Article 04: Defining A PAL Part 2

In the previous blog, I set the foundation by providing 11 examples defining a Purposeful Accountable Leader (PAL). In this blog, we will finish explaining a PAL by arming you with the final 10 examples. I would love to hear how you would define a PAL? Reach out and share your thoughts, emotions, or lessons learned. Below are the final 10 examples to help deepen your understanding of a PAL:

Purposeful Accoutbalbe Leaders (PALs) consistently choose what is right regardless of who is watching.

-Joshua K.McMillion

Care Personally

PALs care personally about their family, team, and organization. A universal fact with leadership is relationships matter. You must understand that being a leader requires building strong relationships with others. To do that, you must be authentic and care for each individual you lead. Part of caring personally is showing emotion which is often seen as a weakness in leadership. However, I'm here to tell you that emotions are the glue that establishes long-lasting relationships. You can develop strong bonds in two ways. First, going through crucible events together and being forged by those challenges will result in a stronger team. Or, through repetition, repeatedly completing the same exercises together as a team. PALs do not shy away from emotions but rather embrace them to build strong relationships that stand the test of time.

Be A Sledgehammer

PALs establish healthy routines, have accountability systems to keep them on track and follow through with discipline. Routines are essential to every organization because they create a level of predictability. By having predictable events, you have blocked out time to solve most problems when they arise. Most importantly, you have weaponized your time, creating more time for your team to think. Second, PALs have accountabiltiy systems, processes, or people around them that act as their tree. A tree is a deep-rooted person or idea that is unmovable in tough times and provides shade when needed. Third, PALs are disciplined and have the intestinal fortitude and willpower to stay the course. If you are traveling for work, do you cancel a meeting? If so, you signal that the meeting is not essential to your organization. It's hard to do what is right, especially when it's not convenient. PALs protect their time and the team's time by choosing not to take shortcuts.

Adapt A Sledgehammer Mindset

PALs adopt a sledgehammer mindset to smash through obstacles that seem impossible at the individual team member level. Do not be afraid to act and remove barriers; momentum will stall, and motivation will drop.

Burning Desire

PALs clearly understand their purpose and have a burning desire to achieve it. Leadership is not easy, regardless of your profession. To be a PAL, you have to love your job. Leaders know when they discover their purpose because they need to take action versus wanting to take action daily. An excellent way to describe this is a burning desire. Think of a burning desire as an air assault mission. You are dropped off with the team in a hostile environment with no external support. Final checks are done, and before you step off, tell your team the time has come. The moment we've trained for, sweat for, and bled for is here, and success is the only option because losing means death. That is a burning desire, and PALs refuse to fail.

Understand Your Strengths

PALs understand their strengths and avoid their weaknesses. To be an effective leader, you have to understand your unique strengths. What qualities and traits do you possess that provide an unfair advantage over others. Leaders must also understand their weaknesses. If your strengths can not cover your weaknesses, leverage your team's cover your dead space. Regardless of their success, every leader has dead space invisible to them. Dead space is a blind spot that every leader has within the organization that is often obvious to their team. A PAL understands their strengths and works to master them while leveraging their team strengths to cover their weaknesses.

Humility & Grace

PALs are humble in victory and grateful in the loss. Humility is a quality that is forged from losing. Leaders never truly understand that lesson until they have unequivocally failed. To be a humble leader, you have to understand that vital lesson. If you have yet to live that lesson, that day will come. PALs are humble in victory because they have been forged by failure. PALs also understand that you never truly lose until you make the cognitive choice to stop trying. Leaders are grateful for loss because of the opportunity to improve themselves, learn from their mistakes, and become wiser. Fail often but fail small.

Inspire Others

PALs inspire others around them. Remember, leadership is to inspire. If you want to get a group of people to work together towards a common goal, you must ignite a fire inside your team. The best way to do that is through action. An organization will adopt the leadership traits and states. Meaning, that what you do and bring to work will grow like cancer in your organization. Here are some examples of what not to do: you come to work in a bad mood, are consistently late, push off routine meetings because they're inconvenient, or dump tasks without guidance. PALs rely on deeds, not words, to inspire their organization.

