In an ideal world, we want our business leaders to be a little bit superhuman.
We want our leaders to exhibit the icy calmness of a sniper when under pressure: Decisive, with a clear sense of purpose, a complete understanding of what needs to be done, and the willingness to do it.
Here are four ways to be that sniper-like, superhuman leader…
Continuing on the theme of new research that shows that leaders can indeed be made rather than only born, research carried out on behalf of DARPA by Advanced Brain Monitoring shows that successful snipers achieve an optimal mental state just before taking their shot.
That mental state can be monitored, analyzed and recreated—not just in snipers, but in anyone involved in critical decision-making.
Good Leaders Are Made
The subtext here is that the same mental skills that can turn an emotion-prone army recruit into a highly trained, focused killing machine can be used to transform business leaders from error-prone individuals into business leaders who make the best decisions possible.
What is of interest here for an enterprise is the fact that the sniper mentality—as it reaches a state of equilibrium—is also applicable to today’s business.
The list itself is made up of four distinct elements that every leader should have in mind:
1. It’s Personal
Just like sniping, business decisions have now become personal.
The choices that leaders make, the way they handle pressure and criticism reflect upon their characters—leaving their own psychological marks. The way they’re perceived—and the way they perceive those their decisions affect—will only increase the pressures they face during the decision-making process.
2. It Requires Empathy
Empathy is critical. Snipers typically have a closer connection with their targets than, say, a drone pilot or a tank gunner.
This creates a much closer human connection than in any other part of the armed services. Being able to understand what their targets do—and why—is a uniquely humanizing experience, leading to better kill-or-don’t-kill choices.
Like business leaders, snipers are under intense scrutiny. Every kill shot is examined for justification. They can potentially end up in jail for making the wrong call.
Empathy has proven to be a critical ingredient in the decision-making process, helping improve the quality of the decisions.
3. Calculate Everything
So, for a sniper, every decision to shoot or not goes through a long mental checklist that represents the justification for that action.
The rationale, “Because I can,” isn’t enough. Similarly, leaders have their every action scrutinized by the board of directors, the shareholders, the people they lead, the press, and the public.
If their rationale is flawed, their decisions are likely to damage the reputation and value of their organization.
4. Carry Out A Situation Assessment
There are a great many variables that need to be taken into account before a sniper squeezes the trigger.
They range from wind speed and air temperature to angle of elevation and the always-fluid situation on the ground. Business leaders are frequently called upon to exercise a snap judgment, particularly during moments when enterprise is being tested.
The ability to correctly evaluate each variable and accurately calculate its impact is critical in the quality of their decisions.
But Leaders Are Not Snipers
On the face of it, it seems ludicrous to compare a business leader to a sniper.
But both use their brain to reach a decision, quickly, when in the balance hangs the fate of their colleagues and even of themselves. The neural mechanism that controls the decision-making process is the same for snipers and leaders.
There are studies that show that some leaders lack empathy and other personality traits that allow them to humanize their decisions. In a social-media environment, where everything enterprise does is open to interpretation, the wrong type of leadership can be catastrophic.
The DARPA study showed that snipers who were taught to recreate the optimum mental frame of mind dramatically improved their own performance. This suggests that business decision-making can be improved, by training leaders to think better under pressure.
The Bottom Line
The enterprise is facing challenges from every direction. Internally, its workforce is becoming untethered from the hardware it uses to do its work and empowered by social media. Externally, its customer base is changing and its competitors are growing.
The link to all this? The quality of its leaders.
A growing body of evidence suggests that leaving leadership to blind chance will only cause more issues. Leading a company today is becoming a highly specialized, skillful job. Stepping into it requires more than the right background and the ability to form alliances within the board.
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Image credit: Cpl. Ryan Walker (USMC; public domain)