j. Final Thoughts: Consider Your Own Leadership Competence

Obviously, and as we’ve seen in this chapter, followers are profoundly influenced by their leaders in combat and other dangerous settings. The interviews I (and Pat Sweeney) conducted with people working in in extremis situations give testament to that, and those who lead in dangerous circumstances should take careful note of the unique pattern.
It does not follow, however, that the positive effects of in extremis leadership are necessarily limited to dangerous contexts. Proper levels of motivation, a learning orientation, sharing risk, living a common lifestyle, competence, trust, and loyalty can help build a leadership legacy among followers in many walks of life.

Leaders’ most enduring legacy exists in the people they have led. They can build corporations, make loads of money, write books, name buildings after themselves. In the end, however, for leaders, the only lasting effect is in the people they develop by giving them motivation, direction, and purpose. It may be insightful for those building a leadership legacy in their own organization to contemplate how an expert in extremis leader might behave if the stakes were just a bit higher regardless of the nature of the work. Leadership principles from routine settings don’t necessarily transfer well to in extremis settings like combat, but in extremis leadership may have a lot to contribute to leadership in everyday organizations.

Those who lead in more ordinary contexts might do well to decide the relative importance of their own competencies. Work through the list of nine leadership competencies shown in Exhibit 1.1, and identify your top five or six personal strengths. Does the pattern suggest that you are ready to lead in dangerous settings or in organizational crisis or that you will need to adapt? In either case, it may be worthwhile to consider the need for both steady leadership and an outward focus the next time you find yourself in a sticky situation.

The in extremis project is essential to understand leadership under conditions of exceptionally grave risk. If you lead in other circumstances, you have the opportunity to take the in extremis pattern to an equally relevant level of application. It takes some attentiveness and effort to peer into the soul of people led in times that are often best forgotten and to understand fully what their leaders gave to them. For those of you who lead professionally, a look at in extremis leadership can be a magnifier, adding clarity and detail to what you already sense: that leaders can make anything possible, and without leadership, even basic tasks can seem insurmountable.