Great essay Austin, with lots of solid insights and practical advice! I admire the way you mixed doctrine with the realities of leadership in a unit and the importance of self reflection, self improvement and not giving up.
This essay focuses on self reflection and actualization as part of your personal journey, which is wonderful. However, I must ask if your Platoon Sergeant or Company Commander played any role in this journey (other than the negative one you mention)? I was always taught, and experienced to different degrees, that part of a senior NCO’s job, and certainly that of my immediate commander, was to help to train me as a leader. I surmise this did not happen, but please correct me if I am wrong.
With my first platoon, definitely not. I tried to tell my company commander that I was struggling, but he was not interested. Most of the infantry officers in my year group that I know had similar experiences - we received very little guidance or mentorship as LTs.
Everything written here is true, but The Author should never had to discover it on his own, yet this is our system and culture in the Army. Our personnel system.
In a word; Inhuman.
Materialism with men as cogs ⚙️
This is my problem with our personnel system in particular with the Army platoon leader.
Platoon leader is the only job I know that has immediate dangerous real world consequences at all times where a green person is given some training and then *tossed in sink or swim * without any sort of apprenticeship or mentoring, groomed for the job in the group he is joining, in this case leading.
If Electricians, Builders, Tower Climbers, commercial drivers, engineers, pilots, ship navigators or Captains did this they’d be fired or jailed after equipment was damaged or people killed.
Yet this is our system by design and enforced by regulation and culture. The tragedy isn’t that so many officers struggle or fail;
The miracle is any succeed.
This by the way is the Officer Corps all the way up. Learn by sink or swim and supposedly peer competition the entire way. There’s no formal personal mentoring, such as the humblest enlisted or civilian tradesman would get - like it or not.
Other armies DON’T DO THIS.
The British Army the Platoon Commander is a Captain, he mentors Subalterns, the Company Commander is a Major, he mentors Captains- and this mentoring isn’t some side deal like Army “mentors” (which is client-patron if anything).
The German Army in WW1 certainly did something similar with its Kadet leaders.
Look at how our NCOs rise from the ranks, step by step guided and trained up then up.
We operate almost as bastardized office workers or a sales force (up or out is sales, and not even high end corporate sales at that, that’s a car lot sales force). The 🇺🇸Officers are *formally* on their own “competing with each other.”
This isn’t true, we’re competing with the enemy. We know this, but we’re fighting our own system, and that system does create a dysfunctional culture - that we as a group get around or ignore.
Any human real skill or profession is a mentor to apprentice personal teaching at your side, the education of Cyrus wasn’t done in the classroom (Cyropedia).
I have been a platoon leader and fallen on my face until I succeeded, I can certainly go on at length, comedy ensued.
(I left as Captain with 7 years for background before returning after 9/11). My experiences support everything the Author is saying, and everything I just wrote.
(In no way sour grapes or did I fail, not that it matters).
Good stuff, but the organization needs to change, the personnel system must be rooted out and replaced.
Great essay Austin! I learned so much about this by failing continuously in my first leadership position and then getting pretty good at it. Your words below about defaulting to a rigid style are so central to many leadership struggles:
"Most people will feel a natural pull towards either commitment-based methods of influence or compliance-based methods of influence. That natural bias is simply a product of personality and experience. But that natural bias means that many leaders will simply ignore several methods of influence entirely. By focusing on only a few methods of influence regardless of the situation, you are at risk of developing a leadership pathology."
This was a great read dude. We are the same age and served at the same time, I was 1 state above you at fort sill OK, enlisted. All I wanted from my officers was confidence and to know that they looked out for my well being. It’s really cool to see the other sides perspective.
I’m glad you enjoyed it! Fortunately I did a lot better my second time around as a PL and my company absolutely crushed it when I was a commander…and you nailed it: taking care of soldiers is paramount.
I’ve seen a similar framework that has 3 poles: intellect, heart, and will. I wonder if flattening the reasoning/intellectualization manner of leadership is an artifact of the domain you’re leading in (versus say a group of scientists)?
Sorry, I’m sure that wasn’t super clear. The model you’re using has two poles, compliance and commitment. I’ve seen a model of leadership that has 3 poles which are will (compliance), heart (a subset of commitment style actions) and intellect (a subset of commitment style actions). I’ve found this model of ones go-to leadership tendencies to be helpful because it also illustrates some other negative tendencies leaders can fall into like solving all the problems themselves. I wonder if your domain where leaders are dumped right into leading large teams means this sort of behavior doesn’t happen as much.
Great essay Austin, with lots of solid insights and practical advice! I admire the way you mixed doctrine with the realities of leadership in a unit and the importance of self reflection, self improvement and not giving up.
This essay focuses on self reflection and actualization as part of your personal journey, which is wonderful. However, I must ask if your Platoon Sergeant or Company Commander played any role in this journey (other than the negative one you mention)? I was always taught, and experienced to different degrees, that part of a senior NCO’s job, and certainly that of my immediate commander, was to help to train me as a leader. I surmise this did not happen, but please correct me if I am wrong.
