Congratulations graduates, you’ve now entered middle management!

In all seriousness, well done to you all. The Army will be glad to see you back in the ranks making a difference – after some energizing leave, I hope.

It’s my honor to join “The Field Grade Leader” in offering you a few points to reflect on as you transition to your next Army adventure. For whatever my insights may be worth, I’d like you to consider the following. First, entering middle management, or what the CGSC calls organizational-level leadership, is not a quantum leap from what you knew as a company grade leader, at least not the quantum leap that it was built up to be when I attended CGSC ten years ago. Second, for most of you, your near-term calling is to succeed as a Battalion S3 or XO, not a member of a General Staff. My comments that follow are entirely focused on this reality.

To the first point – the CGSC’s narrative of field grade leadership may lure you into envisioning yourself leading from inside an office, TOC, or vehicle made entirely of dry-erase material, from which you place a Captain between you and all of your problems. Alas, this is a grossly overstated ideal. Remember, your staff Captains, Lieutenants, and NCOs are all doing their job for the first time and they are operating in a storm of all things “readiness.” Don’t be surprised that you not only have to teach your staff how a Battalion runs, but also have to quarterback the occasional staff functions yourself. You’ll be proofreading a lot. You’ll be counting beans and bullets, synchronizing small tactical units, and checking motor pool Monday. If you think this sounds a little like being a Company Commander, you’re getting my point. To be clear, you’ll be operating at a much more pivotal level, bridging the companies to the staff and Battalion Commander. But please don’t be shocked when you find yourself engrossed in the thick of a Battalion’s minutia. In fact, you should revel in it – you still get to live a life that’s intimately connected to our Soldiers and NCOs, plus you will likely have very talented Captains. Therein lies your opportunity to be a teacher, coach, and mentor.

So, what is the difference between company and field grade leadership? In my opinion, it differs most in three areas. First, you may have to quarterback some tasks yourself, but you will no longer have the ability and time to quarterback ALL of them like you could as a Company Commander. Second, you are positioned to lead through networking.* A company grade officer can network but does not have to and is not easily positioned to on a wide scale. As a field grade officer, you are not only positioned to network, you will have to network to succeed. Third, by the end of your KD time, your Army reputation will be established and this reputation will lock or unlock your ability to succeed. In this respect, fortune favors the competent team player.

To the second point – your near-term reality is that you are likely to become Battalion S3s or XOs and therefore bureaucrats. Sure, S3s and XOs are leaders and play a key role setting the tone of a battalion. But assuming your Battalion Commander is a sound leader, the most critical service majors provide a Battalion is that they are the masters of the Battalion’s systems, everything from the inspectable areas to the more important systems such as unit training management and combined arms operations. I believe that field grade bureaucrats that contribute most to the success of a Battalion are usually doing two things really well.

First, field grade officers know how to plot and manage a Long-Range Calendar (LRC) with high fidelity, even when the entire enterprise above them conspires against them. The “Field Grade Leader” could dedicate an entire article to just the LRC, but I’ll summarize the art of the LRC with six rules of thumb: (i) start with the LRC, (ii) there are NOT 52 weeks in a year, (iii) don’t count weeks on leave or deployed as T-weeks, (iv) plot the big unit transitions and plan for them, e.g., in/out of training, in/out of leave, (v) use business rules to balance training tempo, and (vi) the LRC is not the SRC. I’d be happy to clarify these in further correspondence.

Second, we’ve got to talk about fighting. You can go a long way in the Army by being a great leader…unless you don’t know how to fight – so do both well. Elite field grade officers maintain vision for the game even when overwhelmed with information and a TOC full of OCTs that are hanging on every step of the MDMP like it’s a riveting slow-motion train wreck. As a fighting major, I recommend you steal your commander and S2 away from the staff and obsess over the terrain first. Terrain is the one thing that won’t change and contrary to popular belief, insider knowledge of terrain is not the #1 advantage that our CTC OPFOR enjoys. Next, study the enemy and how they will use the terrain. Compare the enemy’s asymmetric advantages to yours and envision a battle that exploits yours while denying theirs. Design a concept that compels a battle on these terms. THEN engage your System 2 brain and apply the doctrinal templates and planning constructs.*** Too often majors and staffs react to DATE information overload by starting with the PowerPoint-centric planning constructs and doctrinal templates per the PSOP, only to issue foolhardy plans that impale their units on Crash Hill or stack bodies in the breach of Shugart-Gordon.** Take the critical moments to get above the fray with your commander, envision the game, then tend to the sausage factory.

Congratulations again to you all. I am envious of what your next few years have in store for you. Godspeed and good luck!

– Teddy Kleisner

LTC Teddy Kleisner has violated most of what he just wrote about at one time or another. He served three years as a Major in 3D Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment. Later he commanded a Stryker Rifle Battalion in 1-2 SBCT, JBLM, Washington where he worked with six S3s or XOs over the course of two years. He has completed eight operational & combat deployments throughout the world and possesses degrees from the United States Military Academy, Johns Hopkins (SAIS), SAMS, and the National War College. He is enroute a new assignment at the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany.

Notes:

*For the purposed of this article, networking is the ability to wield influence over people who owe you no allegiance and are under no obligation to meet your needs. Networking, therefore, requires techniques other than formal green-tabbed leadership. These influence techniques can include quid-pro-quos, argumentation / appealing to interests, negotiation, or personal charisma.

**This is a reference to Daniel Kahneman’s concept of System 1 automatic / intuitive thinking vs. System 2 analytical decision making. Gompert and Kugler apply this same idea in their article “Custer and Cognition” found in Joint Forces Quarterly’s 41^stissue.

***Yes, I’m talking about the CTCs because that is where we are learning the most about fighting. Ironically, as a young cadet in the 90s, I felt like the Army was bottoming out when I saw that a book called the “Battle for Hunger Hill” was about a JRTC battle!