Perception and Leadership-by-Proxy

Bravos play multiple roles for their Alpha

A woman married to an Alpha points out two very important services that her husband’s Bravos provide for him on a regular basis.

In witnessing my Alpha husband, I will add that Bravos serve two additional and essential roles. First, they are his eyes and ears when he isn’t around. They report back to him an honest read on who people truly are when they’re not performing for his approval. Second, they are his stand-in, his proxy in the field. This allows him to measure people’s loyalty, respect, and attitude when he’s not there to command them directly.

The first factor is especially important due to what I jokingly refer to as his “pretty privilege.” He moves through the world without realizing how much his presence shifts the energy of a room, especially the masculine energy. He doesn’t see the recalibration that happens around him. With men, there’s a heightened attentiveness. Postures straighten, voices drop, effort sharpens. Sometimes it borders on subtle fangirling. For instance, at a recent concert, a guard even joked, “Sir, you’ll need to check your guns with security,” referring to his arms. It’s his normal, because everywhere he goes, there he is.

In everyday life, that deference is amusing to annoying, but within the context of his company, that change in behavior is amplified. The effect he has on his crews is similar to what happens when people meet the Queen. They stand taller, they’re deferential, they speak carefully. Unfortunately, that means what my husband sees is not the full truth of his employees’ behavior. It’s their curated self. The one designed to impress him. When he leaves, they loosen up and often reveal who they really are, like soldiers exhaling as the colonel walks past. He doesn’t see that shift because, to him, the atmosphere always feels the same, because again, everywhere he goes, there he is.

This curation of character is why his Bravos matter. They watch when people relax and the mask slips off. Sometimes innocently, sometimes ugly. Some are revealed as lazy, arrogant, or worse, disrespectful, and worst of all, selfish. The Bravos give him a clear view into who these people truly are when they are not under his direct gaze. Without them, what he sees is only the performance people want him to believe.

He’s not oblivious to these dynamics and does have his own sense of who is putting on a mask in his presence. He refers to them as “bullshitters,” and essentially, they just talk too much. They choose to substitute words for results. His Bravos are the ones who confirm what he senses and bring back the proof.

However, their role isn’t just to observe. It’s to represent. My husband’s crews are out for weeks at a time, and during that time, the Bravos become his voice, his standard, his authority in the field. He invests years having them shadow him, training them to think like he does, anticipate his expectations, and run the crews with his same mix of fairness and precision. If a crew member refuses to take direction from his Bravo, he sees it for what it is. Not a conflict of personalities, but a direct challenge to the chain of command. In his eyes, disrespect toward his Bravo is disrespect toward him, and that is unacceptable.

When it comes to people’s character and performance, he is remarkably tolerant of mistakes and will overlook almost anything except selfishness. Incompetence gets weeded out early through the academy process, so that is a non-factor. What he hires for is attitude first, skill second. But selfishness, someone putting their own comfort or ego above the team, is unforgivable. If he or a Bravo uncover that, they are done.

The Bravos, by contrast, lead quietly. They don’t have to announce authority. They embody it. Their steadiness is what keeps order when he’s not there. They carry his standards without needing his presence.

Without Bravos, my husband only ever sees a performance, people behaving as they wish him to perceive them. With Bravos, he gets the truth. He gets continuity of authority when he’s absent and a window into the integrity of his people when no one’s watching.

This is a very pertinent and important observation that deepens our understanding of the importance of the Bravo to his hierarchy as well as the reason having Bravos is so vital to the success of an Alpha. The bigger the organization, the more important the ability of the Bravos to provide that perception and leadership-by-proxy that the Alpha cannot possibly provide on his own.

I have experienced firsthand the fundamental flaws and inevitable failures that are caused when a situational Bravo is disloyal and refuses to pass on information that he possesses in order to influence the decision-making of the situational Alpha. The company that I was running lost a tremendous opportunity for an exclusive right to distribute a supplier’s products throughout an entire continent because the situational Bravo hid the offer and told the supplier that I had rejected the offer because it would have replaced an inferior product line that he had developed himself.

Which underlines why you don’t want a Delta, with their relentless narrow focus and self-serving narcissism, serving as a situational Bravo.

A leader will only see what his subordinates permit him to see. Which is why it is so important to have trustworthy lieutenants paying attention to what is going on when the leader isn’t around and the rest of the organization knows he isn’t watching them.