What Can I Do To Help?

For Marines and sailors, shipboard deployments mean separation from your family for six months and that separation gets even harder when you are deployed during the Christmas holiday. Being faced with this situation, I came up with an idea. Why not have the officers of our squadron serve the Christmas meal to the enlisted Marines and sailors?

As a Marine Aviation Supply Officer, I was “dual-hatted” on deployments which means I worked for the Marine helicopter squadron and the ship’s supply officer. Being in this unique position would make getting this plan set up easier for me than for other officers. So, my first discussion was with the ship’s supply officer who had control over all “mess” decks (military for dining facility). I asked him that if our Commanding Officer (CO) agreed to my plan, would he allow the Marine officers of our squadron to serve the Christmas meal on the enlisted mess deck. He thought that this was a wonderful suggestion and agreed to work with the squadron to allow our officer’s to man one of the serving lines. I told him I would get back to him quickly.

My next visit was to the squadron CO. I outlined my suggestion to him and he was on board quickly. He told me to put a sign-up sheet in ready room (where the pilots gather to do their pre-flight briefs and hang out between flights). I was to put his name at the top of the list, the executive office’s (XO) name next, and then my name. Once we knew how many officers would be willing to participate, the CO told me to get with him and we would lay out the final arrangements.

Much to my delight, every single officer from our squadron signed up to serve. So, with the help of the CO and XO, a rotating schedule was set up showing what times everyone would have to be on the mess deck to serve the Christmas meal. The CO even loosed the uniform standards indicating that “red noses, antlers, Santa Claus hats, garland, and Christmas decorations added to the uniform would not be considered as inappropriate dress for the occasion.

Coordinating with the ship’s supply officer and his enlisted mess deck officer, we had everything ready on Christmas Day. Much to the surprise and delight of our Marines and sailors, they were greeted with a Merry Christmas and what would you like on your plate from some very odd-looking Santa Clauses, reindeer, and Christmas trees. Frowns turned to smiles and there was a lot of laughter coming from our serving line.

As a leader, your willingness to take initiative is vital to your leadership character. Here is what I mean by taking initiative:

• Initiative is seeing what needs to be done and taking action even though no one has told you to do something about the situation. Your action may not be something even seen by other people but makes a difference. For example, I arrive early to work every day (old Marine habits are hard to break). Walking from my car to the door that I enter, I will sometime see trash that has been dropped or blown into the parking lot. I always take the time to pick it up and dispose of it properly. Why? Because the parking lot is the first thing our citizens see when they visit our offices and it should reflect the pride we have in our county.

• Initiative means you will meet new and unexpected situations with prompt action. The building in which I work is a maze of hallways and offices that are the results of additions being added on over many years. As a result, finding a particular office can sometimes be tricky. So, when someone comes to our area and is the wrong location, I walk them to the proper office. I ask their name and purpose for their visit along the way so that when we walk into the appropriate office, I can introduce them, state their problem, and then turn them over to an employee who will be able to help them.

• Initiative includes using resourcefulness to get something done without the normal materials or methods being available to you. There have been times when I receive a call from a citizen with a complaint that has nothing to do with my purchasing function. I always listen and then tell them which office they should have called, the name of the county employee to whom they need to speak, and the phone number they will need in the future. I then obtain the best phone number to call them back should we get cut off and I then transfer their call. I will call them later just to ensure their complaint is being addressed. This sets an important impression that the County cares about the concerns of our citizens.

• Initiative means staying mentally and physically alert so that you can be aware of what needs to be done and will be capable of doing it without being told. Because we work in a building that was built in 1939, the water coming out of the old pipes is not very good for drinking. We have several water coolers throughout the building that hold 5-gallon water bottles. These are heavy and can be tricky to replace. But I keep my eyes on them because many of our offices only have women in them. So, when I see an empty bottle, I obtain a full bottle from the storage area and replace it for them. I do this not because they are not capable of doing replacing the bottle themselves, but because they should not have to replace the bottle themselves when I am available to do it for them.

Does taking the initiative pay in the long run? Absolutely; let me share the final part of the opening story.

That evening, the squadron CO attended the nightly meeting with the Captain of the ship, the ship’s XO, the ship department heads, and the Marine commanding officers that were onboard the ship. The ship’s Captain started the meeting by complementing our squadron CO for having his officer serve the enlisted sailors and Marines their Christmas meal. He then looked at the Navy officers and said, “My only question is, why were there no Navy officers serving our troops?” The CO told me he took full responsibility for the idea but told me come time from my evaluation, he would not forget what I did to make him look good.

In the Corps, we had an old saying:

There are those WHO make things happen, there are those who watch things happen, and there are those who wonder what happened.

Don’t just let things happen or wonder what happened. If you want to be an exemplary leader, take the initiative and make thing happen.