Evaluations are the only thing more contentious than deployment awards. Army evaluations remain the most important discriminatory tool for retention, promotion, and centralized selection for professional education and command, but too often rated Soldiers have no idea how their raters assessed performance and potential. Senior raters have a particularly difficult responsibility, since they must evaluate potential with less contact spread among a larger population. They must manage their evaluations profile while also leveraging evaluations as part of a complete talent development strategy. But these tasks are only half of a senior rater’s challenge. One of the simplest, and often overlooked, rater responsibilities is articulating to the rated officers what is the definition of success. Senior raters can achieve this goal by crafting an evaluation philosophy for the officers and noncommissioned officers they lead.

Soldiers need their raters to transparently communicate how their performance and potential will be evaluated. An evaluation philosophy accomplishes three goals. First, it describes how a rater or senior rater sees evaluations. Second, it articulates what is important. Third, it provides an underlying logic or set of business rules. As a descriptive document, the evaluation philosophy is intended to help subordinates understand what is expected of them and what they should expect from you. This is not a novel concept or one that I claim to have invented. LTC Chris Budihas shared his online some time ago and I used his document as a template.

A senior rater evaluation philosophy is not intended to be distributed by email or simply posted in the unit area. It is intended to be a counseling tool, part of a series of discussions between the officer and senior rater. In my experience, Army officers are notoriously bad at counseling. Counseling need not be formal; it helps to have structure. A talk on the front slope of a tank or while supervising a training event can be just as powerful. But an evaluation is the summation of a complete leader development program that should be tailored to each rated officer. An evaluation philosophy articulates the link between a senior rater’s leader development strategy and the evaluation as recorded output.

Some senior raters rely on specific mission or administrative metrics to determine who has the most potential. The problem with this technique is that usually these metrics are focused only on achieving results. However, ‘achieves results’ is only one of six Leadership Requirements in Army doctrine, so orienting evaluations on only one dimension often marginalizes the remaining five. Moreover, leadership is not just about achieving results. Leadership is the process of influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation to accomplish the mission and improve the organization (ADP 6-22). It is too easy to inadvertently transition from achieving results to toxic leadership (See AR 600-100 Army Profession and Leadership Policy). What we do is often not as important as how we do it. Performance does not always equal potential either, yet we often forget that. Direct leadership skills are required for organizational leaders, but organizational leaders also require a different set of skills and attributes to be successful.

Defining what distinguishes ‘top block’ performance and potential is important as well. I do not set any additional metrics to define a “top block”. It puts leaders at risk of chasing the “red dots” or becoming too focused on “Achieves”. As an example, some senior raters may say only a 300 APFT score is worthy of a ‘Most Qualified’ rating. I would respond with, “Why?” How does the decision to set that objective affect the organization’s overall effectiveness, health, and safety? If a leader can score a 300, but his subordinates cannot, is that the potential we are seeking? If itis a unit average of a certain score, but the leader pushes the unit too hard and too fast to achieve that goal, resulting in injured Soldiers, who is really at fault? That leader or the one who set the objective? Iwould argue both bear some responsibility.

Potential is harder to articulate; my thoughts (below), collected from mentors and leaders over the years, are just a microcosm of what can be used to describe potential. There are many ways to do it differently, the only wrong way is for a senior rater to leave it undefined.

Senior raters shoulder an enormous responsibility when managing evaluations. Not only are they influencing the career of a subordinate leader, but more importantly, evaluations are a vote for who will be future Army leaders. The enormity of this responsibility cannot be overstated, few leadership decisions carry that much weight. Take the time to define your evaluation philosophy, counsel your subordinates on what it means, and continue to follow-up with the rated individual. No one should ever feel surprised, pleasantly or otherwise, when they receive their evaluation. It is demanding, but it is important and critical to the development of our next generation of leaders.

Here is a link to my Senior Rater Evaluation Philosophy.

COL Dave Wright is an armor officer and a graduate of the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS). He previously commanded the 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment “BLACKHAWKS!” and is currently the Combined Arms Battalion Senior Trainer (Panther Team) and Deputy Commander for Operations Group at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, CA. Follow his tweets on training, leadership, and doctrine @102ndblackhawk6 on Twitter.