The new corporate leaders wear camo

Recently I've seen several news pieces touting the warm welcome the corporate world is providing former Junior Officers (Lt.'s and Capt.'s) who have recently left military service. I definitely think this trend is a good one for a new, revitalized, corporate America. I must caveat my blog with the fact that I may be a tad biased because I was prior military, however I think I have some strong points that stand on their own merit.

Recently Gallup polls were used to survey the importance of ethics in the workplace - they surveyed both junior management employees in the corporate world and junior military officers re-entering civilian life. Can you guess which group had over 80% of its respondents strongly agree with the following statement "ethics were more important than profits", and which group had less than 50% agree (only 20% strongly agreed). As a business student I've seen this trend in polls and surveys over the last two years so I'm not surprised, but with the extent of the damage the financial industry inflicted on the U.S. economy based on sketchy lending and insurance practices you'd think the trend would slowly be trending upward.. I'm still waiting. One of the first things we learn in the military are strong core values: core values like honesty, commitment, integrity, duty and loyalty. These values are ingrained and reinforced through continuous training and real-world examples like the battlefield where your actions in the office can lead to possible life and death consequences - can you imagine if the leadership at AIG had thought for a minute that the risk of insuring the risky loans could result in the death of themselves or co-workers they would have taken the risk? I know it sounds extremist but military leaders think about the outcomes for their decisions and action in bigger terms than simple dollars and sense.

It's not that I don't think great leadership can only be found within the ranks of the military, but I think that this background does provide a great training platform for future success. Now I do think, and the articles assert this, the challenges with military officers is learning the corporate culture and subtle ways of conducting business and achieving group consensus vs. the military way of one person telling the team what they're going to do. The military realizes that for their leaders to be successful, not only in their post military life, but also while in service require leaders to be able to become adaptable to changing situations where they may not have direct training or experience along with self-awareness this builds dynamic leaders who don't require direct order to be effective. The above referenced articles state that this common myth about prior military officers is being quickly refute by those recently entering the civilian workforce - these officers feel that have the right experience and ability to motivate employees accustomed to a less formal and direct working style. One former Army Captain now working at Google has never had any direct reports but is still tasked with gathering teams together to work on projects .. he says his experience in the military has taught him how to motivate and get individuals excited about work and new ideas and helps lure developers onto projects. Remaining results focused rather than focusing on protocol also helps bridge the gap between himself and his team.