While attending the Pre-Command Course (PCC) at Fort Leavenworth, I pondered ideas of grandeur. I was about to take the reins of one of the most storied Cavalry Squadrons in the United States Army. In true pompous fashion, I wrote out my vision or keys to success:

1. Be a positively intrusive leader that inserts yourself at the point of friction.
2. Operationalize everything to ensure synchronization.
3. Win!

It seemed simple enough, but I was quick to learn that to be a successful leader I needed to do more than just publish words. Humility and teamwork are the keys to successful command. Reflecting over the past 16 months, I’ve learned that I cannot do it all and that you cannot achieve your vision without partnerships that exist within and outside of your organization.

I was quick to learn that to have intrusive leaders, I needed to train them and show “what right looks like.” We have all learned the principles of Mission Command and the value of enabling disciplined initiative. But I found that the level of detail and leader development required hinged on the level of readiness and discipline of the individual. I had to ask, “Do they understand my intent? If not, how can I better communicate my intent and engage with those individuals?”

Operationalizing everything is easier said than done. It became my S3’s nightmare, but it paid off in the end. I found that my staff meant well but had the potential to quickly derail day to day operations. When the S6 stands up during a training meeting and says, “ensure all your JCRs are on Tuesday,” but that is the same day as a Troop’s squad live fire, we have a conflict of competing requirements. Between my S3 and XO, they often found themselves diving into each other’s responsibilities when attempting to operationalize everything from training plans to immunizations.

Winning is important, but not everything. This is where humility and partnerships come into play. First, you must display the humility to look at yourself and the organization to say, “Where are the holes in our swing and how can we get better?” You need to understand that you cannot become the best overnight.

Being a good teammate and building relationships is key to winning. You need to accept that you cannot do it alone. By “you,” I mean your unit. Often, I leaned on my fellow Battalion Commanders to provide candid feedback and help. That candid feedback and investment in each other’s organizations truly paid off because “we” want to be better and “win.”

Lastly, to win, you need to know what is important. I was lucky – the Brigade and Division Commanders laid out their vision and their top priorities: Trooper Readiness, Training Readiness, Sustainment Readiness, and Community Readiness. I knew that if we were not doing one of those four things, we were off the baseline. For purposes of this article, I would like to discuss Trooper Readiness because during command it became the top priority and resulted in the most lessons learned.

Trooper Readiness

What is Trooper Readiness? If you asked me that at PCC, I would say, “Administrative and medical deployability of a Trooper.”

Wrong! It is so much more.

Trooper Readiness starts with building a Trooper’s resiliency. I was quick to learn that resiliency is so much more than a bumper sticker slogan. Candidly speaking, my Squadron suffered three suicides in my 16 months of command – an SPC, SGT, and SFC. The commonalities between all three were all took their lives with a weapon and suffered from family and relationship stressors.

I was at a complete loss…and this is where humility came into play. The first suicide was viewed as an isolated incident – we focused on grief management. The second suicide, I tried to work prevention at my level – safety stand down, counseling, and sensing sessions with the formation. The third suicide, I realized that I did not have the expertise or assets to help my formation – I was not reaching out to my Troopers. I needed the Brigade Commander, Chaplain, Environmental Behavioral Health (EBH), Resiliency Center, and even the expertise of Mission 22.

I had to take a different approach and with the assistance of our partners, we formulated a plan. We quickly realized that though the Army and operational tempo (OPTEMPO) was not the issue, it amplified the existing issues. Troopers have problems and the stress of the military or OPTEMPO only compounds those problems. So, we began “Trooper Preventative Maintenance Checks and Services (PMCS).”

Trooper PMCS was a monthly activity that we connected to training recovery. Instead of the 10-day recovery model, we made it the 11-day recovery model. Day 1 became Trooper PMCS. In the Cavalry, our recovery priorities are Horse, Saddle, and then Trooper. In this case, we made it Trooper, Horse, and Saddle.

Our first Trooper PMCS day started with opening comments from me than a series of guest speakers to discuss resiliency.  I tried to relay that resiliency was much more than a bumper sticker slogan. Spiritual, mental, physical, performance, and family resiliency will allow you to be a better person, spouse, family member, teammate, and friend. I told a personal story of how I personally blamed myself for a Trooper’s death in Afghanistan, how I bottled it up, and suffered for years before I received help – at the cost of a marriage, relationship with my oldest daughter, financial difficulty, and relationships with teammates. That act of humility opened the door for our guest speakers.

Our expert guest speakers were phenomenal. Our Squadron Physician Assistant (PA) began to speak about relationship resiliency and asking hard questions. I found that the PA had an amazing relationship with our Troopers and sometimes fell into the realm of a counselor and spending as much time in talking with Troopers as conducting PHAs.

The next speaker was the Chaplain to focus on spiritual resiliency – the hardest of the tasks. He discussed the complexities of maintaining your faith, through God, or by achieving inner peace. The Chaplain’s hardest discussion was explaining how to achieve spiritual resiliency including focusing on those Troopers who were not religious.

Lastly, our Lethality Enhancement Team (part of the post’s resiliency center) talked about the importance of recognition that you needed help, calming methods, and displaying the humility to reach out. Lastly, our Brigade’s Behavioral Health Officer (BHO) led a great discussion on mental resiliency and reducing the stigma of getting help.

For those not comfortable with discussing resiliency, we provided small group sessions, led by Combat Operational Stress Control (COSC). Smaller groups allowed Troopers to feel more comfortable to open with their issues or ask hypothetical cases. Also, it gave leaders insights on indicators that their Troopers may need help.

