Commando News Issue 13 2018

BOOK REVIEW
Leadership Secrets of the
Australian Army
Brigadier Nicholas Jans (Retired) OAM
Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, 2018
Reviewed by Jim Truscott
I was drawn by the catchy title as I have spent
eighteen years as a consultant providing leadership
mentoring and management advice to multinational
and national corporations in 41 countries, preceded
by twenty-six years as a strategic group manager and
leader of operational teams in high-risk international
engagements. Having held six command appoint -
ments in operational Army units I was to find that the
title is a misnomer as there is really nothing secretive
about leadership in the military or business.
Written in a similar vein to Donald Krause’s Sun Tzu
The Art of War for Executives (1996) and as well as
Stanley Bing’s Sun Tzu Was a Sissy, The Real Art of
War (2006) it caused me to reflect on my own
leadership and management experiences in business
and in the military. The book is as much about
followership as it is leadership and the text reminded
me very much of my own leadership training at
Duntroon in the mid-1970s by bemedalled instructors.
Nick Jans coins the Captain-Coach model which is
authoritative, but affiliative and egalitarian as the basis
of the Army’s success with leadership as the catalyst.
He author further uses the Mission-Team-Me construct
to describe an underpinning ethos in the military
similar to the perhaps more simplistic ‘individual
needs, groups needs and goal’ model inculcated in
my cohort in the mid-1970s. Did these new words just
repeat the older ethos in another way? There was
really nothing new (to me) but the thesis is presented
in a much more practical way as it is full of con -
tempora neous gems much better than a bland
leadership pamphlet.
The basis of the ‘secrets’ is the central theme and
separate chapters on each of the 3-Rs of representing,
relating and running the team and their apparent
liking to success in business through many examples
of people who have worked in both spheres.
Representing is just leading by example, doing the
right thing, giving direction and meaning, and
manage ment by walking around. Relating is
supportive people management, knowing your
troops, subor dinates to you but no less important,
coaching and counselling, being firm and fair but not
friendly. Running the team is to be good at the basics,
delegation and sensible autonomy, mission command
and post mortems. Essentially ethos, professional
practice and teamwork underpin the described
leader ship code of practice.
I was challenged by the author’s statement that not
everything that the military does has a civilian parallel
but that there are more similarities than realized. The
reality is that it is easier to motivate and organize in
the military than it is in business as there is a basis of
trust in the military. In business, trust only exists within
the confines of a contract and even then it is a
completely different battlefield as loyalty does not
exist in business other than to one’s self. Leadership is
only a necessity in business in crisis situations where
there is uncertainty and risk (of failure) in abundance
otherwise leadership in normal business is more akin
to guerrilla warfare where there are constantly shifting
allegiances. Furthermore business is a war where you
sleep with the enemy every day. The (business) war
goes on and on and on and there is nothing you can
do to stop it except fight in it until either you or it is
done. Business is not like war in this one critical
aspect. Unlike military operations there is no end to
business. People die, only to pop up again in another
location. You win on Friday and then you loose on
Monday.
All of that said it is an easy to read leadership
descanter for anyone seeking to take charge be they
a digger spokesperson or a doyen in business.
Leaders and followers will find this book equally of
value as the author rightly says, the more you know
about it, the better you will go.
COMMANDO NEWS ~ Edition 13 I 2018 35