What is Means to be a Leader

Leadership. What exactly does this word mean? What do I need to know to become a good leader? How can being a leader help me in life? These are all good questions to ask and I hope to enlighten you as you journey to become a leader.

When I was a Specialist in the Army, my First Sergeant used to always tell me that in order to be a leader meant to know the definition of sacrifice. It took me a little bit to realize exactly what he meant. For years, I watched as my supervisors and those appointed over me gave up time at their homes to make sure their subordinates were taken care, no matter what time of the day it was. Their number one priority was the welfare of each soldier.

I was blessed to have such good role models to base my leadership off, and I am still blessed to call them my friends to this day. I learned what things a leader shouldn’t do and what they should, what accountability meant, and most importantly, I learned what my first sergeant always meant by the word sacrifice.

It was February 2010, a little over 5 months after my unit first entered our 12 month tour in Afghanistan, when I received my E5 (SGT) rank. For those of you who don’t know, this is the first level of a leadership role as a non-commissioned officer (NCO). It was my responsibility as a NCO to make sure my subordinates were taken care of, every second of every day for the remaining 7 months.

Providing direction can have a huge impact on someone’s life. My NCO’s set the example for many of my peers, including myself. HThey not only taught me how showing someone a path can impact your life but theirs as well. A good leader is someone that supports where you want to go, and helps you to get there. He is the one that shows you how to use resources to achieve your ultimate goal. He is also the same man to show you what the word sacrifice truly means. Having a sense of direction provides someone with the help they need in order to accomplish their specific tasks at hand.

Becoming a good leader doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, and with time comes mistakes, lessons learned, failures, guidance, willingness to learn, sacrifice and direction. I challenge everyone who reads this posts to think about someone in your life who was a ” leader” to you, someone you looked up to, and think where you were before they entered your lives. Something they did at one point in time helped you become the person you are today.

Being a good leader is also knowing how to listen! If you can’t look past yourself, then how will you ever know what everyone else has to offer? Your subordinates have valuable information that could help you, so why not utilize them and learn from them, just as they learn from you? Something to think about.

Be leader wherever you are, every minute of every day, and every day of every year for the rest of your life!

NCO Creed




NCO Creed

From the left: Hoyer, myself, Barry and Anderson.  The best team anyone could ask for! I was honored to have these men throughout the majority of our deployment together!


One Response to What is Means to be a Leader

  1. Josh Harcus says:

    Great post Geoff! Really good thoughts on what it takes to be a leader, and what that really means.

Leave a Reply


WordPress.com Logo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Google+ photo


Connecting to %s