Last week I was fortunate to attend a breakfast with UN peacekeeper, Colonel Michael Bond CSC, Commander Australian Forces Operation ASLAN, in South Sudan. He has some amazing stories of how little differences can bring a community together in a tough environment.

With permission, I’m going to share his leadership principles. The first 3 are in order and the last 5 are no particular order.
 
1.    Be perpetually optimistic
2.    Being nice matters
3.    Clear mission about where you’re going and continual conversations to bring people along
4.    Laugh and enjoy
5.    Value peoples contribution and explain what their contribution means
6.    Persistent bias to change
7.    Evolve to perfect
8.    Actions speak so loudly, no one hears what you say
9.    Have the courage to stand alone and make judgement calls

A good exercise to complete is to write a Command Philosophy which states what you stand for, what you don’t, what your expectations are and sets a commitment statement from you. A commanding officer will present this to those under their command so it is clear to all.

What would be on your Command Philosophy? Do you think having one for your team in the workplace would be beneficial?