Articles on
leadership in practice

When I left the military and moved into a civilian career, there was a lot to adjust to. But the biggest difference was not the hierarchy or the culture.

It was a single question.

Why?

I noticed that I asked this question frequently of my managers in the business world. Not to challenge an instruction, but to understand the intent behind it. What are we actually trying to achieve? What trade-offs led to this decision? Where do we ultimately want to end up?

I realised later that this question came directly from how I had been trained in the military. The instruction was not the point. The intent behind the instruction was.

In military doctrine, we call this Mission Command — or in Dutch: opdrachtgerichte commandovoering.

Over the past twenty years, I have discovered that the principles behind Mission Command apply far beyond military organisations. I encounter the same challenges today in area development projects, real estate programmes, infrastructure and cross-organisational partnerships.

Most of those lessons did not come from books. They came from people.

A lesson I only understood later

The platoon in Afghanistan, circa 2004.

Just before our deployment to Afghanistan, General Peter van Uhm visited our platoon.

I was young, ambitious, and very eager to prove myself. In hindsight, probably a little too eager.

During that visit, he shared a message that I only truly understood years later.

He said that people need to be allowed to make mistakes in order to learn. At the same time, he reminded me that it was my responsibility to bring everyone home safely.

At the time, I found this a difficult message. How do you give people room to take initiative and accept risk, while remaining responsible for their safety? That thin line between taking ownership within and at the edge of boundaries, versus insubordination, is exactly what good intent-based leadership manages.

During the deployment, I learned the same lessons from my company commander, Major Ernst D. He worked directly under Van Uhm and made that style of leadership visibly his own.

From Ernst, I learned that processes, procedures and organisational structures matter, but they remain subordinate to something far more important: personal connection with your people.

He knew his people. He knew what they cared about and showed genuine interest. When I turned thirty during a deployment in Iraq, he had arranged for my girlfriend Ilja to call and congratulate me. That may not sound remarkable today, but in 2004, it was anything but obvious.

It was not a major operation. Not a heroic act. Not a leadership theory.

But I have never forgotten it.

Because it showed that leadership ultimately begins with attention to people.

Trust is built through behaviour

Another lesson I took from Ernst was that trust is not built by talking about it. Trust is built by what people see every day.

In Afghanistan, some units had access to better facilities and protective equipment than others. There were often sound operational reasons for this. Yet he consistently reminded us that leaders must understand what such differences do to trust within an organisation.

People can accept a great deal. Risk, uncertainty and setbacks are part of demanding circumstances. But the moment leaders visibly apply different rules to themselves than to others, distance grows.

Looking back, this was an important lesson about credibility.

Still relevant today

What perhaps surprises me most is how relevant these lessons remain today.

I see the same patterns in complex projects and partnerships. Organisations invest heavily in processes, governance, procedures and consultation structures. All important. Yet success consistently depends on something far more human: trust, ownership and the shared ability to understand what we are actually trying to achieve.

That sounds simple. In practice, it is often one of the hardest challenges.

The lessons I learned as a young lieutenant from Peter van Uhm and Ernst D. still help me every day. Not only in my work, but in the way I think about leadership.

In future articles I will explore some of these lessons further. Why Mission Command is not a licence for chaos. Why trust demands more than good intentions. And why seeking clarification is different from endlessly raising objections.