Studies have shown that compliance officers are stressed, often under-resourced, and feel under siege. It can seem that every day is a battle.

Retired Major General Lewis MacKenzie knows that feeling well, and not just metaphorically. As the former head of United Nations peacekeeping forces, the Canadian military leader can sympathize with the challenge of being caught between bureaucratic leadership and rank-and-file personnel. The battlegrounds may be very different, but the keys to success are strikingly similar, he says.

Mackenzie drew comparisons to his life during wartime and the challenges faced by compliance officers and corporate leadership in his keynote address at the Compliance Week 2013 annual conference this week in Washington D.C.

During his military career, MacKenzie commanded troops throughout the world, notable in the Gaza Strip, Vietnam, and Central America. He earned global media coverage when, during the Bosnian civil war, commanding troops from 31 nations, he managed to secure and open Sarajevo's airport for the delivery of humanitarian aid.

MacKenzie, who retired from military service in 1993, has served as a director for several companies.

“Any idiot can lead when everything is easy, but that's not the case these days in either business or the military,” MacKenzie told attendees. His definition of leadership: “getting people to do what they don't want to do and having them enjoy the experience.”

A military leader, much like one in the business world, can only succeed with a motivated, unified workforce. Whether they are soldiers on the front line or the team in accounting, a mission or enterprise can only succeed is the rank-and-file is empowered to challenge authority when needed, to speak truth to power. Will they have the nerve to stand up to those who either outrank them or sign their paychecks? That is a question compliance officers are often faced with as they shape company culture through hotlines and other tools that encourage front-line feedback.

Soldiers and employees alike need to have the courage to challenge the assumptions of their superiors and “disagree without being disagreeable,” MacKenzie said. For their part, “the leader has to establish the atmosphere where people will do that without thinking their career is destroyed.”

Efforts to keep leadership accessible and accountable are crucial, he added, explaining that too often the trappings and distractions that come with power can cloud judgment and create an isolating bubble of perception. He recalls otherwise exemplary colleagues who, once they rose to higher status, lost self-perspective. “They actually thought all the perks, like the car and the driver, were for them,” he says. “They thought that all of a sudden they were more important and became very isolated from the people they were working with. You establish relationships your entire life and there is no reason to change how you do things when you are put in a position of authority.”

Good leaders need to keep their egos in check and ensure that open lines of communication cut across all levels, from the mail room to the board room. “It's no good listening if no one is talking to you,” MacKenzie said.

Fostering that culture of communication requires leaders to take an active interest in those they oversee. “If you know only one thing about the people you work with, know what their passions are -- from gardening to free-fall parachuting, you need know what it is,” MacKenzie said.  “That's the window you need to break through to find out what they really think about their organization.”

“Accepting responsibility, even when you are not responsible for the good of the organization,” is another important leadership trait. Accepting that mantle shouldn't come with qualifications or rationalizations. “There is no ‘but' after ‘I'm responsible,'” MacKenzie offered.

Staying focused on culture issues can be a challenge for executives, boards, and their compliance teams because there are so many distractions with “information overload and all the regulations that flow down,” he added. But even amid these challenges, these parties need to keep a pulse on the workforce. Even something as simple as informal walkabouts allows them to see and be seen. This can be particularly important for boards that are otherwise isolated from the company.

MacKenzie confessed that he is not a “big believer in the ‘vision thing'” that executives often spout. “Think about the future, but start with today,” he said. Building better company, in terms of governance and culture, needs to be fought one battle at a time.