After my Army career, I began a second one as a legislator. It was only after I was elected that I genuinely appreciated the vast differences between both vocations. Soldiers don’t conduct polls to accomplish what they do. And politicians don’t order people around on a battlefield. But there are some similarities and that includes communicating effectively.
As a battalion commander, I often gave directions and orders concerning policies in my unit. The chain of command would then take action to communicate those instructions throughout the command. But stopping there would have been premature. One of my favorite pastimes was to check to see if my message was getting through to the soldiers at the lowest level.
I hated office work as a commander. So, any excuse to slip out the back door of my headquarters to visit the motor pool, the field, or the rifle range where my soldiers were maintaining equipment, training on it, or improving their marksmanship was where I wanted to be. It was there that I would engage them on all sorts of issues, including whether or not they had heard anything about a recent directive I had issued. That’s how I could verify the word was getting out.
Returning to my headquarters I would inform my Command Sergeant Major and my subordinate commanders and staff on what the troops were saying, if anything, about a recent directive. When the troops were oblivious to a recent order or policy, it sent the chain of command scurrying to find out where communications had broken down. More often than not, I would not make a fuss about the word not getting out. It was enough that the staff swung into action to correct the problem, which they almost always did quickly and effectively.
The same was true in politics. Whether it was an announced town hall meeting that few people attended, or a piece of news concerning a bill that had recently passed that folks were clueless about, or an initiative that would interest people but they were unaware of, good communications mattered. I must say I was less tolerant with the political system when these miscommunications occurred. You see, in battalions you are not voted in or out of office.
Getting the message out is important whether in the military or in politics. You must have a good and reliable system to do that. But all the systems in the world mean nothing if leaders, military and otherwise, step on their own message. How does that occur?
Well, one of the well-worn mistakes occurs when leaders tell everyone to do something while ignoring that directive for themselves. If an officer is insistent that everyone wear their helmets in the field while training, and then sports around in a garrison cap while in the field, so too the troops will cut corners. In politics, we saw this frequently when self-righteous politicians who expected all of us to wear masks then cavalierly exempted themselves from that very burden while visiting the hair salon, attending lobbyist dinners in high-end restaurants, or engaging in music celebrations or parties. They thought themselves above all of us.
Another way you tromp all over your message is to break the law. If a commander routinely violates the Uniformed Code of Military Justice and but then punishes soldiers for doing the same, that commander’s words concerning good order and discipline will be discredited. So too a politician who rails against drunk driving, only to be pulled over and cited by police for doing the same. Not much forgiveness can be expected there.
There’s yet another way leaders can step on their message. By acting like a jackass. I knew some of these types in the military. The way they stepped on their own messages was by being so asinine that soldiers lost faith in their credibility. After that, soldiers would follow orders, but otherwise pay little attention to the message, no matter how valid it might have been.
There are some politicians who do the same, displaying their mooncalf abilities to all who can see and hear. Frequently these types flagrantly call attention to themselves, fail to recognize the accomplishments of others, shift blame for the mistakes they make, use foul language to make up for their lack of vocabulary, belittle others with ad hominem attacks, and reliably criticize others for the same obnoxious things they do themselves. When they do, they don’t have to wonder about stepping on their messages. People grow so weary of the narcissism and hypocrisy that they pay no attention to any good message that leader might have.
So, if you see that your preferred politician often steps on his or her own message, it may be more about the content of their character than the content of the message.
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