A Leader's Leader - Lessons from the Battlefield
A month ago, I was on the Gold Coast for ANZAC Day, my Dad's ashes were being scattered at sea during the Currumbin ANZAC service. It was a fitting finale to a man who spent his life at sea.
The day before the service, I was at the Currumbin RSL Club, and as I was walking in, I saw a man walking out. I recognised him immediately, although I had never met him. I couldn't let the moment pass; I had to look this man in the eye and shake his hand."Keith Payne! Keith Payne!" I called in an almost breathless voice. He turned and looked at me, slightly bemused, but at the same time not terribly surprised. "Yes", he replied, "I'm Keith Payne".
"I just wanted to introduce myself, sir, and say hello. My name is Mark Cowan-Aston, ex 3rd Battalion. It's a great honour to meet you." I'm not sure if I sounded lame, I didn't really care. My partner, Jill turned and looked at me, wondering who this man was that I had accosted, and why.
Keith Payne at 84, upright and alert although no doubt a little slower than when in his pomp, was very patient, and very courteous to me in the minute or so that I held him up. We spoke briefly, I thanked him and wished him well. He returned the compliment. We shook hands, he turned and was gone.
Who is Keith Payne?
Keith Payne was, is, a leader, and a bloody fine soldier. On 24 May 1969 in Kontum Province, Vietnam, he was commanding 212th Company of 1st Mobile Strike Force Battalion, a composite of indigenous Vietnamese,soldiers and American and Australian advisors, when the battalion was overrun by a numerically superior North Vietnamese force. I won't give a blow by blow account, anyone interested can look it up. Suffice to say, his actions over the ensuing hours earned Keith Payne the Victoria Cross.
Keith Payne never abused his position of leadership; by selflessly exposing himself to enemy fire to draw it away from wounded colleagues, his personal courage and lack of consideration for his own welfare gave others a chance to survive.
He never lied to those who had given him their trust: as he at times single handedly engaged the enemy while rallying his frightened and disorganised troops, he provided a lone example of courage which they were to follow.
He never sought financial advantage from his position of leadership: at the beginning of the battle he was wounded in the hands and the arms but ignored his own plight to rally and refocus those who he was responsible for.
He never diverted from his mission; as darkness descended over the battlefield to hide continuing assaults by the enemy, he repeatedly went out alone beyond the secure perimeter he had established to to recover lost and wounded soldiers left behind in the chaos. Over a three hour period under constant fire, Keith Payne collected forty lost and wounded soldiers and returned them to the relative safety of the company base.
A simple man, Keith Payne exhibited the characteristics of service and leadership that has become conspicuously absent in today's society. The ideas of clergy abusing children, banks cheating their customers, public servants rorting the system, police lying to cover up their illegal acts, politicians obtaining personal benefits through the abuse of the position the electorate had bestowed upon them, these concepts were so far from the psyche of Warrant Officer Class Two Keith Payne on that dramatic day in 1969 that they were literally unthinkable.
Keith Payne hadn't been weighed down with endless leadership models, hadn't had his head filled with meaningless "psycho-babble", hadn't been "incentivised" to perform in the hope of bonuses or rewards. No.
Keith Payne operated on the basis of two leadership models, although it is likely he wouldn't have (at the time at least) been able to articulate either. He believed in leading by example, by not asking his followers to do anything that he wouldn't, couldn't do himself. Indeed, he placed himself in the way of greater danger than his soldiers, and the ultimate survival of his colleagues was largely the result of this selflessness.
The second model Keith Payne operated by was that of servant leadership; to him and his ilk,leadership was a privilege, not an entitlement, and to do it well, he knew that he must serve those who followed him. This is a philosophy that dates back 2,500 years, but is well described by Robert Greeenleaf when he wrote;
"The servant-leader is servant first….It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions. For such it will be a later choice to serve---after leadership is established. The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature….The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. (Greenleaf, 1977, p.13)
Today's leaders need to take a leaf from Keith Payne, need to genuinely seek to lead by example, need to understand that to lead is to serve. As Mohandas Gandhi said, "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."
What a privilege to meet Keith Payne VC.
Bibliography
Greenleaf, R.K. (1977). Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness. Mahwah, NJ.: Paulist Press.
