a military veteran combined with someone with a deep understanding of business—a super-charged business leader.
At a time when the United States military is engaged in two wars and modernizing to meet 21st century threats, and the economic situation on the home front is equally daunting, the imperative to develop and display decisive leadership both on the battlefield and in the workplace is urgent.
Texas MBAs who have served or are currently serving in the military offer their insights on the military multiplier and how they leverage both educational and military experiences for success.
Mission Matters
At its most fundamental level a military organization is a team. This basic tenet underpins the strong sense of mission that drives progress in the military. “The team eats, drinks and lives the mission,” explains Ken Sener, MBA ’96, a former Navy aviator and now a managing consultant for IBM Global Business Services. “This creates a ready bond and a willingness to go above and beyond to get the job done and to support each other.”
A powerful purpose keeps people engaged both for the task at hand, but also for future service. Sener, who still keeps one foot in the military as a captain in the Navy Reserves, says “Individuals may join for a variety of reasons—a job, training, adventure, travel—but I believe a key reason for many is the belief that service to the United States is something worth doing.” That sentiment, alone, is reason enough for the team to unite.
In fact, he points out that many reservists continue their service in a part-time capacity because they believe it benefits both the United States and the citizens of the countries where they are serving. “Many of them have volunteered to return—even to combat zones—multiple times. The long absences have impacted their civilian careers, but they strongly believe they are doing the right thing.”
Of course, the military has unique cultural characteristics that facilitate team development and the mission focus. Travis Fell, MBA ’00 and a U.S. Navy Reserves officer, notes that the concepts of chain of command, submission to authority and continuity of service affiliation all allow the mission focus to flourish. But that sense of teamwork isn’t always easy to capture in other work settings.
“Exercising authority in the civilian employment world can be more of a challenge,” Fell says, “where enterprises themselves are much more fleeting, and people can more easily move on to other opportunities.” Companies such as Whole Foods and Southwest Airlines—renowned for the loyalty of their employees—have found a way to create strong cultural bonds.
Caroline Bartel, an assistant professor of management at the McCombs School who researches organizational identification processes, says that the function of a company mission is to clarify goals in such a way that employees will invest their time and energy in the right activities. “In the instances of Southwest Airlines and Whole Foods, their missions are already well-known, so they are likely to attract people who already identify with them, and thus perpetuate the mission, just like the military.”
When organizations don’t have long-established missions, it’s up to their leaders to convey an identity that employees can relate to. “There are a lot of folks who end up where they are because it was the only option,” Bartel says. “In those cases, identifying a vivid competitor or establishing the company as really distinctive or high status can be strong motivators for cohesion.”
She says the military also engages in these strategies, making its mission all that more clear and galvanizing.
When Failure Isn’t an Option
As Manalo discovered, officers are handed incredible responsibilities early in their service, and they learn quickly because they have no choice. Manalo, who has achieved the rank of commander and still serves in the Navy Civil Engineer Corps, points out that there is no other work environment that puts as much pressure on young men and women to make the right decision at the right time under hostile or non-hostile conditions.
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