A Nonconformist’s View of Sacrifice
After 20 years and multiple deployments, here is why sacrifice is a value I am looking for in my next company. As a transitioning military service member, I spent time reflecting on my life and career in an effort to capture values that would help me determine what I wanted to do outside the military. I reflected on my childhood as an athlete and what drove me to play at the Division 1 level and, in the military, to serve in special operations. This reflection revealed a common theme — putting the team before self, which comes down to sacrifice. The environment I am looking for outside of the military consists of a goal-driven team whose members delay individual gratification and impulsive desires, in order to do what’s best for the team. My experience suggests that this comes from the leadership and I want to explore how this can be accomplished.
To be successful, a team needs to be aligned with leader’s vision and values. It’s important for the leader to ensure that employees understand their vision and align their actions and values appropriately. This can be especially challenging when one unit or team is the primary effort and the other units or team serve in a supporting role. In this case, it can be difficult for the primary effort to see why it should sacrifice its needs desires for the whole organization — they are the main focus after all. However, it’s important to not lose sight of the fact that the larger organization needs to be viewed as a team and everyone must sacrifice in order for the team to succeed.
Think of a team you have been on, sports or work, where an individual put their own interests ahead of the team to gain a reward or promotion. How did you feel about that? Would you help that person if they needed it in the future? My guess is probably not. This individual failed to recognize that the teammates they just put themselves ahead of will not appreciate that and will remember it going forward. People tend to have a longer memory of negative interactions, thus potentially making them less inclined to help when it is needed in the future — selfish acts can have consequences.
As described previously, my view of sacrifice is delaying gratification and impulsive desires to put the team first. Shortsightedness and impulsivity are hard to overcome in a world driven by technology that rewards those traits. Social media provides instant gratification from posts in seconds in the form of likes and shares. News outlets are trying to keep up with the instant reporting on social media by turning out stories more quickly with less oversight and review. Politicians are responding to the mob on social media, at least publicly, to keep ahead of the fallout of not responding quickly enough. It’s a trend that does not appear to be slowing down. How then do we, as leaders, ensure our those on our team don’t fall into this trap of putting the self before the team and falling prey to their own impulsive wants and desires? While there is no one right way of going about it, it is important to stay ahead of this as it is much harder to rebuild trust in leaders when they fail to sacrifice for their team.
Leaders must create and share their vision and values so that those they lead will delay gratification and sacrifice what’s required in order to achieve the team’s goals. But, putting words on paper does not mean it will stick. Leaders must lead by example and show the same sacrifice they expect of their frontline leaders and employees. Don’t succumb to the indulgence of self-interest provided by social media. Take a pause, reflect, and then respond in alignment with your vision and values. As I make my transition, I am looking for a culture that values sacrifice with leadership that lives out this value through the actions and choices that they make.
