Band of Brothers style Leadership
A while back I watched “Band of Brothers”. I know it has been out for a while but I got it and watched it. As many of you all know, it was awesome as it followed men from Easy Company in the 101st Airborne during their mission in WWII. If you haven’t watched it, I would highly recommend it.
One thing I noticed throughout the series was that people were constantly being promoted. Obviously when your commanding officers die in battle, you have to replace them with someone else. Oftentimes that someone else was a soldier who repeated stepped up over the course of the campaign. He was rewarded for his actions with increased responsibility.
Sometimes, though, someone had to replace a leader who was not effectively performing. In “Band of Brothers” there was one instance in particular that a person had to replace another in the midst of a battle and immediately stepped up and performed brilliantly. That person was Lt. Spears. Check out this clip.
Although “Band of Brothers” took some liberties with stories for dramatic purposes, this clip has historical accuracy. Look under Military Service for more information on this event.
Lt. Spears consistently stepped up in battle. So when a commander had to be replaced, he was the obvious choice to be promoted. And it paid off because he was ready to go, gave the soldiers direction and leadership they needed and personally playing a huge part in a key point of the battle.
In the midst of battle, there needs to be people ready to step up and take charge. In order for people to step up, they need to be properly trained and equipped to do the work. Similarily, in ministry we need to be training and raising up volunteer leaders to help us.
As Head Leaders of our respective ministries, we are NOT a 1 man army. We are members of a team trying to accomplish the mission. Lt. Spears jumped in and was effective because he was a natural leader (unlike the person he replaced). But he wouldn’t know what to do if he had not been trained over the course of his time in the military.
We need to be making sure our volunteer leaders are trained and developed to be the type of leaders who can step up in the time of battle and take over. So the question is…
Who are you training and raising up to help you and even take over some key leadership roles? How are you doing it?
Share how you are training your leaderships below so we can all benefit and grow as leaders.
