The Curse of Familiarity: When Leadership Gets Personal

While deployed with the US Army in Iraq as a Religious Affairs Specialist, I served as a Brigade Chaplain Assistant. In addition to my responsibilities to lead my Religious Support Teams throughout the theater, I led a regular group of about 5-7 soldiers working on a project. This was not our regular mission, nor was it really our job. It was a side, pet project of command, which made it a priority. The soldiers assigned to me were “volunteered” because they could use some time around the Chaplain, according to their leaders. There were a couple who were outright disciplinary problems, and the others just needed time away from their unit.

On March 12, 2008, one of the soldiers on the project was chosen for a detail, along with one of the 32 soldiers who came from Texas with me, and the drummer in the chapel band, in which I played bass. Needless to say, I was close to these men. All three were killed on this usually mundane task. This is where I had to do my regular job. Report to the scene. Support the mortuary affairs team. Quickly transition to the hospital to support the staff caring for the others injured in the attack. This was all done without being able to talk to any of the team I had come with, nor that I led on the project. Everyone wanted answers, but there was no discussion until official confirmations and notifications were made. That day, and the things I saw will always live with me. I thank God for Staff Sergeant Portia Davis, who was working through all of it with me. She was the only peer I could talk to.  

The ramp ceremony was held; our friends went home. We performed a memorial service some days later, and that was that. We had to get back to work. 

I cannot say for a fact that it was easier to get back to work for those soldiers I led who would go “outside the wire,” but at least for them, the mission seemed to have more purpose. Those that I led on the project had more time to think, more time to philosophize the situation. What’s the point of this work, in the grand scheme, when our friends were killed? This is where the “curse of familiarity makes it challenging to lead.

Here I am, fully involved in the grieving. I ask myself what the point is. However, I have a boss… and a mission. My time in Iraq came in my early thirties. I had children, including teenagers. I was a young father, and an “old” soldier. This provided some experience from which to speak. I was also taken from my civilian job as a police sergeant (and member of the Army Reserve) and put on active duty, which gave me a good deal of leadership experience. To this day, I do not know what I answered that soldier who actually spoke for the group asking the question what’s the point. I probably said something about our duty to honor our friends’ legacy by doing the best we can at whatever we do. That sounds like something I would say, but whatever it was, it got the point to the team, and we worked hard and finished.

My takeaways from this experience would help form the leader that I am still becoming. In leading small groups or organizations, there is a certain Curse of Familiarity: Those one leads are in the same situation as those being led. This can also be reframed as a blessing, if one does it thoughtfully. The following are three points that I believe help this small organization leader to lead those with whom he or she is familiar.

1. Have a purpose and know it: Our purpose wasn’t just to build the project that the Chaplain and the Commander wanted. If that would be the case, we would do the minimum to keep from getting in trouble. Our purpose had to be something greater. I proposed that greater purpose to be the legacy of our friends. It could have been something also like, for the soldiers who come after us to have a place of respite to ask these same difficult questions of why? Whatever it is, know it and live it. Others will feel the commitment to genuine purpose and follow.
2. Have empathy and listen: Even to opposing viewpoints, pushback on your stated purpose, or just venting frustration. It all comes, and is all part of the natural process. A good leader listens more than he or she talks and works to understand those who are led.
3. Be prepared to show who’s in charge: It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture or a power trip of “I’m the boss, and this is the way it goes.” Keep the empathy and tell them that it is just as hard for you, which is why you are looking to the greater purpose behind, X, Y, or Z. Not everything makes sense in the present, which is why you must make the difficult decision to move forward. End that conversation with the plan to do just that and move on.

These may not be the end all, be all of small organization leadership; however, this is from my observation a good foundation. It would be best to have your team come up with the purpose in some type of informal Socratic bull session, so the buy in is more natural. It all boils down to the concept that, in my mind, informs all small organization leadership, which will be expanded in future posts, and that is: input from every member of the group is legitimate, and it is at times necessary, based on each individual’s skillset. It is then the leader who decides the appropriate action and will be held accountable. 

Colossians 3:23-24: And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing from the Lord you will receive the reward of inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.