Leadership can be a sobering thing. The wrong person in a leadership role can cause missions to fail, can destroy careers, can end lives. The right person can make all the difference though. The right leader can change everything and everyone around him for the better. The difference between the good and bad is often how they view the nature of leadership.

All too often, leadership is viewed as privilege. Rank and position become solely tools to gain more power and prestige. Leadership isn’t privilege. Leadership is responsibility. Responsibility to the mission and responsibility to those you lead. Mission success or failure is on you and you alone. The welfare of your subordinates, their professional development, their training and preparation, all those things become your responsibility.

The guy I’m pulling security on in this picture is my old team leader and company commander. When I think of leadership, of integrity, I think of Joe. He epitomizes what a West Point graduate and an SF officer should prioritize ethically. I’ve seen him make hard moral choices that hurt his career to protect his men. He always viewed his leadership as responsibility. To the mission, but equally to his men. Their welfare and careers were as important to him as his own. And his character has remained unchanged to this day.

In contrast to this, I’ve seen other leaders in both LE and Mil sacrifice their subordinates for their own gain. I’ve watched peers I once trusted change over time into people I no longer recognized. What enables some to remain true to their better natures while others degrade over time into worse versions of themselves? What allows the good leaders to remain true to themselves, to keep their way? In my opinion, it’s the same trait that allows people to seek excellence at their craft rather than settle.

That ability to objectively self-analyze and work on weaknesses can be applied to your character as well. We all have flaws. We all have moments of mental, emotional, or ethical weakness. It’s how we handle them that makes all the difference. If we treat our mental strength, our ethical base, as a skill to be constantly honed, then we can become better versions of ourselves rather than allowing our personal demons to win.