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Building Trust: 8 Ways to Become a More Approachable Leader

A Guest Post by James Kadel

U.S. Army photo by 1st Lt. Ryan Debooy

Have you ever hesitated outside your boss’s office, or took a deep breath before dialing your commander’s phone number?  What if you had an idea on how to improve your organization, but decided not to say anything? Have you ever felt like you needed to strap on body armor before bringing bad news to your supervisor?

As leaders, we often overlook the quality of being approachable as it affects our subordinates’ and organization’s effectiveness.  Organizational leadership literature is abundant in describing the benefits of a learning organization and the need for leaders to promote a culture of learning and collaboration.  However, those leaders often struggle to successfully set the conditions in the organizations they lead because they are not approachable. More than just a nice-to-have, the art of being approachable is a necessary attribute for effective leaders at any level or organization because it is a pre-condition of trust and open communication.

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December Book Club

The Field Grade Leader is happy to announce our December Book Club initiative. This month we are reading Your Best Year Ever by Michael Hyatt. 

I’ve spent the majority of my career knowing that goal setting is a good idea, but not knowing exactly how to do it. This book helped me to set and achieve goals through the simple framework Michael Hyatt provides.

Here is the road map we will follow for this month’s book club:

1) Buy the book (click HERE)

2) Join our Book Club Facebook group (click HERE)

3) Join in structured discussion as we work our way through the book together. All discussion will take place through comments in the Facebook Group, so you don’t have to tune in at a particular time. Here’s the broad schedule:

  • 7 December: Discuss the introduction and section 1
  • 14 December: Discuss sections 2 and 3
  • 21 December: Discuss sections 4 and 5

4) 28 December: We will conclude the December Book Club series with a live discussion via Zoom. More to follow regarding the specific time for the discussion.

We’re looking forward to your participation and establishing strong goal frameworks to take ourselves to the next level!

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Clausewitz’s Staff Non-Commissioned Officers

Congratulations, Now What?

U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Nathan Reyes

The Command and Staff College (CSC) is designed to create full-spectrum Joint, Interagency, and Multinational operations commanders and staff officers who are able to leverage their understanding of warfare, operational art, and critical thinking capabilities to ensure mission accomplishment. The successful staff and commander know they need an effective and focused team to enable their objectives. Despite this understanding, they may lack the contextual view to know how to best employ their teams in terms of this new level of commandership and staff planning leadership. 

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A Sergeant Major’s Advice for a Field Grade Officer

A Guest Post by Carl J. Cunningham

U.S. Army photo by Gertrud Zach

The transition to Major is probably the most difficult in the officer corps.  The officer’s power and influence drastically increase despite typically serving on a staff.  Most senior officers maintain that Major is the first rank in which one becomes a “Company man/woman” where the focus is about the organization.  And depending on the branch, the initial assignment may be the first time working above the battalion level.  These changes in the officer’s power and influence require an altered approach to relationships, systems and processes, and the mentoring of subordinate officers.  Because the Command and General Staff College (CGSC) does not provide many Noncommissioned Officer (NCO) engagement opportunities for its students, I offer some thoughts for new field grade (FG) officers moving back out into the force.  The paper’s focus applies to Majors in any branch and at any echelon, but especially those who will lead a staff section at the brigade level or above.

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A Missed Opportunity: Learning from NCOs at Command and General Staff College

A Guest Post by Jeremy Flake

U.S. Army photo by Terrence Bell

A few weeks after graduating from CGSC, I began to reflect on the past year, particularly regarding how all field grade officers need to understand the importance of the Officer-NCO relationship at senior levels. The announcement of the new Sergeant Major of the Army triggered many of these thoughts. I had met SMA Daily in passing while walking through the Lewis & Clark building at Fort Leavenworth, but he was only there with the CSA to talk with other senior leaders meeting at the Combined Arms Center, not to speak to students at CGSC. 

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How to do Leader Professional Development

By Josh Powers

Like many other concepts in the Army, Leader Professional Development is usually generated with good intentions. Leaders selected for command spend a considerable amount of time crafting their professional development philosophy as they attend pre-command courses, stressing over how each word represents their heart and their soul. Still, professional development is an effort that even the best organizations improvise their way through, often overlooking the recurring calendar event until it is yet, another forgotten task. So how is it that such an important effort often becomes an afterthought, only to be overcome by the daily minutiae of short suspenses and rapidly shifting priorities? 

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Leader Development Programs and the Intellectual Component of Combat

A Guest Post by Nick Trotter

Leader development session led by the author at the Engineer Career Course.

The intellectual edge and a mission command approach are intrinsically related intangibles. When coupled with command and control systems they enable the achievement of decision superiority in combat. Decision superiority leads to tempo which is crucial to success in war.  Our intellectual edge – our ability to think and decide – is a critical component of combat. Our intellect must be continually exercised, maintained and developed just like our bodies and our equipment.

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The Nelson Touch: Leader Development and Its Link to Realizing Mission Command

A Guest Post by Steve Orbon

Admiral Horatio Nelson reviews the plan for the Battle of Trafalgar with his Captains. For Nelson, ensuring that his subordinates understood his intent was critical to enabling them to execute the disciplined initiative required for victory at sea.

With the operating environment of the 21st century’s multi-domain battlefield being one in which situational awareness and communications will be greatly degraded, the war fighting function of command and control (C2) will become extremely difficult to execute. Therefore, leaders at all echelons must start preparing themselves and their subordinates to overcome these critical challenges and continue to operate effectively. One of the often cited solutions to this problem is the proper implementation of the  elusive concept of mission command (MC).

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PME By Other Means

A Guest Post by Victoria Thomas

U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Kirsten Brandes

Traditional Professional Military Education, or PME, is mainly classroom-based, with the curriculum following a stair-step approach. Generally, courses introduce students to a range of subjects from military tactics, history, and strategy to political theory, psychology, and communication. However, given the relatively vast amount of objectives traditional PME courses must meet, there is little time for leaders to dive deeper into the subject matter and make layers of connections between the topics. Traditional PME is both necessary and valuable, but leaders must seek wisdom beyond the confines of DoD-mandated lessons. Our Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines expect us to relate to them personally and lead them professionally. Drawing on non-traditional sources of PME will make leaders more diverse in thought and thus more capable in action through structured courses, pleasure reading, and extra-curricular activity.

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Informal Development: An Argument for Small, Informal Mentorship

A Guest Post by John Plaziak

Leader development is the crux of turning Soldiers into Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers in the United States Army. For Officers, a lot of time and money is spent at West Point, Reserve Officer Training Candidate Programs, or Officer Candidate School. Educators and administrators work very hard to provide a wide array of resources, exercises, and tests to help develop future Officers into effective leaders. Once Officers graduate their commissioning source, their education shifts towards the technical requirements of their branch in classroom and field environments where their educators are clearly defined as TACs and Small Group Leaders. However, I believe that by inserting informal leader development opportunities into Basic Officer Leader’s Course and the Captain’s Career Course, we can create an expectation and culture of small group and informal leader professional development.