Army Captain Christopher J. Courtney offered new lieutenants ten rules for success in his recent piece “The Successful Lieutenant.” I am beginning a series on this article and will try to post my thoughts on each of Courtney’s ten rules. Here is the first:

Lead From The Front. The privilege of leading U.S. Army soldiers is an honor you should not take lightly. Your first priority must be to become worthy of leading them. Lead by example every day and in everything you do, whether it is at physical training, on field exercises, or on the range. Face it, you will have to prove yourself every day as a lieutenant. Put yourself in their shoes and take a hard look at yourself. Would you follow a person with your standards? Would you follow a person with your level of tactical and technical expertise? Do not be a hypocrite. If you expect the soldiers to meet a certain standard, ensure you exceed it. Stay cool under pressure and be a calming presence in the platoon when things get stressful. Remember this when you arrive as a new platoon leader, you are like a transplanted organ. The body (platoon) either accepts or rejects you based on your professionalism and attitude.

In this first post in the series dissecting Captain Courtney’s ten rules for a successful lieutenant to follow, I expound on his thoughts without much criticism. And that’s because Courtney is correct to say that a lieutenant should “become worthy of leading [the troops].” Every young leader should look at himself and ask: would I follow me?

But I suggest something deeper. The lieutenant or soon-to-be lieutenant reading Captain Courtney’s piece who then decides to snap his fingers and “be” worthy of being followed will likely come up short. That’s because becoming a person worthy of being followed is a lifelong pursuit.

Play acting the role of a “worthy” lieutenant and good person will end in disaster. An individual cannot act a certain way consistently unless that’s who he is at the core. And during stressful situations, all humans revert back to who they really are at their deepest level. That’s not to say a little “acting” is wrong; in fact I think a lieutenant would do well for himself by acting like those officers he finds most inspirational while overlaying his own personality or flair. For example, whenever Marines under my command complained about our situation, I channeled my inner Captain Miller from the movie Saving Private Ryan and explained that if I ever complained, which I tried never to do, those complaints only went up the chain of command, not down. Sure, this was technically acting, but there’s nothing wrong with that if it reflects your actual beliefs and you then live it out.

To the wannabe lieutenant, I say this: while there are short-term examples to the contrary, a lieutenant’s ability to provide effective combat leadership is a result two things. First, you must spend time building and strengthening your foundational beliefs. Second, you must live out and execute your foundational beliefs every single minute of every single day.

During the years leading up to your time in combat (growing up, high school, and college), you will have a lot of time on your hands. Do not squander that time. Spend it instead in researching, discussing, and praying about your foundational beliefs. Learn about our rich Western tradition. Solidify your Faith. Understand philosophy. Read and absorb history. Understand current events, but don’t let them become a crutch as too many people do; your feelings on day-to-day current events should need little thought and flow directly from your principles. Lift weights, but don’t get too big. Run, but don’t get too weak. Sprint. A sharp mind coupled with grit and determination will ensure successes as a combat leader. So sharpen your mind.

Effective combat leadership must be your one main obsession in life. As you form and live out your foundational principles, remember that elsewhere in the United States, young men excelling in sports, church, and schools are enlisting in the military and need you to usher them through combat. That can be daunting, but they will do what you demand of them so long as you do too.

Given that a single compromising decision in a moment of weakness in front of your men can ruin a life’s worth of goodwill, an infantry lieutenant must have these deep principles. Making correct micro-decisions proves effortless where your instincts stem from solid foundational principles; where every tiny decision is in a vacuum and must be evaluated on the merits from square one, the infantry lieutenant opens himself up to making reflexive decisions that will, over time, lead to compromise and trouble.

So: read, lift, run, pray, study, obsess. Your informed mind will guide you. Only then can you truly lead from the front.

Now, on a more practical level, in both training and combat sometimes actions trump words. In a firefight, don’t try to describe the target over the radio where you can run to the front and put a few well-placed tracer rounds on the enemy. Your Marines will quickly relegate you back to your radio when they see the target. Likewise, this aphorism (Lead From the Front) will also engender trust in you from the troops. They will see that you do not consider yourself above physical harm; sure you don’t take point on patrols, but you are right there to coordinate the chaos after first contact with the enemy.

Quick hitter tip: as a lieutenant in combat, front-load your magazines with tracer rounds so you can quickly mark targets for your Marines in a firefight. Sure you technically highlight yourself to the enemy, but your Marines will halt any aspirations the enemy has to kill you when they unleash the big guns on the target. And further, if you are a lieutenant, you should mostly be on the radio anyways; your direct engagement with the enemy should be in the first few seconds of the firefight and then to mark targets. Note, though, that this is advice from an Afghan War lieutenant and may not apply in the next conflict. 

I tried to position myself roughly one-fourth back from the front on patrol. This, is, obviously, situationally-dependent, but I found it to be a good guideline. At the very front of the patrol, you have to engage on contact with the enemy, and your ability to employ your forces is greatly diminished. Too far back and you’ve got no clear picture of what’s going on. At my one-fourth mark, on contact you fire a few rounds at the enemy as you think through the plan but you aren’t the one pinned down. Once the Marines gain superior firepower, you’ve got a plan to maneuver all figured out already. One-fourth is good, too, because you are in enough danger that the Marines will see that you are in the fight with them but not the glory-seeking overly-eager lieutenant running the point on patrol. Note that in mounted patrols this means you should probably be in the second vehicle of the four–vary that up, or the enemy will target your vehicle.

A final note: leading from the front can also be an incredibly effective way to spring your men into action. Faced with a daunting, grimy, or dangerous task, Marines can hem and haw or wait until conditions are “perfect” to perform the task. When this occurs but you leap right in, your Marines will snap into action. Does the platoon need to cross a swamp yet no one is stepping in the swamp? Jump in. Everyone standing around talking about filling sandbags even though the plan is all set? Grab a shovel. The Marines will get on board. Use this sparingly, though. Too much of this and you are making your subordinate leaders feel and look inadequate.

To me, the quintessential form of leading from the front is this: faced with seemingly insurmountable odds, the young infantry leader hops out of his position of cover and concealment, looks at his men and says, “follow me” and then steps towards the enemy. His men follow, and they prevail. But to make sure that the men actually follow, an aspiring infantry lieutenant must forge his mind and body over many months and years while living up to his principles every second of every day.