A campus president, was a major general. The school year began with a party for the new class and their spouses. There was no second party as the course was only a year long. He said that when each officer and his spouse entered they were greeted by a receiving line consisting only of the commandant and his wife. In the military, that itself was unusual. The modus operandi is for a receiving line in which an aide is the first to greet the guests. The aide takes the names of the military member and his spouse and introduces them to the senior officer. The senior officer then introduces the couple to his or her own spouse. In this case, there was no aide to first hear the names of each couple. The commandant had met few of the hundred or so officers from all branches of the armed forces in the new class previously, and probably none of their spouses. Yet he amazed each couple by addressing them by their correct first and last names and introducing them correctly to his wife. Moreover, according to the senior officer telling me the story, the general seemed to know about their children and their off-duty activities and interests. His new students were dumbfounded. When occasionally asked by someone how he knew so much about them, he would only smile and say, “A good commander makes it his business to know those for whose well-being he is responsible.” Now I have heard of professional memory experts being able to do things like this, but never anyone else, much less a military commander. The general’s students thought he was beyond having a photographic memory—that he had to be some kind of a psychic. The social talk that night at the party was about the commandant and his remarkable performance. The next day the general addressed the entire class as a group for the first time. He explained the mystery of how he was able to know not only the names, but so much else about his new students and their families. Months before their arrival, all students were asked to submit a family picture and facts about their career and interests. This information would be circulated to the entire class so that they would more quickly get acquainted for this intensive year of top-level learning. The commandant had assembled these responses and taken the time to study these photographs and learn all of his students’ names and a few facts about them. He told his assembled students that he had done this for an important reason: all leaders must know everything they can about their subordinates. Only in this way can a leader lead in such a way as to maximize success of the organization to reach its objectives. “Moreover,” he said, “I wanted to demonstrate that it could be done. No one is obligated to learn so much about so many subordinates and their families in such a short amount of time. But it can be done.” Then the commandant told them that from his study of the material they had sent in months earlier, he knew that they had a great class. As this commandant had shown beyond any doubt that he really knew their backgrounds, he wasn’t just speaking “out of his hat.” He was sincere, and his sincerity was based on fact.

Leadership is complex. To lead successfully, you must see every single person you would have follow you as a separate individual. For a start, you can learn the names of those you lead. It doesn’t really matter how large an organization you lead.