I wanted him fired, I wanted him out of the unit... I was wrong.

As the engines were spooling down on the helicopter, it sounded like there was…yelling. I was confused. I'm thinking to myself, "we just made it back to base, safely, after a pretty harrowing mission. Why is there yelling going on?!"

I jumped out of the cockpit, took off my helmet and night vision goggles, and sure enough – there was yelling. It was coming from chalk 2 (or, to the layperson, it was coming from the second aircraft in the flight). There was heated conversation going on in the back of the aircraft from our wingman. They, too, had the engines shutdown; but whereas the guys on my aircraft were tired and quiet after an adrenaline-draining night, chalk 2's crew appeared to be fired up with some heated conversation.

As I walked over to the ramp of our sister aircraft, the yelling turned from unintelligible heatedness to clear verbal jabs that had every word measured and specific: "I can't believe we didn't get the team in tonight! That was the worst flying I've ever seen! You guys gave up!" There were more pointed words in there that this website won't allow me to say; and, candidly, I don't want to say. But it was bad.

The senior enlisted guy on the airplane was viscerally and verbally shredding the two pilots on the aircraft. I had never seen anything like this, ever.

Let's back up four hours on the timeline: It was the middle of the night. We had an elite special operations ground force onboard two aircraft. The mission of the special operations air crew (my team) was to infil the ground force into some of the most rugged, cold, high-altitude, and dangerous piece of terrain in the combat zone that we had been operating in for months. It was dark. It was steep. It was, simply, undoable.

The air crew? Some of the best helicopter pilots in the world. They tried their best. Actually, I would say they tried too hard. What? How so? They tried for too long to get this ground team into the landing zone. They expended too much gas; and, more dangerously, spent too much time over the potential landing zone, hovering, and trying to get the team on the target. Even if they were able to infil the team, how much of a "wake-up call" did the engine noise and rotor-blade spinning create so that every enemy fighter was wondering, "what's going on at the top of the mountain?"

The enlisted crew? Some of the best in the world. They, too, tried their best. They tried to talk/coach the pilots down onto a jagged, little mountain peak to unload the warriors. They tried, through a lot of internal radio communication in the helicopter, to guide the pilots – and the aircraft – to get even just one wheel down…so there would be enough stability for each ground force operator to run off the ramp into the cold, dark night. But it didn't happen. The enlisted crew, as good as they were, couldn't get the mission done.

That's why it was so surprising. Shocking, really, to hear this senior enlisted leader going off on the two officers. Everyone had tried their best. But he was fuming. I was stunned.

Before I go on, let me explain a few relational dynamics. The senior enlisted leader? The one that was blowing his top? One of the best, ever. This behavior I was witnessing was an absolute departure from his normal behavior. To be clear, I'm not saying he was normally timid. He wasn't. He was a go-getter, and would tell it like it is. But he was never unprofessional nor demeaning. And the pilots? They weren't passive and apt to take a tongue-lashing that wasn't deserved. Both had been in the service for years – both as enlisted soldiers, and then as officers. They were guys that could go toe to toe. Oh, one more thing – all of these guys really liked each other. They liked each other personally, and they liked working together professionally. Me too. I liked all of these guys. The two pilots on chalk 2 were superstars, in my opinion. So was the enlisted leader. He was a superstar. And he was unloading on the two pilots. I mean, UNLOADING.

I walked onto the back of chalk 2's ramp and took it all in in a matter of seconds. The senior enlisted soldier was tearing the two pilots apart, the other enlisted guys were walking away in confusion and fear of the escalating situation, and the two pilots were stunned. Shocked. Stunned and shocked to silence. They didn't know how to respond.

I lost it. I yelled louder than the enlisted leader. I yelled AT HIM. I told him how unprofessional he was. He tried to surpass me in volume. I surpassed his volume. He was so infuriated that he suggested we take the rank off our collar and settle this "old school." I yelled even louder.

I think the only reason it settled down quickly is because I was able to yell loud enough.

Thirty minutes later, the top enlisted leader in the entire unit (the First Sergeant) was in the officers' tent. He heard what happened with me and one of his senior enlisted guys, and came to check on me. I said, "I want him fired. I want him out of the unit. There is zero reason to act that way. He's gone."

