What is an epic war scene doing on a leadership and operations blog? It all comes down to this one simple phrase:

Remember your role.

Captain Winters initial reaction to poor leadership in his team was to revert to the role of company lieutenant and lead Easy Company himself. Someone dropped the ball and he wanted to pick it up. This was not his role nor was it the correct action in this situation. After being reminded of his duty by Colonel Sink, Winters took the appropriate action of replacing Lieutenant Dike with Lieutentant Speirs.

In the business world, your situation may not be this dramatic but the lesson is still applicable. If you are a Vice President handling the responsibilities of a Director, you need to step back and let your team do their job. If the person in that role can’t handle it, your job is to train or replace that person. It is not appropriate, or even useful, to handle their job yourself. If Captain Winters would have stepped into the Lieutenant role, that would have moved Easy Company forward but also would have left the rest of the battalion without a commander. The scope of your role is larger than an individual group or department.  Even if it is only one group or department that is having a problem, you have to keep your eye on the big picture. You need to keep things moving forward but you have to do it within the scope of YOUR position—not theirs. 

Remember your role. 

Best Regards,

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