“The formation is never as good as you think it is, but it also is not as screwed up as some may indicate it is to your successor.” 

Headquarters Room, Southwick Park, Portsmouth, June 1944: A view of the interior of the busy Headquarters Room in Southwick Park, Portsmouth during preparations for the D-Day landings. There is a huge map of southern England, the English Channel and northern France mounted on the far wall, with various annotations being added by a man in naval uniform standing on a step ladder. Another man is busy doing the same thing on a map on the wall to the … Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/10043

While much has been written about the challenges of serving as a Field Grade (FG) officer at the Battalion and Brigade level, much less is available about the echelons at which you will spend most of the second half of your career. Put simply, there are more ways to fall short than there are to succeed, yet no one tells you the rules when you arrive. Consider a large Headquarters (HQ) to be at the Division level or above and a “boss” to be any of the large numbers of senior leaders, principal staff officers, advisors, and influencers in the HQ, whether in your chain of command or not. While not comprehensive, here are six big ideas.

Leaders who take a genuine interest in their subordinates will see their teams achieve amazing feats. This goes hand in hand with counseling. You must get to know your Soldiers and help them personally and professionally. Find out their goals and help develop a plan to achieve them. If you take care of your Soldiers, they will always take care of the mission.

Counseling is the most important tool that leaders have at their disposal. Clearly communicating expectations and standards provides a baseline for measuring performance and ensures that both the rater and rated officer understand expectations. This is especially important when managing your rater profile and justifying the contents of evaluation reports for both officers and NCOs.

Superior leaders are acutely aware of their strengths and weaknesses. They actively build on their strengths and improve upon their weaknesses. Complacency is a fatal leadership flaw and we should never find comfort in remaining stagnant. This goes for every aspect of the profession of arms. Make realistic and achievable goals and then work to achieve them.

Officers who require constant oversight are detrimental to high op tempo organizations that operate in complex environments. Valuable members of the team understand their responsibilities and execute with little supervision. Asking for the occasional azimuth check is important, but don’t inundate your boss with questions you should be able to answer yourself.