By Jerry Toomer and Mike Simek
Jerry Toomer is the founder of The Catalyst Effect® and author of The Catalyst Effect. Drawing on decades of senior HR leadership, consulting, and his work as an adjunct faculty member at Butler University, Jerry believes that catalytic leadership skills are identifiable, trainable, and transformative at every level of an organization.
Mike is a retired Marine Corps officer, the owner of UNITS Moving and Portable Storage of Indianapolis, and the Founder and Principal of Volition Consulting Group, where he helps organizations develop and execute strategy by determining where to play and how to win. Mike is married to Jamie and is the proud father of two outstanding adult children, Kate and Tyler.
We come to this topic from very different vantage points. Jerry spent decades in corporate leadership, executive coaching, and leadership research. Mike has led from the front lines of Marine Corps command.
What we’ve discovered, comparing notes across those worlds, is that the principles that build trust and credibility in combat translate directly to boardrooms, teams, and organizations of every kind.
This article is about one of those principles — and a practical tool any leader can use.
In early spring of 2011, Mike was serving as a Marine Corps Officer and Company Commander for a unit in northern Indiana. He was activated to command a newly formed reserve company slated to integrate with an active-duty battalion at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. There, the unit would conduct pre-deployment training before deploying to Helmand Province, Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.
The unit consisted of 150 Marines in total and was represented by a wide range of military occupational specialties (MOS), geographic backgrounds, and organizational cultures. Mike had no prior interaction with any of the Marines he was tasked to lead, including the senior enlisted advisor, the officers, and the staff non-commissioned officers who were to set the culture of the unit, prepare it for war in less than three months, integrate with an active-duty battalion, and take it to combat.
The stakes were extraordinarily high. Accelerating the group through the stages of forming, storming, norming, and performing was not optional — it was essential. Establishing organizational trust among leaders and within the ranks is paramount to the success or failure of any organization; in combat, it can be the difference between life and death.
How does a leader in that situation build credibility quickly?
When Mike first described that situation to me, I recognized immediately what he was up against. It’s the same fundamental leadership challenge I’ve encountered in boardrooms, academic settings, and sports organizations: how do you build trust fast enough to matter?
The research behind The Catalyst Effect grew out of exactly that question.
To Mike, The Catalyst Effect reads like a Marine Corps leadership manual — one that could easily sit on the Commandant’s Reading List among the most important professional development resources for Marines.
The book outlines the key skills leaders need to exhibit in order to immediately impact their teams: 1) act with integrity and inspire trust, 2) communicate clearly, 3) invigorate with optimism, and 4) amplify impact.
These skills directly mirror Marine Corps leadership traits and principles: integrity (trait), keep your Marines informed (principle), and enthusiasm (trait) — a sample of the tenets that have created a culture of sustained excellence that General John A. Lejeune, the 13th Commandant of the Marine Corps, eloquently described in 1921: “the term Marine has come to signify all that is highest in military efficiency and soldierly virtues.”
Leading people in any capacity, at any level, in any field, is a true privilege.
The term “manager” is a misnomer. Leaders charged with the responsibility of moving an organization forward toward a common goal do not “manage” people. Budgets, timelines, resources, and equipment are managed. People are led. From the first moment a person assumes a leadership position, all eyes and ears are on them. The people in the organization are observing and measuring what the leader says and does, determining whether this is someone they will choose to follow, or simply a person they are forced to take orders from.
There is a fundamental difference. Recognizing the significance of first impressions, the very first and most important goal of any leader is to gain the trust of those in their organization — to build credibility. People do not follow people they do not trust. People trust those who are credible and deserving of that trust.
In my work with co-author Tom D’Amico in Perspectives on Leadership: How to Write a Statement of Leadership…and Why, we describe an outstanding tool leaders can use to accelerate trust, build credibility, and establish the foundation for high-performing teams: the Statement of Leadership.
At a macro level, the purpose of creating and publishing a written Statement of Leadership is to document what a leader would convey to a new group they are charged with leading.
This statement can take many forms and touch on a wide range of topics; there is no single correct template. What it should be is sincere and authentic. It should convey what your values are, and perhaps what has helped shape them. It should describe how you aspire to lead and how you’ve developed and refined that approach over time. It should set the tone and clearly establish what you expect from the organization, and what they should expect from you.
It addresses aspects of your heart, your head, and your actions that the team will experience with you as their leader. It should clearly underscore your priorities and how you define success. Finally, it is the framework by which the leader and the organization can hold each other to account.
It may not surprise readers to learn that the Marine Corps has adopted a very similar process that mirrors the purpose of the written Statement of Leadership: the unit leader’s command philosophy.
