Why one general’s quiet habit worked, and how to make it yours.
Last week I told you about one of my role models, Lieutenant General Don Holder (USA retired), who visited the junior soldiers in a unit, asked lots of thoughtful questions, took notes, and never interrupted their answers. I keep coming back to that story because the longer I study it, the more I find there.
General Holder helped lead the Army’s doctrinal shift toward decentralized operations and empowerment and shaped generations of leaders, but the habit I want to highlight now was smaller than any of that. It fit in a notebook.
Think about what one of those junior soldiers saw from the other side of the conversation. A General Officer had come to where he worked, asked him real questions about his work, written his answers down, and let him finish every sentence. Nobody had briefed the soldier on doctrine. He had simply experienced something different, but he could name it without any help: Respect.
Morale in those units skyrocketed, and an exchange of ideas became part of the culture, but neither of those outcomes came from a communication technique. They came from what the technique proved to the most junior people in the formation, over and over, visit after visit.
The method is teachable, and I have taught it for years as part of Listen, the second of the Big 6 Leadership Principles®. I call it the Holder Model.
What the Junior Soldiers Heard
Every behavior in the model carries the same message. The visit itself told a soldier that his role in the unit was worth a General’s time, the questions told him he knew things the General did not, and the notebook told him his answers were worth keeping. Being allowed to finish every sentence told him the rest. Nobody had to announce any of it. No poster in the headquarters could have said it as clearly.
Team members in a high-performing business want to be challenged, trusted, and treated with dignity and respect. We all know this about the people we lead, and most of us believe we are providing it.
The gap is that leaders tend to hold respect as a sentiment, something we feel toward our people, while our people can only experience the behaviors we exhibit. A leader who feels deep respect and interrupts constantly has communicated the interruptions, a form of disrespect.
There is ego work in this, and sometimes we need to check our ego at the door. The Holder visits were an ego discipline before they were anything else: the senior person in the room chose to be the student.
Respect Only Exists as Behavior
In The Power of Being All In, I wrote about translating Values into Cultural Behaviors when setting the Organizational Azimuth. Many teams place a high premium on Respect, and it is one of the most commonly stated Values I see.
Then I ask the question I always ask: What behaviors demonstrate the Value of Respect in your organization?
One of my favorite answers from an actual company cultural behavior is: “We do things on time.” When we value others’ time, we demonstrate respect. The belief has been translated into a standard of behavior.
Listening is the most powerful translation of Respect available to any leader. It costs nothing, requires no budget approval, and cannot be delegated. And unlike the values on the wall, it is witnessed. Every conversation either demonstrates the value or quietly contradicts it, and your people are keeping the tally whether you know it or not.
The Corporate Version of a Holder Visit
If this sounds like a military luxury, consider the Aetna turnaround I shared earlier in this series. When John Rowe took over as CEO, he did not walk in with a new strategy and force it downward. He took time to visit teams, understand their perspectives, and involve them in the planning, seeking out employees at all levels to get their input. Those conversations surfaced both the company’s real problem and its hidden strengths, and the people of Aetna embraced a painful restructuring in large part because they had been heard and appreciated.
An Army General and a health insurance CEO, decades apart, ran the same play. It worked both times for the same reason. It will work in your organization too, and the rest of this article is about how.
Below, I break the Holder Model into its four behaviors, show what each one looks like in a company setting, and share the habits that keep your visits from turning into inspections. To read the rest of this article, visit this link.
Enjoy the journey!