The First Sergeant – a good leader…calm, logical, patient – said to me, "Sir, let's figure out a bit more what's going on."

Thirty minutes later, the enlisted guy who had blown his top walked into my tent. He apologized. It was, by any measure, of two guys who were deeply going at each other's head an hour earlier, a pretty good apology. I lost it, again. And yelled how unprofessional he was. He yelled louder. I yelled louder than he yelled. He left the tent knowing that the conversation was going downhill.

What happened over the next few days? Some other combat operation got our attention, and we had to keep doing business. The enlisted leader stayed in the unit, I didn't demand that he leave this special operations unit and go back to the regular army, and we kept doing our job.

BUT, things were never the same between him and I. We used to love working together; we used to love flying together; we used to have a deep admiration for each other. After that incident, it was never the same. I was so taken aback by his behavior. It was utterly unpredictable from how he normally was. Not how he normally was, how he ALWAYS was. He was always professional, and he was always a superstar. Except for that one time. Just once.

And I put him into a box of unreliable.

I found out after the "incident" (the night where we screamed at each other) that his wife was sick, back home in the United States, and it had the potential to be something beyond alarming. He had just found that out, right before we went flying.

In the business of soldiering, of special operations, of combat missions, you want – and need – to control as much as you can control. If you don't, people get hurt. Here's a guy, a human being, a husband, who has ZERO control over his wife that is thousands of miles away, facing a diagnosis that he can't do anything about. All he can do is receive the information. With not a lot of control. With zero control. Now he's on a combat mission that he has done a lot of times, with a superstar crew, and a high probability of success (based on the guts and expertise of the crew) – he's in a situation where he feels like he has a bit of control…and it doesn't work. It's an off night. The mission doesn't succeed. ZERO control.

And he lost his cool.

And, prior to this night, he was a superstar – every time.

And, after this off night, he was a superstar – every time.

But our relationship was never the same.

In short, I leaned it with zero curiosity about why this was happening with him.

And, worse off, once I found out that something heavy was going on back home, I leaned in with no empathy. Instead, I expected him to have the professionalism to tell me what was going on so I could understand and justify his subpar behavior. I, essentially, gave him no grace. I was shocked that he didn't come and tell me why he behaved so uncharacteristically that night? Why he didn't level with me and give me the reasons.

How sad, really? Two professionals who respected working together, and liked each other, simply tolerated each other after that event.

I've thought, often, why is that? How could he and I get to that place? There's probably a lot of psychology to unpack, but I will give just two reasons: (1) When you hurt someone who you really care about (REALLY, REALLY CARE ABOUT), the hurt runs deep; and it's even harder to undo the hurt that has been done; (2) I was leading from a place where I was wanting/waiting what he was going to do for me, as opposed to "what does he need from me?" This, to state the obvious, is the opposite of good leadership. It's the opposite of servant leadership. It's the opposite of transformational leadership.

This soldier died before we could ever make amends. We never talked about what happened. Ever.

It's sad. It's unneeded. No matter how many other missions were accomplished, it's a wasted friendship. It's poor leadership, on my part.

Since then, I have probably given more latitude than is even deserved with poor performance. Where it's not a "one-time" event, but a systemic pattern of behavior that shows subpar work. Now, I give more grace, because I never want to make that mistake again. But, candidly, even when I have given a lot of grace to habitual subpar performance, it almost always comes out that there were mitigating and personal factors that provided some logical understanding to the lackluster work effort. In other words, everyone has a story – and the question is, do you (the boss, the leader) have the full story to fully understand why someone isn't cutting the mustard?

If there is one thing that we can do as leaders, it's to lead with curiosity, teachability and humility. Okay, that's three things. But all three things are needed to lead well. Be curious about your people and their performance and their behavior and their emotional state and their mental posture. Be teachable that there is probably a lot you don't know that is going on behind the scenes. And, lastly, be humble enough to realize that, maybe, you – the leader – weren't as curious and teachable as you should have been in the first place. That maybe you were more judging than accepting; more critical than supportive; more transactional than relational.  

There's a lot that hangs in the balance. The business at hand, the relationships that are real, and the servant leadership that you – and your people – should expect from you. If I could have a do-over, I would. Unfortunately I can't; but I can learn from it and be a leader that is curious, teachable, and humble – and who cares for people as much, even more so, than the mission.