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.

Here’s the trick to ruthlessly enforcing standards: Don’t be an ass. There may be times when you’ll need to yell, those times should be very rare. You don’t need to make people hate you, most will understand and eventually appreciate being in an organization that maintains high professional standards. The conversation is simple: “This was the standard. We did not meet the standard; therefore, this is the consequence (corrective action) and how we will correct ourselves moving forward”. There are no personal accusations, there’s nothing personal about it at all. It’s simply a correction. I ruffled a lot of feathers for correcting Lieutenants who blew off assignment deadlines or re-doing Command and Staff meetings later in the day when submissions were substandard or simply didn’t happen. However, the result was a very quick azimuth check that did not need to be repeated often.

Support your HHC and rope them into all staff meetings and events as a part of the team in order to ensure they’re always fully nested with the Battalion’s efforts. They have a difficult job and will absolutely be the running point for you on a lot of things during your tenure as an XO. If you’re not leading by example their job becomes impossible. If you do not take an APFT/ACFT, the excuses from the rest of the company gain ground. Same with PHAs, weapons qualifications, height weight, etc. Do the basic soldier tasks and then enforce that the rest of the staff does the same. Having the HHC commander come to your staff meeting and brief you on who is delinquent on what, in the presence of the staff primaries is a powerful tool upholding standards. You then gain the ability to have an eye to eye discussion with the staff primary to ensure completion.

Any Field Grade Officer should invest time in developing subordinates, regardless of position. This is 100% the best part of any job. We have the unique opportunity to mentor, teach, and develop the next generation of Army leaders. I’ll be brutally honest, if that’s not one of your top priorities, you should get out of the Army right now. Yes, you’re now a staff officer for the foreseeable future and you probably won’t have as much fun as you did when you were a company commander, however, you get to have an oversized impact on the future of our Officer Corps. The captains are looking at you, your job, your demeanor, and they’re deciding if they want to stay in the Army. The Lieutenants are just starting their adult life and a fair number of them would relish some honest mentorship. You’ve now been in long enough and have enough valuable experiences that you can be a great mentor for those Captains and Lieutenants. They usually don’t want to have informal, honest, conversations about careers and life with the Battalion Commander. However, they are usually desperate to have those conversations with a genuine leader who cares about them. Don’t waste that opportunity.

I hate to even mention ‘toxic leadership’, unfortunately, there’s enough of it out there that it must be brought up. You no longer get to complain about toxic leaders; you are now fully in the realm of senior leadership within a Brigade and it’s on you to develop a healthy work environment. Let’s be clear, I’ve never once seen a toxic leader who thought they were toxic. Most of them had the best of intentions and their hearts were in the right place. Toxicity comes in many shapes and sizes, unfortunately, it usually does not require nefarious intent. Rather, most of the toxic environments I’ve observed were built on the best of intentions. A toxic environment, in my opinion, is a place where people hate coming to work. That may be because of a bully or narcissist boss, but it could also be as simple as a great guy who is so inefficient as a manager that it derails the team and leads to routine emergencies. You may view it as working your ass off to accomplish the mission, but if you’re routinely hounding your subordinates on nights and weekends – you’re toxic. If you cannot laugh and joke with your team, let them see your human side, they will stay buttoned up and work as hard as they can to leave your organization. Life is too short for people to hate their job and quite honestly, the Army cannot afford to lose quality individuals because of our leadership failures.

Integrity only gets more important the higher you rise in rank. If you’ve already got some holes in your character or have made it thru the Company Grade years without fully appreciating the importance of absolute integrity, now is the time to do some honest reflecting and getting yourself on the right track. There will likely come a time when your integrity is put to the test, and I firmly believe that integrity must be built on a foundation of stone. There is simply no room to tell half-truths or finesse things to look better than they are – you will quickly be found out and the reputation will stick. Unfortunately, I had the experience of being put in a significant ethical dilemma and I will tell you that no matter how difficult it is, honesty is the only path. Complete and total transparency. This will not always make you friends, and in my case cost me a friendship and caused some dishonest personal attacks against me and my character.  I assure you, that is a bothersome experience and by far the toughest professional and personal situation I’ve ever faced, but far less so than compromising my integrity would have been.

The final thought I have on leadership as a Field Grade Officer is to have fun! Better yet, make sure your staff has fun from time to time too! It’s amazing to me the different personalities that organizations develop and how closely tied they are to the leadership. If you’re emotional – riding highs and lows – your staff will be on edge, trying to gauge what mood you’re in and follow suit, until eventually, they descend into a permanent low. If you’re serious all the time, there will be an heir of seriousness that constantly permeates thru various meetings and engagements. That’s not fun. Joke around with your team and show them you’re a person, talk sports with them or music, and then when it’s time to get down to business, do so with a violence of action that they will want to emulate.

Opportunities to get people out of the office and engaging with each other socially can be invaluable. Consider a monthly staff lunch. Scheduled it and make it a point to get everyone out of the office to a local restaurant and just hang out and eat for an hour or so. PT together as a staff is a great way to build bonds. Occasionally, there’s room for mandatory fun, just don’t over-do it. Maybe one of the best things I observed was supporting a warrior adventure quest event that the chaplain was putting on. It happened to be my first week in the job and the Chaplain had set up a scuba diving trip on a Friday, I cleared the calendar and ensured everyone participated and to this day I am confident it set a good tone for the months to come. The bottom line is that if you want your team to work hard, you must want them to play hard too. A completely unscientific observation of mine is that when people are having fun and are a part of a great team, they up their game. They also up the game of the people around them. Then it snowballs and you really get to enjoy your time as a Major.

Conclusion

The army is small and getting smaller the further you go in your career and reputation is everything. I cannot overstate the importance of developing quality relationships and ensuring that you’re a great teammate. Likewise, your fellow iron Majors are ready and willing to be a great teammate to you, if you’re struggling with something, ask! I’ve highlighted a few TTPs that worked for me, but there are hundreds more out there that just ask good and the collective body of Majors, in my experience, is ready and willing to help a battle buddy. I’m not going to discuss a reading list because there are a ton of them out there. I would recommend you broaden your horizons a bit to include some corporate management reads. Finally, don’t forget why you joined the Army. This job is about leadership. It’s about building a team and developing the individuals within it. Don’t ever lose sight of that.

MAJ Joe Owens is an Engineer Officer who recently completed 36 months of KD time in 1/101st Airborne Division culminating as the BCT XO both in garrison and deployed. An Engineer Officer, Joe has experience in Airborne and Air Assault Brigade Combat teams as well as EAB Engineer Battalions and SOF formations. Joe has operational experience in OIF, OEF, and OIR. He holds an MS in Engineering & Technology Management from Oklahoma State University and a Master of Military Operational Art & Science from the Air Command & Staff College. Joe is currently serving as the Deputy Commander of the Charleston District, US Army Corps of Engineers.