12 Fundamental Rules When You Take Command (For New Leaders)
This list of rules (credit: “Jocko” Willink) helped me start as a new leader, and should help anyone who’s recently found themselves put in a position to lead people.
Why am I sharing this with you?
I was recently promoted into a position of people leader, elevated from the “front lines” to grow, manage, and lead a team in order to achieve a list of ambitious goals. It was a lot to take in at the time. I’d hoped someone had already written this article, for me.
What now?
Promotions don’t come with a manual.
I scrapped together — as quickly as I could — any nuggets of conventional wisdom about being a first-time leader.
For months, I was speed-reading books on leadership, listening to podcasts/Blinkist/LinkedIn Learning courses, and sought the council of all my mentors who could have tread this very same path before.
12 Fundamental Rules
In my quest for insights, equipping myself piece-by-piece to fill my “New Leader Toolkit”, I remember stumbling across some particularly game-changing advice [Jocko Willink].
1. Be Humble.
2. Don’t act like you know everything.
The team will recognize you (likely) don’t.
Ask smart questions.
3. Listen.
Ask for advice, and heed it.
4. Treat people with respect.
No matter their rank or level
5. Take ownership of failure and mistakes.
6. Pass credit for success up-and-down the chain.
7. Work Hard.
Work harder than anyone on the team.
No job is beneath you.
8. Have integrity.
Do what you say, say what you do.
Don’t lie, up or down the chain.
9. Be balanced.
Extreme actions are usually not good.
10. Be decisive.
When it’s time to make a decision, make one.
11. Build relationships.
This is your main goal as a leader.
A team is a group of people with relationships bound together by trust.
12. Get the job done.
You have to accomplish the goal.
Both in theory and application, following these 12 fundamental rules has served me incredibly well during my transition into (new) leadership — use it as a foundational framework or daily practice, results follow.
If you’re interested in what my personal experience was like, keep on reading…
Let me humble myself.
I’m not history’s first, or next, or remotely likely to become footnoted as a notable person-turned-leader. All the same, I too experienced the call to lead, I answered (despite self-doubt or fear of failure), and I too have felt the burdens, costs, as well as the joys of leadership.
Rewind a few years. ⏪
I had worked tirelessly for a number of years, starting from the bottom level, before this getting this chance. I still considered myself very fortunate for this opportunity, since as I had learned, at a large company, chances like this only came around if:
- Your leader has full confidence in you
- Their boss also believes in your abilities
- Timing is right (a pinch of “luck”)
Although I knew all the above had to align for me to get this shot, and did, I now faced internal quandary, and self-doubt crept in.
Am I ready to lead others?
I witnessed how hard my favorite leaders and former managers worked to be just that — great at leading people. People.
These are real humans, living real lives, bearing real responsibilities, both in and out of the workplace .
Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, spouses, partners, caretakers, significant others, and members of their communities.
The deafening voice of my inner critic rang: “Star performer doesn’t mean great leader”, and, “What gives you the right to be in charge of others, their livelihoods in your hands?”…
Ironically, despite the weight of these questions, I’d preconceived these very thoughts in the past when playing around with the idea of being boss one day.
People Leadership is a full-time job.
I mustered the courage to face this task as diligently as I would any other responsibility, and it has been worth it.
- Learning new things every day
- Training others, while they also teach me
- Gaining “big-picture” perspective
- Building meaningful relationships
- Developing a new respect for myself
- Seeing individuals gain confidence, grow and start taking initiative
- Noticing teammates working together, helping one another
- Making progress toward our team goals
- Putting my full, positive energy into a system (people, operations, development) and seeing positive feedback loop grow
