For those who have met me in real life or follow me on Twitter, you have probably noticed I have a minor obsession with the fictional BBC character Dr. Who. Gifs, memes, and quotes from various regenerations of The Doctor litter my timeline. I’ve even suggested more than once that he can serve as a model of military leadership ideals; an idea beyond the scope of this piece.

At this point, you are probably wondering how this nests with the application of “How to Think Like a Roman Emperor” and being a better leader. Of all the soliloquies, of all the speeches, lessons, or one liners, one in particular (available to the right, from Season 10: The Doctor Falls) continually speaks to me and upon reading “How to Think Like a Roman Emperor” I believe I finally understand why.

Beyond serving as an example of an anti-rhetoric or decatastrophizing argument, this speech mirrors Donald Robertson’s and Marcus Aurelius’ statement that “a man’s worth can be measured by the things upon which he sets his heart.”

What is your worth? When your time leading and serving is over, what memory, what part of your life will bring you the most happiness? Is it the rank you attained, a specific position that you got to hold, the “block” on your evaluation, or how well your unit’s readiness statistics looked?

Maybe, instead, your worth should derive from how you lived and how you led.

People – human beings – are the Army’s number one critical weapon system. Without them. nothing happens. We are required to lead people into conditions and environments that our every instinct as a species tells us to flee. Quite often our culture, like that of the Roman Empire, leans the wrong way. Replace the yearning for blood and spectacle at the Colosseum with a focus on a “toughening”; believing that a former generation was “tougher” and more “lethal” through a fictionalized, more Spartan or less comfortable life; a belief that treating people less like people will motivate them to give us the most, and defines how we should lead others into the maelstrom of combat. Our culture drives us to believe that succeeding in every mission outweighs the cost paid by our followers. Like Marcus Aurelius, we must fight against that cultural mindset.

To be clear, I’m not advocating mutiny and sedition inside of organizations or units. I’m not advocating that we replace our ability to deter conflict with feelings of happiness. But I am advocating that we apply our rational minds and thoughts to what we as leaders do. To do what is right and decent for our mission AND for our people. Find a person in your organization to bounce your ideas off of to help measure the goodness and rightness within them. Perhaps, like in the book, it’s a person in your own mind; a former mentor, Marcus Aurelius, a spiritual guide, or even The Doctor, and ask yourself: “what would s/he do?”

I will not command Soldiers again, ever. But for as long as I lead, I will continue to mentor and teach leaders to “embrace the desire to help others and themselves through friendship, kindness, and goodwill”; to find happiness, not necessarily in their success or their unit’s success, but rather in the successes and lives of their Soldiers and subordinate leaders. Most things in the Army are beyond your control. Our own actions as a leader and our reactions to the “automatic responses” of the Army and the Army culture are what we can and must impact. Use reason and do what’s right. Yes, we are an Army, not a cheer-ocracy. Yes, we must accomplish the missions assigned to us. But we often forget that people will follow us out of love, not out of fear. Medal of Honor recipients don’t rise out of the mud, the blood, and the guts driven by fear alone. Their friends, their “family”, their “loved ones” were in danger and needed help.

Duty, obligation, and a sense of honor, bound in the need to help others, drove them to succeed and to do the best they could do at that time.

We live in an era where traditional and social media are rife with Army Leaders offering leadership advice, but in the end, leadership comes down to one supremely simple idea, an idea captured in a line that originated with Marcus Aurelius and was quoted again, not surprisingly, in Doctor Who: 

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be; just be one.”

I haven’t figured it all out. Leading in the Army is a constant battle between emotional and reasoned response. It’s rarely easy. It’s not always fun. And the more that complexity is added to the mix, the less often things will work out easily or even as planned. Plenty of complexity will be added for us.

Keep things simple. Be kind and be a good leader. Do things right and do the right things. Find happiness and meaning in helping others to succeed. Think like a Roman Emperor.