10 Hard Lessons Learned during Command of a Field Artillery Forward Support Company
Captain Wade Cady is a recent Field Artillery Forward Support Company post-commander who finished a 20-month long tenure, where he served in both OPERATION SPARTAN SHIELD and OPERATION INHERENT RESOLVE, in addition to rotations at the National Training Center. He was first assessed into the branch of Transportation Corps as a 2LT in May of 2011. After graduating the Logistics Captains Career Course in November of 2015, he became part of the Logistics Corps. Captain Cady has served at the both the Platoon level, and through the Corps level. He has held tactical, operational, and strategic positions at those echelons. Captain Cady pursued a degree at the University of Florida where he earned a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences in Criminology with minors in Business Finance and Military History. He also a graduate of the American Military University where he earned a Master of Arts in Transportation and Logistics Management. Captain Cady has been happily married for seven years to the former Valerie Van Scoy of Dallas, Texas. They currently reside in Leander, Texas and have three children; toddler twins, Abigail and Aaron, 2.5 years old, and Andrew, 10 months old. He and his family are now enroute to Kaiserslautern, Germany to assume his role as a logistics planner in the 21st Theater Support Command.
I have consistently had to answer all these questions personally and I can only hope that I have made the right decisions. Command (or civilian equivalent) is the toughest and most demanding position that you will probably ever have and I want all of you to be prepared for the ethical, moral, legal, and safety challenges that I know you will have to deal with.
I have read the Article, “Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession” many times through, and it rings true more times than not. When everything is determined to be important and a priority, nothing can be important or a priority. Commanders, and subordinate leaders, are usually asked to do more than they have the time to do and asked to assume a lot of risk in doing so.
This article hit the nail on the head in regard to lack of company and platoon level training time to overtasking. There are so many competing priorities handed down to the battery/company level that it makes it extremely difficult to conduct training, in addition to meeting all the requirements that are asked of us (plethora of meetings, multiple administrative tasks, multiple mission support tasking, multiple maintenance support tasking, etc).
If I was given 2–6 weeks per year to focus only on my company METL training, I would be the best trained FSC in all the division! Case-in-point: our latest FTX, where I realistically had 2–4 days of train up for a 3 day FTX and I was able to only objectively assess my company at a P-/U level on the METL tasks. If given dedicated training time, unhindered by taskings and support requirements, I could be a more effective and efficient FSC. , The simple act of allowing me dedicated white space to conduct squad, platoon, and company level training events would pay dividends in the end.
I am a big advocate for using training time available and looking for opportunities within a support mission to get it in where you can. However, due to multiple planning efforts, mission supports, and company operations, this is rarely realistic.
These frustrations, and the many more unmentioned, have led me finding 10 general lessons that could have helped me avoid them all. The lessons that I am going to elaborate on are not hard and fast, but should elicit thought provoking thoughts and desires of how to lead an organization:
(1) FOCUS: Individual Readiness & Training Gets Results
Our focus as Army leaders should be, and always will be Individual Readiness & Training. Individual readiness is the building blocks for everything else we do throughout the year; get these big rocks taken care of and everything else will fall into line, like the key collective tasks your unit needs to be proficient in. At the end of the day, what is your supervisor going to care more about; (a) that you had failed to overcome hurdles and did not accomplish the mission or (b) that you had hurdles, never told him about them, and completed the mission? The latter, of course! Our NCOER and OER support forms even state it clearly, get results simply equals gets results.
For example, when I first took command there were a whirlwind of things that needed to get accomplished. I focused too much on the big picture and failed to realize soon enough just how important APFTs, individual weapons qualifications, and individual METL training were as company level focus areas. Once I realized the importance of these warrior tasks, the rest of the company tasks began to fall into line, such as morale, discipline, and collective training. Define your focus areas early on in your command and you will set yourself up for success.
(2) Do what is expected of you, first. Priorities and Prioritize!
The Army is extremely easy; your priorities are your boss’s priorities. Period. If you first focus on what is important to your boss’s boss (senior rater), then what your boss needs (rater), and then on what you (ratee) think is needed, you will steer free of the path I went down (let’s say it wasn’t good). This doesn’t mean lose focus on what is needed to make your company successful; you do have to incorporate what best for the company with what your supervisors are asking from you. Don’t forget to fight for the company (see 5 below), but if you can meet both the vison of the company and vision of your boss, double win.
A good method and technique that I eventually realized was useful was taking all the to-do items and racking and stacking them based on that logic. Without a prioritized list, you will just be spinning your tires. For example, all the events that you have throughout the week have to-do items associated with them. Backwards plan from each meeting on all the things you have to accomplish to make that one meeting/event successful.
(3) Think task, purpose, and end state (SUSPENSE) for commander’s guidance.
