Since the pandemic, workplaces have seen sudden shifts in both employee behavior as well as conventional workplace norms. From the rise of remote or hybrid workforce models to the Great Resignation, the employment market has never been more turbulent. Organizations and workforces alike are still trying to process this uncertainty, which in turn is impacting workplace culture and morale. This further impairs a business’s ability to operate with meaningful productivity. One possible solution to reinvigorate workplace culture and workforce morale is to place military veterans in leadership roles.
Three Ways Military Veterans Improve Workplaces in Leadership Roles
This is a meaningful move that goes far beyond meeting talent gaps. Employees with military experience, and even military spouses, can help add inspiration to a struggling workplace. Even more importantly, they have the drive to hit the reset button on the apathy plaguing workplaces and workforces today. Here are three key areas where the right veteran in the right leadership role can revitalize a business:
Creating and Enforcing a Goal-Focused Mentality
In the military, mission success is usually the ultimate goal. All other efforts and objectives are configured to aid military units and leadership in achieving this goal. This focused approach is rarely abandoned when a military employee retires and transitions into civilian life. It can prove an extremely valuable trait to add to a workforce.
For ex-military personnel in leadership roles, the objective is not to punch a clock. Instead, it is to meaningfully determine how to best utilize working hours to meet designated goals. In this case, those goals are usually a business’s success. Military vets in leadership positions often seed the same mentality in the people they work with. The timeline will always matter, but the approach in the general workforce will begin to change.
It also helps that most vets develop and foster a discipline that is typically lacking in comparable civilian workers. This allows them to not just demand results, but to also drive teams and departments towards the successful achievement of business goals. If it means workers have to work later than usual for a few days, you can expect the leadership to do the same. All in service of a higher purpose: business success.
Developing a Go Hard or Go Home Attitude
Military routine and lifestyle, even during peacetime, can be demanding. From boot camp to combat service, the military operates by building physical and mental toughness among its forces. This higher level of endurance can translate particularly well into a civilian workplace, particularly a workplace suffering from post-pandemic woes.
In addition to a goal-focused approach, vets in leadership also bring the ability to tough it out to reach said goals. The drive to endure all difficulties and obstacles, especially if it means success, is as invaluable in the business world as it is in the military. These vets can also impart a similar “go hard or go home” attitude to the teams and employees they work with. The attitude can become infectious, as veterans in leadership will encourage and reward employees that push themselves to get the job done. This kind of thinking can potentially reinvigorate an entire workforce and/or business culture.
Fostering a Competitive and Motivated Culture
For success in both the short term and the long term, militaries depend on motivated individuals that buy into the overall goals of the military. As a result, military personnel, especially officers, develop a sixth sense for detecting dips in morale as well as keeping it high. The same applies in an almost identical way in a business context. For businesses to succeed, workers need to be motivated and passionate. This allows them to not just buy into their own success, but that of the larger organization as well.
To hire veterans for leadership roles, therefore, is often the most logical approach when businesses need a boost in worker morale. It is important to remember that morale contributes significantly to workforce productivity, performance, and attitude. Motivated workforces tend to be better at collaboration, output, and even competitiveness. This re-energized approach may prove exactly what businesses need to lift themselves out of the slump many are currently in. Even if there are still gaps in how workforces ultimately meet expectations, there is no denying the positive value that it can have on business culture.