Military tactics and strategic thinking can improve business leadership. That’s the innovative thinking of Tom Williams, a 10-year US Army officer who enlisted straight out of high school. As an airborne intelligence analyst, he examined, assessed, and evaluated information, then discussed the implications with the commanders, and they would make their decisions.
Williams was an honor graduate in basic training and went on to advanced individual training, then to the Airborne School. After that, he was stationed in Germany with the First Battalion 10th Special Forces Group as support to continue with analytics in Europe. After Tom Williams was promoted to sergeant, he was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division in North Carolina, and then deployed with them to Iraq as the targeting analyst for the brigade.
“We didn’t have an analytical targeting system set up for our brigade at that time. We were there to defeat ISIS at the time,” Tom says. “Around 2014 or 2015 we were pulling out of Iraq and ISIS essentially became an entity that took over all of northern Iraq. We had to go back into the country. I was leading the targeting efforts from the analytical side for my Brigade. I targeted 359 deliberate strikes on enemy fighting positions. I don’t know of anybody who’s had that many clean strikes.”
His team’s efforts in hunting the enemy resulted in President of the United States Donald
Trump credited their unit with the military defeat of ISIS.
Still in the army now, but an officer after passing the Green to Gold program, Williams is looking to take what he’s learned of strategy and leadership and teach it to the civilian and veteran business world.
“I have spent the last 10 years leading soldiers in some of the toughest environments on the planet, ranging from desert combat zones to minus-50 degree temperatures in the Arctic. Leading my teams to victory every time,” Thomas says. “Realizing that leadership is at the core of all strong teams, I launched War Forged Leadership, LLC in 2023 to coach, teach, and mentor other leaders to become the best ones possible.”
Williams is also writing a book that will expand on this knowledge. The online course’s learning modules break the information into lessons that can fit into any entrepreneur or business owner’s busy life.
“One chapter is battle rhythm versus biorhythm. This is basically a work-life balance. I highlight fitness and mental alertness,” Williams says. “I discuss whether everybody can be a leader and how anybody can optimize their personal life so they can peak their performance where it matters.”
Another chapter looks at prioritizing leaders’ time, and looks at how leaders can divide up their time to make the rest of these ideas work. This focuses on Tom’s own army experiences. and it brings up a controversial point in one of today’s bedrock business concepts. He says meetings need to be pruned way back.
“I’ve seen leaders spend so much time going to meetings that they don’t have time to seek out and talk with their people,” Williams says. “Or they’re not doing the performance counseling aspect. The thing is, if you spend all day in meetings and your staff is going to all of your meetings, then no one’s actually doing any work. I’ve seen this 100 times where it gets problematic.”
He recommends that leaders consider reducing meetings and instead focus on prioritizing more professional development time. The book’s publication date is in late January. Tom Williams and his team are working now on “War Forged Leadership,” the online leadership course. He also plans to begin online consulting within the next three to six months.
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