[June 27, 2016] Militaries around the world possess a missile known by the vernacular Fire and Forget. The idea is that once launched at a target no additional input to the missile is necessary for it to hit its mark. Great technology … but leaders frequently use fire and forget as a style of leadership. They give orders, tasks, or directives and they’re on to their next problem to solve without follow-up or additional guidance. And that is a problem.
One of my earliest leadership experiences involved a Platoon Leader lieutenant who never seemed to be around when the junior soldiers could have used a little help. At the wash rack our military armored vehicles would take a full day to wash off the mud and clean out the trash. This was an ideal time when a good leader would talk to those doing the dirty work, compliment their work ethic, keep up their spirits, and join in a little cleaning. Our Platoon Leader was never around and gossip had it that he was drinking a beer at a local pub. The unfairness gave rise to anger.
Unfortunately for leaders, this commonly used leadership style is a leader’s nemesis. I don’t know a single leader who hasn’t had experience with a fire and forget leader. I believe my greatest lessons on how not to be a leader was learned from them. Too many times I was given a task to complete and left to figure out and resource it entirely on my own. Those times were certainly great experiences when I possessed the requisite authority but time and again I did not.
Leaders who use a fire and forget style rarely have the acumen to follow-through by giving their subordinates the necessary tools to do their jobs. Not that such a leader lacks the social or technical skills to do so but they are often caught in the short range target of opportunity when inexperience challenges the demands of leadership.
How did we solve our problem with the lieutenant who was a real fire-and-forget leader? We were fortunate that our platoon did not have to deploy to war with him leading us. We pulled a harmless prank on him that involved advertising in the local newspaper “maid wanted, work nights, please call after 2am.” He was not pleased but never found out who did it. Later we posted this ad in several local papers.
Junior high school pranks are not the best method of solving a fire-and-forget leader problem and it didn’t fix ours either. Usually this involves a long process of having a senior Non-Commissioned Officer sit down with him and give a mentoring session on the problems with that style of leadership. Some come around, others don’t and those that don’t usually don’t last in the military very long.
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