Dangerous Work Demands Mutual Loyalty Between Leaders and the Team

In extremis leaders sometimes have short-term relationships with their followers. Climbing guides, skydiving organizers, expedition leaders, and even astronauts can rapidly inspire trust and confidence among followers. In police, military, and fire departments, however, leaders have long-term associations with followers that can grow into deep loyalties. These loyalties are both personal and professional in nature, and the value of loyalty between leaders and followers is abundantly clear when the followers speak:

I think what makes him [his leader] better is that he is there for what he can do for us, not what the soldiers can do for him. He has proved that many times, to the whole platoon, that it’s about what he can do for us, not about what we can do for him. The whole platoon will do anything for him, anything he ever asks. (U.S. soldier, Third Squadron, Seventh Cavalry, Baghdad, Iraq)

What did I learn about him as a leader? I think he likes his job. He likes doing what he’s doing. He likes to be in control. He doesn’t like to sleep very much. He needed to be out with Marines. He always puts his Marines first. That is an awesome [trait] of a leader. No matter what, if something wasn’t going right, he would get up, do whatever was needed, and he would say, "get it done. " He is always there for everybody. (U.S. Marine, First Marine Division, al Hillah, Iraq)

Such loyalty from followers is usually engendered by loyalty on the part of leaders. It has been well established in the leader development literature that loyalty is a two-way street. We found this point to be especially striking among in extremis leaders:

I told them to go [flee from the fight]. Because there is an expression in Arabic, "somebody is in my neck," meaning I am totally responsible morally and especially morally for that person. These soldiers were in my neck; in other words, I was responsible for them. I am responsible for those people in front of guard, and I am not going to let them perish if I don’t have to. I am not going to let them die for something that’s not worthwhile. (Captured Iraqi lieutenant who had graduated from the Baghdad Military Academy only twenty-one days prior to this comment, Um Qasr, Iraq)

My personal heroes are the people I work with, many of the people I work with. Many of the people I have the privilege of working with, even many of them who are younger than I am, are sincere, genuine, trustworthy, competent, caring people, that were really working hard, in many cases against the odds, to do what they really feel is the right thing. And they are motivated not by money and not by anything but the ultimate objective of doing something good for somebody else. And that’s difficult to do, day after day. (Special Agent Steve Carter, senior team leader, FBI SWAT, San Francisco Office)

It was always for them. It was for my soldiers... By the time I took command, [I felt] that I loved them. That it was more than just a job or some people I worked with, and certainly by the one year point, [they] were as close as any family member. I felt they needed me. (Captain Clay Lyle, Commander, A Troop, Third Squadron, Seventh Cavalry)