SIR JJ DID TIE BUCKLE: Leading forward with complementing leadership traits

Headnote

2016 Gen Robert E. Hogaboom Leadership Writing Contest: Third Place

All Marines understand that every Marine is a rifleman. From privates to general officers, every Marine experiences the privilege and honor of leading others or being led themselves. We observed and learned from those who motivated and inspired us through their actions, demonstrated traits of leadership, and personal examples. They taught and showed us what great leadership can achieve through positive influence; how poor leadership has detrimental impacts on individuals and entire organizations.

Gen John A. Lejeune provides an explanation of the qualities all leaders must develop within themselves. In Marine Corps Order No. 29, Relations Between Officers and Men, dated 14 August 1920, Gen Lejeune wrote the following:

Young Marines respond quickly and readily to the exhibition of qualities of leadership on part of their officers. Each officer must endeavor by all means in his power to develop within himself those qualities of leadership, including industry, justice, self-control, unselfishness, honor, and courage, which will fit him to be a real leader of men and which will aid in establishing the relationship.1

In keeping with Gen Lejeune's leadership philosophy, our Corps expanded the list of leadership traits through the years. We remember them by the acronym JJ DID TIE BUCKLE (judgement, justice, dependability, integrity, decisiveness, tact, initiative, endurance, bearing, unselfishness, courage, knowledge, loyalty, and enthusiasm). Named in his honor, the LLI (Lejeune Leadership Institute), a world-class leadership center under the Marine Corps University, continues to uphold JJ DID TIE BUCKLE as essential leadership traits. All Marines have witnessed committed leaders who not only consistently exhibited those 14 traits but also possessed additional character traits worthy of attention and further discussion-leadership traits that are not yet reflected in current publications and doctrine, but should be.

In MCWP 6-10, Leading Marines, Gen Carl E. Mundy states that,

The most important responsibility in our Corps is leading Marines. If we expect Marines to lead and if we expect Marines to follow, we must provide the education of the heart and of the mind to win on the battlefield and in the barracks, in war and in peace.2

What did General Mundy mean by "education of the heart and of the mind"? One can assert that education of...