Sit down and smoke the cigarette.

technique — attributed to Seth Moulton

As a Marine officer with an Ivy League background, Moulton was on the wrong side of a class and education divide from his enlisted soldiers. Most officers would have given the eighteen-year-olds a lecture about not smoking. Moulton joined them and lit one. The act put him on equal footing with them and them on equal footing with him. Conversation became possible, and trust followed. The principle is older than the Marines. Leaders who want trust from people structurally below them have to do something visible that contradicts the hierarchy. The cigarette is one form. There are others. The shape matters less than the visible cost the leader is willing to pay.

For officers, executives, and any leader managing teams with significant status differential. The technique requires the leader to identify what their team would not expect, and to do it.

status-leveling, trust-building, military-leadership, rapport