Inspire Through Actions and Words

The photo was taken after a humid Louisiana morning. We just finished 5 miles in a company run. If you ask others to stretch their ability, you have to be able to push with them. Your actions and words must align.

Never Assume

PALs do not operate off of assumptions. I have learned countless times a powerful lesson assuming your team and individuals are on the right track. Part of being a leader is verifying that your team understands the intent through a back brief. More importantly, a leader must supervise, and there is a fine line between micromanaging and supervision. I recommend having your team leads periodically check with you for status updates. If you rely on assumptions, you will be disappointed, which can cause you to turn into a toxic transitional leader. PALs give clear guidance, verify the information is understood, and validate the team is on the right track to ensure success.

Follow Me

PALs never ask others to do things they would not do themselves. Have you ever seen those cartoons where the boss is on top of a gigantic rock, whipping his team to push it? Then there is the leader in front of his team actively helping them move it. A rule of thumb a leader must possess is never asking your team or organization to do something you would not do. For example, when I was in command positions, I would never ask my soldiers to do something physically that I would not do myself. If I asked them to run 5 miles, I would run 5 miles and lead from the front. When I was in Afghanistan as a platoon leader in combat, I would lead from the front. PALs lead from the front, not for glory but to demonstrate they are team members not in a position to be feared.

Follow Me

Follow me is an Army infantry saying, which means it's easy to find the leader. The leader is in front or in positions that have increased friction. The photo was taken in the summer of 2018, with my scout platoon having the fastest overall team time on the Fort Polk annual Mud Run.

Lead With Windows

PALs lead with windows. So what does that even mean? Leading with windows is being transparent in all actions. Leaders must share information, be approachable, and not have hidden agendas. Information flows freely when creating a transparent team, resulting in rapid but effective decision-making at the lowest level. When you are approachable, you can build deeper relationships, critical elements in building a cohesive team. Finally, PALs have no hidden agenda. If you have a hidden agenda, why are you not sharing it with your team? Bad news does not get better with time, and that's the same with the hidden agenda. The easiest way to erode relationships and build distrust is to conceal information from your team.

Give 100%

PALs give 100% daily to themselves, their team, and their family. The rule of 100% in leadership means you can never make up for the previous day's effort. You must give 100% to yourself, your family, and your work daily. It is a failed assumption to think you can give 125% tomorrow because you only went 75% today. That is not only impossible, but it is also unsustainable. If you're operating off this pattern, you're creating stress on yourself to perform, and burnout begins to set in. Do your best every day and demand your team's best every day. PALs give 100% every day.

Final Thoughts

Part 2 of defining a PAL provided the final 10 examples of how transformational leaders act. I have learned two critical lessons from this list: first, never assume your team is on the right path. As a leader, you must ensure they fully understand what you ask them. If you get something in return that was unexpected, it's not the team members' fault; it's your fault for not providing clear guidance. The second powerful lesson is knowing when to destroy obstacles for your team with a sledgehammer mentality. Leaders must walk a fine line not to rescue team members when they begin to fail. PALs understand that no matter how much effort their team puts into a specific task, there is no possible way to get momentum. Those are the tasks you need to adopt a sledgehammer mindset on. Your goal is to look into the future and chart the course for the organization. You do that by having an aerial perspective and mental clarity.

“The leader of the future asks; the leader of the past tells.”

-Peter Drucker

I want to hear from you! What lessons did you learn about yourself? Share in the comments below, or feel free to send me a personal message. Remember, leaders, need to set an example for others to follow. Use the 11 examples in Part 1 of defining a PAL to begin inspiring others. In the next blog, we will get straight to the point and cover the last 11 examples of a PAL. We all have greatness inside, but it's up to us to forge those abilities. Become the leader your team needs!

After Action Review

1. What are your strengths?

2. How do you define your burning desire?

3. When was the last time you adopted a sledgehammer mindset? What was the result?

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My Mission: I will end toxic leadership practices by equipping leaders with transformational leadership skills. 

Together, we will impact 1 MILLION lives!!!

Every day is a gift, don't waste yours!

Joshua K. McMillion | Founder MLC | Founder MLC

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