U.S. Army photo by Spc. Ryan Lucas. Sept. 22, 2019

I often tell people that being the Intelligence Officer for a Brigade Combat Team was the only job in 13 years of service that I felt as uncomfortable on Day 1 as I did on my last day.  It was the first position I held after graduating from Command and Staff College; a training center rotation 3 months into the job; and deploying to Iraq 3 months later to advise and assist the Iraqi security forces in the liberation of Mosul from the Islamic State made for a tumultuous tenure. But probably the toughest part was that it was my first “key developmental” job as a field grade leader – finding my leadership style as a Major was my biggest challenge.  

I reflect on that time with a simple maxim: hard work paid off as a company-grade officer, but hard work is mildly interesting as a field grade.  Too many Majors try to be the best Captain in the room, but neglect the fact that they should be managing the “systems” that the subordinates operate within. My brigade commander taught the Majors in his command that they were ‘paid to think’ — but it’s hard to think if you’re the one doing all the work. Whenever I find myself or one of my peers more concerned with knocking out tasks than managing systems, I see failure follow close behind. 

So what is systems leadership? Its a term often used to describe what a Major does, but it’s difficult to define what “successful systems leadership” looks like. In the absence of such a definition, I have found it useful to define the three most common ways that Majors FAIL to adhere to a systems approach to leadership. Most successful Majors I’ve observed do their best to avoid these three pitfalls:

1) “The Systems on top of Systems Failure” (aka – the most common failure):  This is where the Major develops a system where one already exists, typically because they don’t want to take the time to understand and/or make the existing system work.  An example of this failure might look like forcing a subordinate to create a PowerPoint presentation with information that already exists in a program of record. Systems on top of systems cause double work for the subordinate who must update the system of record AND present the information to the leader in a second format. Additionally, systems on top of systems rarely survive the Major that created it, thereby causing the subordinate to learn a new system when that Major is replaced.

2) “The failure to create or maintain a system” (aka – the most egregious failure):  This is where a Major tries to be the best company-grade officer in the formation.  Working harder than everyone, task-oriented (i.e. checking off all the tasks from “1->N” in their notebook), last car in the parking lot, sending emails at 2200 or on weekends/holidays, excoriating subordinates for not being able to ‘do it the way I did when I was a Captain.’ This failure creates an organization that is only as deep as the Major themselves. The company-grade officers and non-commissioned officers underneath this Major are not incentivized to do the hard work that helps units succeed.  

3) “The failure to create a system that solves the problem” (aka – the most honest failure):  This is where the Major avoids the first two pitfalls by creating a useful system, but said system does not solve the problem it was created to solve.  This is honest enough if done in good faith- most times there is more you don’t know about a problem than you know.  This failure becomes less honest when the Major refuses or fails to adapt the system once it is recognized that it cannot solve the identified problem.  This will evolve into a failure of hubris: “my systems always solve the problem;” or a failure of evaluation: a fire and forget system.

My former Brigade Commander also taught me that good Lieutenants and Captains stay in the Army because of good Majors who care about the example they set.   Think back to your time as a Captain; chances are you found yourself on more than one occasion complaining about having to do redundant work, or moving from one task to another with no clear purpose, or working really hard on a project that didn’t bear any fruit.  Whether you recognize it or not a Major was the source of these frustrations, and perhaps many of your peers decided to leave the Army as a result. Now that you are a Major, you’d do well to be mindful of the systems you manage and the example you set.

Major Kevin Ryan is an Army Intelligence Officer whose assignments as a Major include Brigade Combat Team S2 and Deputy G2 in the 82nd Airborne Division, and Executive Officer for 519th Military Intelligence Battalion at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He is currently stationed in Washington, D.C.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.