“The teacher hates me.” You have either said it yourself, heard it in school, or now have kids who are trying to convince you of this. Or perhaps the statement has taken on a new spin in your professional career: “the boss hates me.” What are you supposed to do in those situations? At this point in your career, the pressure to do well and set yourself apart is immense. You can see the finish line (retirement), and you want to make it there. But those goals may seem unreachable if the people responsible for your development and evaluations appear to dislike you or your work for some unapparent reason. In the military, we are often told that promotions, and good report cards, come down to luck and timing. If you find yourself in this situation, you are probably out of luck and your timing didn’t work out. If you think that you can’t get ahead no matter how hard you try allow me to offer some suggestions. 

Leadership is the decisive operation.

Editor’s Note: In July FGL released a new logo (pictured above).  The Army uses graphic control measures to control maneuver and build a common operational picture on a map.  The arrows that point units towards their objective identify who is the “decisive operation” (DO) or the unit that will achieve the end state.  If you look at the logo the “L” in leadership is identified as the DO in what we do and what we want to help develop with our followers.  As the author identifies below, leadership is the priority. Not powerpoints.  Not emails.  Not to cite doctrine from CGSC or SAMS. Not tell everyone how much harder you had it.  It’s simple, invest in your people and give them the leadership they deserve.

Be a leader, always! I’ve discussed management quite a bit throughout the course of this article and without doubt systems management is absolutely your job as a Field Grade Officer. However, individual leadership is just as important now as it was when you were a Company Commander. Be the boss you’ve always wanted to work for. Be yourself but strive to be the best version of yourself and incorporate the best parts of your previous bosses. Like all leadership positions, achieve consensus. Ensure the Company Commanders and Battalion Staff have a voice in how you do business as a team and how you conduct operations as a Battalion. First, they will work harder for something they have a vested interest in seeing succeed and second you must banish the staff mantra of ‘row well and live’. That is the mantra of slaves rowing on Roman warships, not of barrel-chested freedom fighters. It is the opposite of what we stand for as Army leaders and I despise that it has become a part of our lexicon.

Operations Officer (S3)

Many Officers will step into an operations officer job right out of the Command and General Staff College without having the luxury of spending a year on a Division staff to learn the cultural norms of their new organization so it’s extremely important to have a game plan when you step into the seat. The following is my best advice to a brand new S3. I’m not looking to insult anyone’s intelligence, but I’ve found over the past 15 years that there is a wide variety in how Battalion Operations sections function, ranging from highly effective to nearly dysfunctional. Below outlines ‘a way’ (not ‘the way’) to function as an S3. I believe it will produce a highly effective and efficient battalion.

As a Field Grade Officer within a Brigade Combat Team, everyone knows who you are. There is no more anonymity. I cannot stress enough how important the relationships and reputation you build are. It’s no longer good enough to simply keep your rater happy with your performance. Sure, your rater still has the biggest say in your career trajectory and you should ensure that you aggressively execute his priorities in a manner that they are comfortable with; however, that is no longer enough. For the sake of getting the job done, as well as developing a positive reputation across your Brigade, I highly recommend you cultivate relationships in a 360-degree fashion. This must be genuine as your teammates will see right through a “spotlight ranger”. Be the best teammate you can be and strive to help your peers, subordinates, and superiors alike. It’s about being a good teammate.

If you can’t manage yourself, then you can’t manage your Battalion staff systems. If you can’t lead yourself, then you can’t lead your subordinate Officer and Non-Commissioned Officers. The two top ways a Major will fail as an S3 or XO is by failing to delegate and failing to manage time. You can get away with doing it all yourself as a Company Commander (though it won’t be fun); you absolutely cannot do it all yourself as an S3 or XO.  While these seem simple at first glance, you’ll find they take an exceptional amount of discipline to put into practice.

Introduction

After completing three years of key and developmental assignments as a Major, I’ve taken some time to reflect and evaluate bothmy shortcomings and successes.  A couple of things came to mind immediately; first, there are a bunch of lessons learned and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), that have been learned the hard way by others.  The second, I remember going into my first key developmental job as a Battalion Executive Officer and wishing there was more out there in terms of ‘how to’ from people who had held the position before. I wasn’t looking for doctrinal checklist of things I was responsible for; I was looking for some useful advice.  Things like – what’s the best way to synchronize a Battalion? Best practice for task management? How do I keep myself armed with relevant information? I found a few articles.

I reached out to mentors for TTPs. I was blessed that the BDE XO in the organization I was joining, was an old friend who allowed me to bombard him with questions every day. Now, as I sit and AAR my KD time, I’d like to pass along my lessons learned so they don’t have to do it the hard way.

In this article I’ll discuss the art of managing yourself, key relationships that should be cultivated, some specific advice for S3s and XOs, leadership as a Field Grade Officer and pass on some specific TTPs that worked for me. All my thoughts are ‘a way’, not ‘the way’ and the goal of this article is to help Officers conceptualize and frame their strategies for filling these positions. Do not mistake anything in this article as me touting my superior knowledge and practice of organizational leadership.  Many of the things chosen to highlight are the result of failing and eventually coming to conclusions at a point that was too late for me and my organization to benefit. Being a Major is a lot of work and if you do not stay organized and disciplined it can easily become overwhelming; however, once you get the hang of it, it’s a lot of fun and extremely rewarding.