If you’re waiting for someone to give you a title before you lead, you’re already behind.
The best leaders I’ve worked with don’t lead because of a promotion. They lead because of a practice. A mindset. A rhythm. A daily discipline.
In the high-stakes environments I’ve led in – from nuclear submarines to billion-dollar turnarounds – leadership wasn’t optional. And it definitely wasn’t reserved for a select few. It was expected from everyone.
Because when the pressure hits and the plan gets scrambled, your people won’t look to a job title for direction. They’ll look to whoever is prepared.
The Myth of the “Natural Leader” Is Holding Teams Back
We’ve created this cultural myth that leadership is some rare, charismatic trait. That someone “just has it.”
But in my experience, leadership is built, not born. But here’s the kicker: we’re not taking the time to teach our people how to lead. We’re hoping they’ll just figure it out, and that’s a mistake your competition is counting on.
Real Leadership Happens Between Promotions
Here’s the truth: the most critical moments of leadership don’t happen in big strategy meetings. They happen in small daily choices.
- Do you speak up when something’s unclear?
- Do you bring clarity to the people around you?
- Do you help your team reset when the mission changes?
On submarines, we had 20-year-olds who were responsible for making real-time decisions that impacted national security. Not because they had a title, but because they were trained and trusted to lead.
And every day, they practiced that discipline, through drills, debriefs, syncs, and communication rhythms. Leadership was embedded in the culture.
What Happens When Leadership Becomes a Habit
When leadership is part of your daily operating system, here’s what changes:
- Alignment increases because people understand the “why” behind the mission.
- Decision-making gets faster because people are trained to think, not wait.
- Morale improves because people feel ownership, not just responsibility.
It’s not about motivational speeches. It’s about structured behaviors repeated consistently over time.
And this is where most leadership development programs fail. They focus on content, not cadence. But real leadership is built through repetition and reflection, just like any elite performance skill.
The Fast Attack Leadership Approach to Daily Leadership
At Lead With Purpose, we’ve designed the Fast Attack Leadership™ framework to install daily leadership discipline into the DNA of your organization.
It equips your people to:
- Anchor to the mission through clear, repeatable purpose
- Own their decisions even in uncertain conditions
- Reflect and recalibrate through daily huddles and syncs
- Recognize wins and reinforce culture with simple rituals like Bravo Zulu
The result? You don’t just have leaders at the top, but at every level.
Because that’s what it takes to win in 2025: distributed leadership, real-time clarity, and a team that’s trained to lead from wherever they are.
Book Marc Koehler for Your 2025 Leadership Event
If your team is relying on a few heroes at the top, it’s time to build a different system — one where leadership is practiced every day, by everyone.
In my keynote, I’ll share the elite leadership principles I’ve used to drive performance in submarines, startups, and Fortune 500s — and how you can build a culture where leadership isn’t a title. It’s a habit.
Contact us today to book your event.
Because in today’s world, leadership isn’t something you wait for. It’s something you train for.