Many moons ago, when I was a young leader and a younger man, I was a Platoon Leader for an infantry mortar platoon.  I was in charge of about 40 people and 20 million dollars worth of equipment.

At this point in my career, I had been very successful.  I enjoyed my job and most of the people I worked with. This built up my confidence to dangerous levels.

The Story:
My battalion, a large organization of about 1,000 Soldiers and five companies, went out to conduct a 45-day training exercise.  This training was to be conducted in the middle of nowhere and in the middle of winter in South Korea. Let me tell you, it gets unbelievably cold there.

During this training exercise, my platoon was to conduct our own separate training, then later support the larger organization in a huge collective training event.

The night in between events, I brought my platoon back to the main area that had showers and hot meals.  It was about 2 am.  We were supposed to be ready to support the big event at 6 am, four hours later.

So, I had my Soldiers go to sleep.  Normally, as the leader of the platoon, I would go take a look at the training area we would be going to the following day so that I could map out how I would execute my mission.  I decided not to.

I had been to the other training area several times, so I already knew how I’d set up.  It was already 2 am, and I’d need to go to bed right then to get 2-3 hours of sleep. Finally, it was insanely cold out and I’d been outside all day.  I really didn’t want to spend any more time in the elements.

So, I went to sleep and had two hours of sleep that were so glorious they felt like 10.  We woke up on time, got in our vehicles on time, and got to the next training area on time.  But what did we find?…

A mountain of sand, 50ft tall and 200ft in diameter, which took up 1/3 of the training area. And to top it all off, it was smack dab in the middle.

You know the old expression about a monkey wrench in your plan?  Let’s rebrand that to a damn mountain of sand on your plan.

This changed everything. We had to come up with an entirely new plan at the last second.  We could only use 75% of our equipment because there simply wasn’t room for the rest.  Set up took forever.  Everyone was demoralized.  The day was not off to a good start.

Flash Gordon:
Have you ever worked with someone who was relatively unimpressive?  Someone who has the potential to be very good at their job, but is just lazy, but they’re also smart about their laziness?

I’m talking about the people that are lazy when the boss isn’t around, but grabs the spotlight and highlights how “awesome” they are as soon the boss shows up.

I like to call that kind of person Flash Gordon.

Mayor McFlash of Flash Gordonville:
Back to the training event:

An infantry company, who was to be the main event, with the most important part to play in the mission, was also late.

Similarly, they got in late, were tired, and cold. Didn’t want to get out of their cozy sleeping bags in the morning. The usual kind of stuff.

The Battalion Commander, who was the senior leader of this 1,000 person organization, asked him why the entire mission hadn’t started on time. Flash Gordon told him that it was because “the mortar platoon was late setting up.”  He neglected to say anything about the fact that he was late too (flashy flashy).

So, the Battalion Commander immediately came down to my training area to pay me a visit.  Now, let me first say that he was very professional, was not demeaning, and was exactly within his rights as the Commander. That being said, that was not a fun visit for me.

I had never messed anything like this up before as a leader, so this was my first real “chewing out”.  It wasn’t fun. I could sense the feeling of disappointment in my Commander because he knew this type of thing was uncharacteristic of me.

Suffice it to say, the whole conversation sucked.

Initial Response:
After the Commander left, I was angry… Very angry.

“How am I the only one in trouble when the other guy was late too?!”  “Our part of the event doesn’t even start until halfway through the mission!  There was NO NEED to wait for us!” … Curse word, curse word, curse word… “This is [curse word]!”

I said this all to myself, and probably out loud.  (Amateur leader move.)

I was pissed off for like two days.  A few months later, when I had my annual performance counseling, I could sense that this event had an effect.  Boom, pissed off again.

The Point:
Embarrassingly enough, it took some time for the real lesson here to sink in:

I was not the victim of the other guy.  The only person to blame for being late was me.

Look, the other guy being late had nothing to do with me.  I didn’t even know he was late until an hour after I was.  Was I the main culprit, and the sole person responsible for the delay in the entire event?  No.

I did, however, put myself in a position to become 1) late, and 2) the scapegoat.  If I had done what I knew I was supposed to, by checking out the training area before I went to sleep, we could’ve adjusted the plan right then and never skipped a beat.  But I didn’t because I was weak.

When you choose the easier option over the one you know is right, you open yourself up to being taken advantage of by the Flash Gordon-types.  You put yourself in a position which will tempt you to compromise your integrity and affect your reputation.

Here’s the bottom line:  I WAS LATE.  It doesn’t matter what anyone else was doing or not doing.  None of that changes the fact that I screwed up.  If I had learned this lesson sooner, I could’ve saved myself a lot of pent-up aggression.

Additionally, the “conversation” with the Battalion Commander, when I got chewed out, probably would’ve gone entirely different if I realized the lesson right then.  My attitude and response were to not take full responsibility.  I didn’t say who else was screwing up, but I did say I wasn’t the only one late.  I tried to deflect responsibility for my own actions.  This did not help my situation.

If I had taken complete responsibility for my actions, I could’ve been proud of myself for at least that, and my Commander would’ve respected me for it.  But I didn’t.

Here’s are the lessons you need to take away from this story:  

1. Always take 100% responsibility for your own actions, decisions, and mistakes.  (Refer to Rule #3 of the Code of Honor)
2. Always choose what’s right over what’s easy.  You’ll be far better off for it. (Refer to Rule #1 of the Code of Honor)