Overnight, you could feel a difference in the Squadron. After the guest speaker portion, around 15 Troopers came forward to ask for help. After the COSC portion, four Troopers self-enrolled into EBH. Lastly, leaders identified six Troopers that should be referred to as EBH or the Chaplain.

I soon realized that to “win” at resiliency within a formation, you needed to focus on the Trooper – they are the center of gravity within your unit. If you do not operationalize a plan to support resiliency, it will be the first thing to fall off your list of priorities. You must be an intrusive leader, by ensuring that this sort of training event remains on the calendar and connect with your Troopers by opening up on why resiliency is important.

Once the Troopers knew that resiliency was our focus, we could then begin to ensure we had healthy and deployable Troopers. As we geared up for a rotation to the National Training Center (NTC) and prepare for a rotation in support of EUCOM, we soon realized that we needed 90% of our formation to be ready to deploy. Also, if the Nation called us in its defense, I would rather our Troopers be focused on equipment pack out and not standing in line at the clinic or S1.

As I looked left and right, I could see that our Trooper Readiness numbers were good, but not great. 2-12 CAV (Thunderhorse) cracked the code. I soon reached out to their Command Sergeant Major for the “secret code.” In a few words, he explained a simple solution to a complex problem – at 60 days out, ensure all Troopers are complete with administrative and medical needs. The light bulb went off and we created a policy memo on “GO Red.” Essentially, if you were 60 days or less in being due for DD93, SGLV, PRR, Immunization, PHA, etc., you were GO Red. My CSM took off with the guidance and we watched our readiness numbers soar. Also, we were able to get ahead of problems, so Troopers would not turn red when they PCS/ETS’d, went on leave, attended a school, or were conducting a training event.

Knowing the needs of your Troopers cannot be done without a good working knowledge of your ranks. In my vision, I outlined the value of counseling but realized we were not doing it. It was evident when I asked the Inspector General (IG) to look at our counseling program – where they said counseling was either not conducted or only focused on adverse action. Leaders did not have discussions with their Troopers, did not know their Trooper’s financial, family, or general issues, and had no idea of their Trooper’s goals. To put it in perspective, after a field exercise, a Platoon Leader could not tell me how many married Troopers he had in his Platoon or even specifics about members of his crew.

Something had to be done, so we looked for an answer within the formation. One of our new Platoon Sergeants quickly developed a format for a “Leader Book” that would drive those discussions and help with asking the hard questions. He said “sometimes, leaders just don’t know how to talk to Soldiers. They are more comfortable in front of a screen.” His leader book allowed for the leader to go line by line and gain a working knowledge of their Troopers.

Additionally, my CSM worked to conduct NCO Professional Development (NCOPD) on counseling and would host short-notice inspections of counseling packets. All in all, we are still attacking this problem today, but have connected counseling with knowing your Troopers and subsequently understanding the resiliency of the formation. If you know your formation, you will know how to solve their problems and help with accomplishing their goals.

Conclusion

By no means is this the end all be all guide to command, but hopefully, it is a starting point when you try to accomplish your vision for your organization. Looking back, I question – did I really accomplish what I wanted to do? The answer is yes… the “big rocks” were all accomplished, but I needed to reevaluate what was profoundly important to my formation so it could be successful.

When taking command, we all think we know how our vision will be play out, but we forget one thing – your organization gets a vote. We do not take into account previous leadership impacts, the pressures of previous deployments, or the current climate set by subordinate leaders. So, when you are developing your vision, remember that it is only a doctrinal template that can be applied once you take command.  You must account for the unit’s current culture and overlay that to develop your situational template.

The biggest lesson that I took away was humility and teamwork is key. By no means could I develop a way forward for my organization without the help and involvement of other leaders and organizations. My ideas of grandeur at PCC soon became ideas of what was actually feasible. For something to be feasible, we needed the appropriate amount of time, a leader needed to be templated against the task, the task needed the appropriate detail to operationalize, and then expectations needed to be laid out on how to win at the task at hand.

Trooper Readiness also applies to you as a commander. Once I realized that something needed attention, I looked inward to see if I had the assets and if not, I asked for help. You must do this personally too! I won’t lie, when we had fatalities within my Squadron, I was lucky that others, like my BDE Commander and peers, could provide help, assistance, and a venue for me to openly try to figure things out. In addition to providing assistance, my boss pushed two of my fellow Battalion Commanders to come to talk to me – they could see the physical stress on my face and those difficult events took their toll on my body.

I was amazed to have such a great group of peers that took time out of their busy schedules to check on me. Honestly, I was defensive at first but soon realized that I had to “check my pride at the door” and get the help that I needed. It helped tremendously and allowed me to re-center. After my peers talked to me, my BDE Commander had a front slope chat with me during Platoon Live Fires. At first, my anxiety went through the roof because I thought I was going “for a long walk in the desert,” but my boss just wanted to hear how I was handling difficult times in the Squadron. He was an intrusive leader that invested time in me to make sure that I was ok, that I received the help that I needed.

He taught me a key lesson that day – humility within the Leader and organization is key to success. By understanding how events affect the individual and organization, we can put intrusive leaders at the point of friction, develop a plan and operationalize a solution, and win by accomplishing our objectives. To win, I learned that I need to focus on the Trooper – they can move mountains when asked to do so. But to move mountains, they must be in an environment that they know, despite the situation, the unit puts them first.

LTC Rich Groen is currently the Squadron Commander for 1-7 Cavalry, 1ABCT, 1^st Cavalry Division.  He has served in several leadership positions in the 1^st Cavalry Division, 1^st Armored Division, and 4-25 (IBCT – Airborne).  He holds a BS from the Virginia Military Institute, MS from Kansas State University, and an MA from Kings College London.