After 21 years in the U.S. Navy, retiring as a Senior Chief Petty Officer (E-8) in February 2024, I’ve had the privilege of leading sailors across every level of the enlisted ranks. Here are the leadership lessons that shaped me.

Start by Doing the Work

My first leadership role was as a work center supervisor aboard USS TARAWA. I was responsible for 2 Low Pressure Air Compressors and 10 Deballast Air Compressors. The lesson was simple: you can’t lead what you don’t understand.

When a Marotta valve failed on our LP Air system, I didn’t delegate the troubleshooting. I grabbed wrenches and got my hands dirty. That repair saved the Navy over $30,000 in parts and labor, but more importantly, it showed my team that I’d never ask them to do something I wouldn’t do myself.

Systems Beat Heroics

As I moved into senior leadership roles, I learned that sustainable success comes from systems, not individual heroics. When I became Command Training Department Assistant for 119 sailors, I created a qualification tracking system that:

• Increased mission readiness by 30%
• Was adopted by the gaining command for 329+ sailors
• Reduced administrative burden on junior sailors

The system worked whether I was present or not. That’s real leadership.

Develop People, Not Just Skills

During my time as a Recruit Division Commander at RTC Great Lakes, I trained over 900 recruits. The easy path was focusing on immediate skills, getting them through boot camp. The harder, more important work was developing character.

I learned that my role wasn’t to create sailors who needed me. It was to create sailors who would surpass me.

Numbers Tell Stories

Every evaluation I received emphasized measurable impact:

• Transferred 2.2 million gallons of fuel during RIMPAC 2010
• Ranked #1 of 17 first class petty officers
• Led 14-sailor rig team for 14 multi-national ships
• Managed $50-60M in facility budgets as SEL

Leaders who can’t quantify their impact are guessing at their effectiveness.

The Senior Enlisted Academy Lesson

Earning the Capstone Award at the Navy Senior Enlisted Academy wasn’t about being the smartest person in the room. It was about synthesis: taking diverse perspectives and integrating them into coherent strategy.

That skill, seeing how pieces connect, serves me as much in product management as it did in the Navy.

Looking Forward

These lessons translate directly to my current work at Mars and my aspirations in product management:

• Start by doing the work = Deep dive into user problems before proposing solutions
• Systems beat heroics = Build repeatable processes, not one-off fixes
• Develop people = Invest in team growth, not just deliverables
• Numbers tell stories = Measure what matters, but remember metrics serve strategy

Twenty-one years of service taught me that leadership isn’t a destination. It’s a continuous practice.