If you were to ask me to measure the success of my military career, I would not point to the medals I was awarded, the awards I won, or even the missions I was asked to be on. Instead, I would walk you to my home office and point to the plaques I have hanging on the wall. You can take away every one of the medals and awards I’ve ever received, because the items on my wall are going-away gifts from the people that I’ve led, and they mean more to me than anything else. Now, it’s true, almost every military officer typically receives some sort of going away gift as a token of thanks from the people in their unit, but it’s very apparent that not all gifts are the same. It’s easy to tell if the unit liked their leader by how much time, money, and thought went into their parting gift. I can honestly say that the gifts I’ve received took a lot of time, money, and/or creativity to come up with, which is an indication that the people I led valued my leadership. Now, I say all of this with a heavy dose of humility, because this blog is not a forum for me to brag. It’s instead a way for me to share successful leadership strategies with you. And I want to tell you what I have learned you need to do if you want to be a leader who is respected by the people the lead.

