According to retired United States Marine Corps General Charles C. Krulak, the future of an organization depends on the privates in the field, not the generals back home. Throughout his career, he offered valuable insights on leadership that can easily be applied outside of a military context.
In a company, the employees who interact with prospects and customers play crucial roles. Similarly, hiring and recruiting managers are gatekeepers who decide who joins the company. When these managers lack a mutual understanding of the required hard and soft skills for a job profile, they risk “deploying” the wrong employees.
Top-down enforcement of principles from the C-suite to employees rarely works. Instead, employees closest to the customer should have sufficient autonomy to make decisions.