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About this Episode:

In this episode of The Transformative Leader Podcast, I’m happy to bring you a conversation with speaker, coach, and former Royal Marines Officer, Roderic Yapp, about how we can apply leadership lessons from the military to guide our personal and organizational development. Roderic is the Founder of Leadership Forces, which takes the high performance principles of the Royal Marines (as well as elite sport and the nuclear sector) and applies it to leadership development within organizations. Through Leadership Forces, Roderic has worked with clients such as HSBC, Deloitte, Jaguar, Land Rover, Rolls Royce, and Nato.

Roderic is a fascinating guest with, as you might be able to guess from his background, some pretty amazing stories to tell. Like one of our previous guests, he is taking the leadership lessons he uncovered on the (literal) front line (such as described in his TEDx talk), and making them accessible and actionable to those of us in the business world. Something which I personally found interesting in our discussion was how much overlap there was between the lessons of leadersip in the military and on the battlefield, with that of the more holistic type of leadership that I practice and teach. Given that I tend to focus on “soft skills“ and the stereotype about the military is that is it all macho, tough, and cold, you would think they would be polar opposites, but that’s not the case. What it really drove home for me is that leadership is leadership; the same fundamental principles apply and are effective, no matter where you are.

It was really great to have another kindred spirit on the show, and it served to reinforce that these leadership principles really do work and they really do matter, and that we all have what it takes to develop the mindset and behavior to transform ourselves and our organizations. It’s difficult to summarize the range of topics we cover in our conversation, so be sure to check this episode out!

Some topics discussed in this episode include:

• Roderic’s background as a Royal Marines officer and how he has applied his experience to coaching and developing leaders in organizations.

• How Roderic defines leadership and what a leader’s primary responsibilities are.

• How leadership in the military compared with leadership in the corporate world, in terms of communication, mindset, behaviors, and so on.

• Why empathy is important for leaders, but should not be overemphasized at the cost of other competencies.

• And much more…

Roderic Yapp is the Stroud-based Founder, in 2015, of Leadership Forces. A former Royal Marines Officer, he was fortunate enough to lead Marines on operations around the world including Afghanistan in 2007 and the evacuation of civilians from Libya during the Arab Spring. Roderic also led the recapture of the 55,000-ton MV Montecristo from pirate control in 2011, as part of a NATO counter-piracy task force off the Somali coast. Before founding Leadership Forces, Roderic joined the Urenco Group in 2012 where he was responsible for coaching and developing leaders using an Operational Excellence model. An accredited coach with over 2000 hours of experience, Roderic has supported managers to create high performing teams across a multitude of sectors including Professional Services, Asset Management, Banking, Retail, Nuclear, Rating Agencies, large complex UK plc and the NHS.

Guest Links:

To learn more about Roderic and his offerings, you can visit his website. You can also connect with Roderic on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

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