Making People Matter

Few of us knew that roughly 40 percent of my class entering West Point would not graduate four years later. That attrition was not an accident. It was, in some respects, by design. The culture of the institution then was built around pressure, endurance, and the belief that only those who could survive what was put in front of them would prove worthy of what came next.

Two Cultures, 20 Years Apart

By the time my son attended West Point a few decades later, the attrition rate had dropped to less than 20 percent. The mission had not softened. The standards had not been reduced. What changed was the institution’s fundamental relationship with the people inside it.

West Point had moved from a culture built around discovering who could withstand being broken down to a culture built around developing leaders from the ground up. The shift was deliberate, and it took years to come to life. But what emerged on the other side was an institution where cadets felt genuinely invested in, not simply tested to see whether they belonged there or not.

Graduation rates climbed and held steady at around 80 percent, on par with the best four-year universities in the country. And the leaders it produced were better for it. Our Nation became better for it.

That is what belonging looks like inside an institution. Not comfort. Not the elimination of challenge. Investment. The realization that the organization is working for you as much as you are working for it.

Why Belonging Cannot be Assumed Anymore

This matters more right now than at any point I can remember. According to recent research, only one in four employees reports feeling genuinely connected to their organizational culture. One in four. In the absence of the physical proximity, shared spaces, and daily interactions that once generated connectedness almost automatically, leaders can no longer assume it exists. They have to build it deliberately, or it will not be there.

Belonging and connectedness are closely related but not the same. Connectedness is relational. It is the web of real relationships inside a team, the knowledge people have of one another beyond job titles and deliverables, the mutual regard that makes a request feel different from a demand. Belonging is what accumulates when enough connectedness builds over time. It is the experience of being genuinely part of something, of mattering to the mission and the people around you.

As a leader, you build or erode both of these in every interaction you have. The tone you set in a meeting, the way you respond when someone raises a difficult question, whether you acknowledge people when things go well and protect them when they make honest mistakes: all of it either reinforces connectedness and belonging or chips away at them, steadily and cumulatively.

The Failure That Costs Leaders Their People: Not Listening

My mother used to tell me that “God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason.” I was a big violator of that counsel for a long time. But in all my years of leadership, in uniform and out, I have come back to that observation more times than I can count. The most consistent failure I have seen in leaders who lose their people is not cruelty or incompetence. It is the simple failure to listen. People stop feeling like they belong the moment they believe their voice does not matter.

If you want to know how connected your team really is, watch what happens when something goes wrong. In a low-belonging environment, people protect themselves first. They explain why the problem was not their responsibility. They stay quiet when they see issues developing because speaking up has not historically been safe. In a high-belonging environment, people step toward the problem. They surface it early because they trust that raising an issue will be treated as a contribution, not a liability.

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Enjoy the journey!