Fandom High School

"Good afternoon, class," Scott said. "One thing you have to figure out quickly is what kind of leader you want to be. Essentially, what's your leadership philosophy? TAs, please pass out this handout."

"Your leadership philosophy informs what you want to accomplish, how you want to do it, and what outside factors will influence your decisions," Scott said. "This isn't something to take lightly because if your team follows your orders, they may be essentially letting you control their short-term futures and perhaps even their morals. So as you develop your philosophy, you need to look at a combination of vision and values."

"Your vision is, essentially, what the Army Field Manual calls commander's intent. As defined by the Army, this is your Purpose (the unifying focus of a task), Method (how you want people to go about their jobs), and Endstate (what your ideal final outcome is). Once you have those three things worked out, you have - at least on an intellectual level - a idea of how you want to lead. To be a successful leader, you need to communicate your vision so your whole team knows what it is you want to do. We'll get into that more in future weeks. For now, you just want to recognize what your vision is."

"But something else enters into it. Values. Things like loyalty to your friends and to your mission, respect for yourself and others, selflessness to put others before you, and integrity to do what you feel is right. Where you stand on those issues and more will influence how you deal with your subordinates and how you'll set your own vision."

"Taking us out of the realm of the vague, undefined situations last week, I've prepared a few scenarios I'd like you to think about. Pick one or two, discuss it with your classmates if need be, and consider how you would want a generic team you put together to proceed per your vision and values. You can use friends or classmates as a template for the kind of team you would have if that makes it easier for you, but I want you to make this as universal as you can. After all, if your strategy involves letting one friend who can solve every issue easily do just that without orders, you're not really leading. You're just letting." Like, letting Wolverine do whatever he wants, Professor X.`