On Veterans Day, the annual Nov. 11 observance honoring Americans who have served in the armed forces, several Fortune 500 chief executives are highlighting lessons they learned in uniform—attention to detail, a willingness to take responsibility, and the composure to make decisions under pressure—that they say still shape how they lead thousands of employees.

The group spans industries and generations: Jim Taiclet of Lockheed Martin, who logged more than 5,000 flight hours as an Air Force pilot; Darren Rebelez of Casey's General Stores, who fought in the Gulf War; Shane O'Kelly of Advance Auto Parts, a West Point graduate and former Army infantry officer; and Jeffrey Martin of Sempra, who trained at West Point to help defend Western Europe against a potential Soviet threat. Three of the four—Rebelez, O'Kelly and Martin—are graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and their companies span defense contracting, convenience retail, automotive aftermarket parts and energy infrastructure, each ranked on the Fortune 500, Fortune's annual list of the largest U.S. companies by revenue.

Here is how each of them has described the way military service continues to inform their leadership.

Lockheed Martin's Taiclet: trusted with enormous responsibility at a young age

Jim Taiclet, chief executive of Lockheed Martin—the defense giant ranked No. 61 on the Fortune 500—grew up in a military family and attended the U.S. Air Force Academy. He served as a pilot from 1985 to 1991, flying a Lockheed C-141B Starlifter, a strategic military transport aircraft, and logging more than 5,000 flight hours, including during the Gulf War.

While still in his mid-twenties, Taiclet commanded multimillion-dollar aircraft and experienced aircrews on classified missions around the world—assignments that sometimes came with an ominous send-off. "In my mid-twenties, I was commanding multi-million dollar aircraft and experienced air crews on classified missions all over the world," he said in a 2017 interview, when he was chief executive of American Tower. "On a few of these, the mission briefer's parting words were, 'If anything happens, we never heard of you.'"

Taiclet has said the experience taught him what it meant to be trusted with enormous responsibility at a remarkably young age. It also taught him how to lead people with different levels of experience, skills and seniority while performing under pressure when the stakes could not be higher.

After leaving the Air Force, Taiclet entered the private sector as a consultant at McKinsey and went on to hold leadership positions at Pratt & Whitney and Honeywell. He became chief executive of American Tower, a wireless communications infrastructure company, in 2004, and in 2020 was tapped to lead Lockheed Martin, one of the world's largest defense contractors.

Today, roughly one in five of Lockheed's 120,000 employees are veterans—a workforce share that underscores the close ties between the defense sector and the nation's veteran community. Taiclet has said the value veterans bring extends beyond technical expertise or familiarity with the defense industry—it is also the leadership skills and sense of responsibility they develop through military service. "If you learn those skills about responsibility, leadership by example when you're in your 20s and you can actually take those forward your whole career," he told CNBC in 2023. "The mission dedication that you have whether it's Lockheed Martin or any other company—[if] you get a veteran on your team, they're going to be committed."

Casey's Rebelez: from Gulf War infantry officer to KFC manager to CEO

Darren Rebelez became CEO of Casey's General Stores, ranked No. 282 on the Fortune 500, in 2019. Long before he was running one of the country's largest convenience-store chains—a company valued at $25 billion—he was learning how to lead soldiers.

Rebelez graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1988 and spent the next three years as an infantry officer, including a deployment to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, the 1990–1991 conflict triggered by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. After leaving the military, he began his civilian career as a restaurant manager at KFC before moving into leadership roles across the food and retail sectors, including at ExxonMobil, 7-Eleven and IHOP.

Despite the change in industries, Rebelez has said the leadership lessons he learned at West Point have remained central to his approach to business. "West Point was where I learned leadership," he told Chief Executive in 2024. "A lot of people think of it as a liberal arts school or an engineering school, but it's really a leadership school that teaches you all that other stuff."

For Rebelez, that foundation starts with building trust among the people he leads—listening to employees, treating them with respect, and giving them the resources they need to succeed. "80 percent of leadership is just showing up," he said. "If you're not there, you can't lead."

While that philosophy is rooted in his military experience, Rebelez has said the skills developed through service are valuable well beyond the armed forces. "In the military, you learn resiliency, for sure. That, along with toughness, mission focus, work ethic, teamwork, a can-do attitude, decisiveness," he added in a 2023 Spencer Stuart report. "Those are all things that I think fit really well in any sort of leadership role."

Advance Auto Parts' O'Kelly: following first, listening first

Shane O'Kelly leads Advance Auto Parts, the North Carolina-based automotive aftermarket retailer ranked No. 461 on the Fortune 500. Like Rebelez, his path to the C-suite began at West Point: he graduated in 1990 with a degree in mathematical economics and spent the next seven years serving as an Army infantry officer.

After leaving the military, O'Kelly earned an MBA from Harvard and began climbing the corporate ranks, with early stops at McKinsey and The Home Depot.

His approach to leadership reflects lessons he carried with him from the Army: humility, listening, and leading by example. "You have to be able to follow before you can lead and you have to listen before you can talk," O'Kelly told Business North Carolina in 2024. "And don't ask people to do anything you wouldn't be prepared to do yourself."

Sempra's Martin: raising up new leaders at every level

Jeffrey Martin, CEO of energy infrastructure company Sempra, leads a workforce of roughly 20,000, and has said his approach to leadership—centered on developing the people around him—was shaped by his years in the Army.

Martin was motivated to serve after the Iran Hostage Crisis—the 1979–1981 standoff in which U.S. embassy personnel in Tehran were held captive—and began attending the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1980. Four years later, after obtaining his degree in general engineering, he was commissioned as an officer. His unit's mission was to help defend Western Europe against a potential Soviet threat in the final years of the Cold War, and he left the Army as a captain in December 1989.

The experience left him with a view of leadership that extends beyond giving orders or relying on a title. "I learned that people often make the mistake of associating leadership with creating followership, and unfortunately that can lead to an over-reliance on one's title or position in an organization to accomplish things," he said in a 2022 Sempra Q&A. "Instead, what is far more important is being intentional about creating new leaders at every level of an organization."

That philosophy, he added, applies just as much in business as it does in the military: "Whether your focus is on winning on the battlefield or in corporate America, leadership is all about raising up those around you and bringing out the best in people, teams and organizations."

This story was originally published on Fortune.