If It Wasn’t for. . . Nobody would take responsibility
Part of exercising leadership is taking responsibility for those people entrusted to you. The responsibility, of course, is to position those people so they have vision and hope to accomplish the work at hand and thereby successfully complete the mission. But there is another aspect that goes with the responsibility of leadership and that is accountability; you the leader are accountable for the organization’s results, good or bad. It is easy to be accountable when things go well; just acknowledge the good times and pass the credit to those responsible for the work.
But every organization experiences difficult times, at least those organizations that have a God-size vision because those organizations take on great challenges with associated risk and many times with well-founded faith. Take SpaceX for example. They have lost several rockets during the development of a reusable launch vehicle, but haven’t they learned so much from those failures. Without risk, there is no gain.
Let me share a story of an organizational failure and an individual failure as well. This concerned a special operations exercise where without notice, the alert Task Force deployed halfway around the world to a remote island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The purpose was to seize an airfield as a staging base to rescue simulated hostages. It was a very realistic, complicated night iteration involving multiple aircraft and helicopters. It goes without saying that there were risks involved. But those risks had to be realized and managed to train this Task Force for actual combat operations.
As the operation unfolded, it became clear from inserted reconnaissance teams that there was no obvious opposition at the target airfield. Aboard the EC-130 Airborne Command and Control Aircraft, the Air Component Commander strongly urged the Joint Special Operations Task Force Commander, an Army Major General, to move H-hour (the time to hit the target) forward by 15 minutes to better preserve the element of surprise. The Task Force Commander approved, but during execution, several things went wrong. A mic switch on the ABCCC stuck open making communications difficult, contact was lost with the combat controller inserted earlier to control target airfield operations, and the assault helicopters made adjustments to their landing and taxi plan without complete coordination. The result was that an MC-130 Combat Talon, in the dark of night, landed on top of an MH-60 Nighthawk helicopter. Several people were severely injured and the helicopter was destroyed. The MC-130 pilot and crew made a successful go-around and recovered the aircraft safely at the main operating base.
Several hours later in the joint operations center, the army helicopter unit commander entered and asked who made the dumb decision to move H-hour forward? You see the Task Force had never practiced that scenario before. Emotions were high and there were several places where accountability might have fallen. So, who do you think should have claimed responsibility for this tragic event, the helicopter unit commander, the Air Component Commander, or the Task Force commander?
Who could predict a stuck mic switch? Stuff happens. The MH-60s were to be at the airfield early, perhaps they saw a need to make an adjustment to plans. And wouldn’t the Task Force Commander trust the Air Component Commander for a sound recommendation?
We all have failures in life, sometimes “stuff” just happens. That was the situation in this story. In the broader scheme of eternity, this incident was but an inconvenient set back although, at the time, it was a tragedy for sure. But what is more tragic is when failure is a result of willful neglect or shall we say sin. Guess what, we all fall into that pothole. But fear not, there is a way out for those who have a living relationship with the ONE. That would be Jesus “whose grace is sufficient.”
Stayed tuned; in next week’s Blog and you’ll find the answer. Don’t forget to share this Blog with your friends and go to Growingandbuilding.com/Blog-2/ for the complete story.
