Former Sergeant Major of the Army Van Autreve, who served as the 4th SMA from 1973-1975, spoke of an environment focused on empathy for soldiers centered around servant leadership, This was ahead of its time and long before those terms and concepts became mainstream. The former SMA also understood that the future of the NCO Corps would be shaped by their surroundings.
For those who read articles published by the Company Leader and other leadership initiative based sites in support of the Armed Forces, you understand that in order to dissect what a “Leader” is, it is important to first understand its definition. According to ADP 6-22, Army Leadership and the Profession, leadership is defined as “the activity of influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation to accomplish the mission and improve the organization” (Department of the Army, 2017). This should sound remarkably familiar, as it is one of the most common board questions asked during any evaluation or promotion board.
The non-commissioned officer has always been the backbone of our Army. No matter what type of conflict America has faced, our Non-Commissioned Officer Corps has risen to the challenge each and every time. As our Army continues to refine our ability to conduct Large Scale Combat Operations, the non-commissioned officers of Operations Group at the National Training Center have truly risen to the challenge. Outlaw 40 and the senior NCOs from throughout Operations Group constructed this handbook specifically for NCOs, paying particular attention to rotational observations and current doctrine. They established a cross walk guide for numerous non-commissioned officer positions at echelon throughout brigade combat teams and clearly articulated how the great non-commissioned officers in a unit can help their team fight and win.
Counseling is one of the most important tools given to Non Commissioned Officers in today’s Army. It allows us to provide valuable feedback to our subordinates, and allows us to map out development plans that will ultimately shape the Army of tomorrow. So why is it so rarely utilized in the National Guard and Reserves?
The second lieutenant walked through the office door, I sat at the squad leader desk working on counseling’s and my platoon sergeant was napping behind his desk. The lieutenant greeted us and introduced himself as our new platoon leader, I welcomed him and turned back to my work. My platoon sergeant squinted at him and stood up, he grabbed a chair and put it in a corner. “This is where the kids sit until they learn their place.” He grunted and turned around to sit down at his desk. This first interaction set the tone for the new platoon leader and his interactions with all NCOs.
In a 21st-century leadership environment that is dominated by technological advancements, communication between noncommissioned officers and their soldiers is easier today than it’s ever been. Compounding this ease of communication with the United States Army’s long-standing philosophy of standardization, today’s leadership environment has created quite the conundrum for the new era of NCOs. Though the Army’s workplaces are dominated by multiple levels of structure, it is essential for NCOs to understand that the key to effectively developing their Soldiers is individualized leadership.
Everyone has their own way of portraying their feelings, ideas, and problems. For some it’s art, for others music, or acting; for me it has become writing. In this profession especially, writing is the one of the best ways to convey information. It helps to communicate goals and expectations, whether it just be for us to read, or a broader audience.
Why do we write? As humans, we write to communicate information and ideas across time and space, when we cannot do so through oral means with physical presence. As Non-Commissioned Officers in the United States Military, we do so because we can no longer afford to do otherwise. Writing is now a part of all professional military education, starting at the Basic Leaders Course that all enlisted soldiers must go through to become NCOs.
Loud and colorful video imagery covered the screen in the Production Control office of our Kiowa Squadron. It was 2012 and we were conducting an after-action review of a downed aircraft recovery training event. In the middle of our exercise, in a simulated crashed aircraft, we had no way of talking to our TOC. Our QRF forces weren’t coming in over the radio. And the pilots providing overhead cover…nothing from them either. We couldn’t talk. Our recovery mission was a complete failure. In this moment – standing in our AAR – I realized it was because no one conducted pre-missions checks and services on our radios. As our Production Control Officer would say, “without comms, you are dead. End of story.”
It was a rare weekend when we weren’t in the field, preparing for the field, recovering from the field, or occupied with an upcoming deployment. If I wasn’t cursed with weekend duty, I either took advantage of Schofield Barracks’ proximity to Waikiki to partake in bottomless mai tais at the Outrigger Reef, or played hermit in my barracks room. Back then, I pecked away at my top of the line Gateway PC with a whopping 1 MB of RAM, 400 MB hard drive, and 33MHz processor, and a keyboard that clicked loudly with each key stroke. I was working on a novel, an activity that filled hundreds of lazy weekend hours, but my voice as a twenty-two-year-old novice now seems almost laughably naïve. Almost as laughable as all that computing power filling up an entire barracks desk, but I digress.