Suggestions from the Men.—These suggestions are to be really encouraged, and given fair consideration when made. If accepted, credit is to be given to the man, if rejected, he is to be told why it is not found good. It is a mistake to feel that the leader loses caste in accepting or even listening to suggestions from his subordinates. "Nobody can tell me how to run this job" is a narrow policy, destroying individual initiative—and it is not true anyway. The very statement shows that the leader does not fully know his job, for everyone is capable of improvement, and any job is better done for the combined interest and resourcefulness of everyone connected with it.
Prestige.—The leader loses none of his prestige in hearing and considering the thoughts of his subordinates. In the end the decision is his and on that they all have to act. And it does not hurt his leadership to have to say frankly "I don't know. I'll have to look into that." If he finds that he has taken a wrong course, it does not hurt even to admit frankly that he was mistaken, especially if his action has happened to do an injustice to one of his men. Mistakes are readily forgiven, but not meanness or injustice. Remember always that the men admire manliness in their leader and demand justice from him. These qualities are better than infallibility, for after all they like to feel that you are human. And above all they will not respect a bluffer. It is hopeless to try to bluff when you do not know. Someone will know and expose you, and away goes the respect of your men.
Asking Men's Opinions.—I have known successful leaders to make it a rule to ask, whenever one of their men came to them with some question or trouble, "What do you think about it? What would you advise doing?" The man has generally been thinking about this for some time before he presented it. If it is a question about the work he has probably in mind some solution which he thinks an improvement and this is his way of getting it considered. By thus asking his opinion you encourage his personal interest in the general success, enlist his co-operation, give opportunity for that self-expression which means so much to every self-respecting man, and not least of all you gain time for consideration of your own answer while he is presenting his. This is often a particularly good way to handle the case of a man brought before you for some dereliction of duty. Ask him what he would do, if he were boss, with a man who had committed the same offense. It is astonishing how this makes him realize the whole situation, which he probably had not thought of before, and nine times out of ten he will suggest a more severe punishment than you would give, and come out of the experience a much more responsive member of the group than he was before.
A Representative of Authority.—In any business undertaking the immediate leader of a group is to his men the direct representative of the authority which holds them to their tasks; of the purpose and policy which inspire their endeavors; and of the management which directs the enterprise. These men will largely get their impressions of the justice and fairness of this authority from that displayed by their leader; they will judge the worthiness of its purpose and policy from his enthusiasm and loyalty; and will estimate the efficiency of its management by that which their leader daily displays. Management considered all this when it selected you as a leader, it is now for you to consider it constantly in dealing with your men. The more ignorant the man, the more nearly are you his sole representative of these elements, and the more important that you treat him fairly and wisely. He may be a poor immigrant unable to understand our language and wholly dependent on how your treatment impresses him for his conceptions of the fairness of our management and the worth of our industrial life and institutions. It is up to you to make him a contented useful laborer and happy citizen—and not to drive him to the ranks of revolution by making him believe that authority is unjust and our institutions unworthy his loyalty.
The Head of the Family.—A good leader is always a jealous guardian of the personal rights of his men. It is only over his dead body that an injustice is done to any of them or to his group as a whole. He is their champion in every contact with the larger organization, and they look up to him for it. The group instinct is one of the strong self-protective instincts. In the multitudinous groupings of the modern community, the individual chooses those groups which he believes offer him the best protection and to them gives his loyalty. The leader but takes advantage of this psychological fact when he makes his men realize that he is constantly on the lookout for their interests. He may row at them himself (in a fatherly way), but he allows no one else to do so. He sees that they get what is coming to them. If hardship has to be borne, he sees that it is borne justly, and shares it with them. If food is short and shelter poor, as often happens on field and engineering jobs, he does not rest until he has exhausted every effort to improve them, and in sharing them is very careful to show himself no favor. He fights for their fair name, and for full recognition of their merit. If one of his men has a trouble, it becomes his trouble until it is adjusted. He thus establishes the feeling that it is a family matter, and that he is the head of the family. (Incidentally he is sure to be rewarded, for the men will soon be taking a keen interest in the welfare of the head of their family.) And in the end the men come to speak of it as "our" group—not Smith's or Brown's but "our" gang, for each realizes that his interests are equal in it with any others. And until his men do thus speak of the outfit as ours rather than his, the leader may know that he has not yet got the co-operative spirit which he desires.
The Group Spirit.—Any group of individuals working together for a common purpose are going to establish unconsciously a group spirit of some kind. This has got to happen. The leader knows that success largely depends on what this spirit shall be, and takes pains to make it a helpful one. By getting to know the men and "how they feel about it," he keeps in close touch with the spirit that runs through them all, and by suggestions here and there he does much to build it up in the way it should go and make the men feel a membership in his team. When he has got to know this spirit well, he can count on his men to respond in a certain way to certain appeals or impulses, and he thus makes this group spirit a tool in his hand for getting results. In time of hardship or strain he plays on this spirit to arouse new energy or endurance, and jaded muscles spring anew to life, just as martial music will put renewed life and spring into the lagging steps of tired soldiers. Thus always spirit may make men endure and dare and carry through far beyond the normal accomplishment. Thus the thoroughbred will run unfalteringly till his mighty heart breaks with the strain, while there need be no fear of killing the ambitionless cold bred, who slows down and quits at the early warnings of fatigue.
So the good leader is constantly on the lookout for means to build up this splendid spirit in his group. By word and deed, and particularly by thoughtful conduct of the work in hand, he fosters the spirit of putting things across and never being defeated, which is going to carry them through to success when called upon. His men come to realize that what he requires of them is always reasonable and that it makes for efficiency; they find that he is always considering their welfare before his own and taking the greater pride in their success for the team; and they come to realize that while he so directs their work as to make it as interesting for them as he can, he will never accept failure for them or himself, but insist on carrying through to successful accomplishment. It is possible thus to establish so strong a group spirit for doing good work and generally winning out that the men themselves will get after the laggards and expose the worthless for elimination as unfit for membership in the team.
This Spirit Requires Efficiency.—Such results are possible to the leader in direct proportion to his knowledge of his job and his ability to conduct the work with efficiency and without wasted time or energy. Men naturally hate inefficiency. They become critical, caustic in their remarks, and finally disgusted under a leader who wastes their time and efforts, who hesitates over decisions and wonders whether to do this or that and how to do either, who hasn't the tools and material right at hand, who is always picking the wrong man for a piece of work, and who holds up the work of all while he fusses with the clumsy efforts of some "dub." Such a leader will never build up any good spirit. That comes only from the reverse of this picture of incompetence.
Work for the Leader.—But not all leaders may be gods to be always right and sure in their management of affairs. True, but by looking ahead, by planning and preparing for each new task, by headwork and overtime work, they can so fit themselves for each task that they can carry their men through it with such efficient direction that they will seem to their men to be almost godlike. Of course this means work for the leader. But the notion is foolish that work grows less as one ascends the ladder of promotion. In reality the leader who is half as good as he should be in his position is generally earning far more than his pay. His task is no easy one. Ambition for accomplishment, pride in success, joy of meeting manly responsibility, and not that enjoyment of an easy berth which some assume it to be, are the motives which hold the leader to his job.