With my first platoon, definitely not. I tried to tell my company commander that I was struggling, but he was not interested. Most of the infantry officers in my year group that I know had similar experiences - we received very little guidance or mentorship as LTs.
That is most unfortunate and says nothing very good about those company commanders or their battalion commanders.
Unfortunate by design.
Everything written here is true, but The Author should never had to discover it on his own, yet this is our system and culture in the Army. Our personnel system.
In a word; Inhuman.
Materialism with men as cogs ⚙️
This is my problem with our personnel system in particular with the Army platoon leader.
Platoon leader is the only job I know that has immediate dangerous real world consequences at all times where a green person is given some training and then *tossed in sink or swim * without any sort of apprenticeship or mentoring, groomed for the job in the group he is joining, in this case leading.
If Electricians, Builders, Tower Climbers, commercial drivers, engineers, pilots, ship navigators or Captains did this they’d be fired or jailed after equipment was damaged or people killed.
Yet this is our system by design and enforced by regulation and culture. The tragedy isn’t that so many officers struggle or fail;
The miracle is any succeed.
This by the way is the Officer Corps all the way up. Learn by sink or swim and supposedly peer competition the entire way. There’s no formal personal mentoring, such as the humblest enlisted or civilian tradesman would get - like it or not.
Other armies DON’T DO THIS.
The British Army the Platoon Commander is a Captain, he mentors Subalterns, the Company Commander is a Major, he mentors Captains- and this mentoring isn’t some side deal like Army “mentors” (which is client-patron if anything).
The German Army in WW1 certainly did something similar with its Kadet leaders.
Look at how our NCOs rise from the ranks, step by step guided and trained up then up.
We operate almost as bastardized office workers or a sales force (up or out is sales, and not even high end corporate sales at that, that’s a car lot sales force). The 🇺🇸Officers are *formally* on their own “competing with each other.”
This isn’t true, we’re competing with the enemy. We know this, but we’re fighting our own system, and that system does create a dysfunctional culture - that we as a group get around or ignore.
Any human real skill or profession is a mentor to apprentice personal teaching at your side, the education of Cyrus wasn’t done in the classroom (Cyropedia).
I have been a platoon leader and fallen on my face until I succeeded, I can certainly go on at length, comedy ensued.
(I left as Captain with 7 years for background before returning after 9/11). My experiences support everything the Author is saying, and everything I just wrote.
(In no way sour grapes or did I fail, not that it matters).
Good stuff, but the organization needs to change, the personnel system must be rooted out and replaced.
Thanks for your service. Seriously.
Dude! Thank you so much for your support 😀
Great essay Austin! I learned so much about this by failing continuously in my first leadership position and then getting pretty good at it. Your words below about defaulting to a rigid style are so central to many leadership struggles:
"Most people will feel a natural pull towards either commitment-based methods of influence or compliance-based methods of influence. That natural bias is simply a product of personality and experience. But that natural bias means that many leaders will simply ignore several methods of influence entirely. By focusing on only a few methods of influence regardless of the situation, you are at risk of developing a leadership pathology."
Thanks, Baird! I am glad that you liked it :-)
Leadership is an adventure of lots of lessons learned.
This was super helpful! Excited to practice some new methods of influence as I step into my new leadership role this spring. Really helpful advice.
Thanks sis! ❤️ Glad it was helpful
This was a great read dude. We are the same age and served at the same time, I was 1 state above you at fort sill OK, enlisted. All I wanted from my officers was confidence and to know that they looked out for my well being. It’s really cool to see the other sides perspective.
I’m glad you enjoyed it! Fortunately I did a lot better my second time around as a PL and my company absolutely crushed it when I was a commander…and you nailed it: taking care of soldiers is paramount.
What if the Army did to Privates what it does to Lieutenants?
Conversely what if the Army did for Lieutenants and Platoon leaders especially what it does for every Private?
Which may just be the answer.
Excellent.
I’ve seen a similar framework that has 3 poles: intellect, heart, and will. I wonder if flattening the reasoning/intellectualization manner of leadership is an artifact of the domain you’re leading in (versus say a group of scientists)?
Sorry I’m not understanding exactly what you’re saying. Could you elaborate?
Sorry, I’m sure that wasn’t super clear. The model you’re using has two poles, compliance and commitment. I’ve seen a model of leadership that has 3 poles which are will (compliance), heart (a subset of commitment style actions) and intellect (a subset of commitment style actions). I’ve found this model of ones go-to leadership tendencies to be helpful because it also illustrates some other negative tendencies leaders can fall into like solving all the problems themselves. I wonder if your domain where leaders are dumped right into leading large teams means this sort of behavior doesn’t happen as much.
Thanks for commenting, John!