The privilege of command is more than authoring policies, developing training plans, and issuing orders. It is being entrusted with the lives and welfare of our nation’s most precious treasure — the men and women supporting and defending the Constitution.
The command philosophy sets the commander’s vision of how they are going to lead the troops assigned to them, and more importantly, why the commander is worthy of their trust and confidence. Similar to the Statement of Leadership, the command philosophy provides the unit with an understanding of what makes the leader tick, what they will prioritize, and how they will measure success.
At its deepest level, if done well, a leader’s command philosophy may even provide the troops with a glimpse into the commander’s soul.
Why does this matter? Is authoring a written leadership statement or command philosophy really that important? Is there a genuine benefit to doing so?
Our knowledge and experience across a wide range of leadership positions — successes and failures alike — lead us to agree unequivocally: one of the best tools a leader can use to establish credibility, build trust, and develop a great team is issuing one almost immediately upon taking on new responsibilities.
First, a leadership statement shared with the team serves as a symbol of ownership. It conveys that the leader will hold themselves, and their people, accountable for performance and behavior. It acknowledges that success or failure rests on collective shoulders and that the opportunity for excellence is here and now.
Second, it accelerates a clear understanding of priorities within the organization, creating alignment on goals, objectives, principles, and behaviors. When goals, objectives, and incentives are aligned, the probability of success is greatly enhanced — creating the opportunity to be part of something special, something bigger than yourself.
Many people yearn to be part of a great team whose accomplishments they will forever remember. Creating alignment is key to achieving that.
Knowing what underlies a leader’s philosophy can foster an environment where team members take initiative because they understand the leader’s intent. They can operate without waiting for specific directions and lead from wherever they are in the organization, at the appropriate moment.
Decentralized decision-making by empowered people can be a key ingredient to success. In 1999, Commandant of the Marine Corps General Charles Krulak coined the term “strategic corporal,” suggesting that junior leaders in complex combat environments might make split-second decisions with significant strategic and geopolitical consequences. Empowering junior leaders to act based on the commander’s intent consistently yields better outcomes than leaving people to operate without understanding how their leaders think and what they value.
As a professor in the Butler University aMBA program, I ask my students to write a Statement of Leadership. The process is a deep exercise in self-reflection — not just examining the leader you are and the journey that brought you here, but also the leader you aspire to become. Shared with fellow students of leadership, the process is iterative and helps clarify why you lead the way you lead.
It includes three dimensions of personal discovery. The cognitive discovery (mind-set) asks you to consider how you think about leadership — which models, books, leaders, and personal relationships have shaped your style.
The emotional discovery (heart-set) directs you to reflect on your feelings as a leader: what you’re passionate about, what your personality brings to the role, and how those converge in the practice of leadership.
The behavioral discovery (skill-set) asks you to consider what actions you take based on the skills you’ve developed over time. How we think. How we feel. How we behave.
What others see us doing is the window into how they perceive the values, feelings, and ways of thinking we hold as leaders.
What matters most, for current and emerging leaders writing their statement, is to be sincere and true to oneself. Authenticity builds credibility far more quickly than any attempt to appear perfect or project a facade. In fact, many of your own imperfections and past mistakes are what have generated wisdom and shaped your character.
Marines have an uncanny ability to diagnose inauthentic leaders, and they are perceptive when it comes to those who care only about themselves. This is equally true outside the military. People can spot inauthenticity and self-interest from a distance.
Bringing together 150 Marines from five states, with different cultures and no existing command relationships, required an immediate focus on building trust and credibility.
Mike grounded his approach in Marine Corps leadership traits and principles, issuing a clear command philosophy to align leaders and troops.
It was simple and can be distilled into two essential priorities: mission accomplishment and troop welfare. Get the job done, and take care of people along the way.
From that foundation, he and his leadership team developed a set of maxims that translated intent into action and accountability. Communicated both in writing and through direct engagement, these principles built trust, strengthened cohesion, and established credibility across the unit.
Within three months, the team was ready for combat. After a seven-month deployment to Helmand Province, they returned having accomplished the mission and brought every Marine home safely.
Whether you are assuming command of a company of Marines or stepping into a new leadership role in a growing organization, the challenge is the same: you have to earn trust before you can lead.
A written Statement of Leadership, or a command philosophy, is one of the most underused tools available to leaders at any level. We have seen it work in very different worlds. We believe it will work in yours.
Interested in learning more about how to author a Statement of Leadership? Please see Perspectives on Leadership: How to Write a Statement of Leadership…and Why.