Some leaders in the Army get it right and some get it wrong, but guidance to subordinates is as simple as providing them task, purpose, and an end-state or better put, a suspense. A clearly defined task is one that is short, concise, and easy to delegate further. A clearly defined purpose provides the “why” behind the task at hand and more times than not gives them the motivation needed to act within the left and right limits, and have disciplined initiative to accomplish in within their means. The most important part that leaders falter on is the follow-up and follow-through portion, or suspense, of a given task. Some leaders give task and either fail to provide a suspense, or provide too many specifics that limit the subordinate’s abilities to accomplish the mission.
An issue that I had early on in my command was providing too many specifics on the end state for the given task. There are so many tasks to manage at the company command level that I was risk adverse and provided too many details to my subordinates so that they had a more clear vision for task completion. What I didn’t realize is that the more detail I provided, the less flexibility I allowed my subordinate leaders to accomplish the task their way. I thought I was enabling them to more easily accomplish the task, but in the end it was limiting their ability. What I learned to do was focus more on the suspense date, and less on the end-state. The more and more I did this, the more got accomplished, and the more I was surprised with my subordinate leaders’ innovation and initiative.
(4) SPIN MORE PLATES!; Delegate. Trust. Delegate. Trust. Delegate. Trust.
Most Army leaders have heard the old adage “glass balls and rubber balls”. For those of you who haven’t, it is a metaphor for the items that we have on our to-do list have different levels of priority. Those with low priority (the rubber balls) bounce if you fail to manage them appropriately and complete them in a timely manner. Those with higher priority (the glass balls) break if you fail to accomplish them. One adage that I learned from my battalion commander is “spin more plates”. The adage goes that as a leader you are given a plethora of tasks to accomplish and rarely all of them achievable by your hands alone, so you must delegate. But a leader does not simply give the “plate out”, the leader continues to spin the plate, so that the plate does not stop, and drop. Once you delegate out all the tasks that do not require your attention, you must trust that they get accomplished, however continue to provide more guidance, or spinning of plates.
This was a technique that took me over half my command to get right. I trusted my subordinates, but I kept too many of the plates and failed to manage tasks as effectively and efficiently as I could have. I needed to give out more plates sooner in my command so that (1) I had more time to manage the “commander” only plates, (2) I learned to trust my subordinates earlier in my command, and (3) I could have managed more reactionary tasks due to the last minute nature of higher echelons. At the end of the day, the commander is the captain of the ship and not the crew. Delegate what you can, spin the plates and provide guidance frequently, and trust the system of leadership.
(5) Fight for the company! Think “Illegal, Unethical, Immoral, and Safety”
Fight for the company every step of the way! There are few errors you cannot recover from, except the few that I realized to be deal breakers. If a decision or act that is about to be made is illegal, unethical, immoral, or unsafe, then don’t do it. Period. The one area that this becomes a gray area is when in combat, when leader have to make split decisions that could violate these categories. Too many leaders fail to come to this realization as thy make timely decisions either in the heat of the moment, or after uneducated deliberation. The important thing is that you have these candid discussions with all the subordinate leaders prior to any operation or mission so that they understand their right and left limits.
One thing that saved me during my command was my moral compass. I was able to always ask myself the following questions before making a decision; (1) Is this decision going to violate any UCMJ or civilian laws?; (2) Does this decision follow what the Army teaches us about ethics in the workplace?; (3) Is this morally right?; and (4) have I mitigated all the hazards that I can? If the answer to any of those questions was no, or even maybe, then I would sit on the decision until given additional knowledge about the situation, or guidance from higher. One mantra that my company and I lived by during my tenure was, “Do what is right, without hesitation, always,” a phase I lifted from a previous BSB Battalion Commander, LTC Steven Erickson (LG).
(6) Think “So what”; every email has BLUF (w/assessment), background, recommendation, and impact.
How many emails do you get on a daily basis? 5? 20? 50 or more? With the increased usage of technology in the workplace, email traffic has become more and more burdensome. We receive communications via social media platforms, via text message, via email, etc. Some of us are even lucky enough (pun intended) to manage multiple email accounts, on both our civilian networks, and in our workplace. How much time would you save everyday if everyone just cut to the chase and gave you the Bottom Line Up Front, or BLUF? If you get anywhere near the amount of emails I get, then I bet the amount of time is astronomical.
As a courtesy (and time saver) to others, I have begun to craft my emails in an easier to read manner to save not only me time, but my subordinates, peers, and supervisors alike. I began to ask myself the question of so what in each email. This forced me to craft my emails in BLUF (with an assessment) format, followed by the background of why I was sending it, and ending with recommendation and impact as appropriate. I, and others, found this to be a life saver in time management in my organization. Also by marking in the header “FOR APPROVAL, or FOR ACTION, or FOR SIGNATURE” it streamlines the intent of the email and enable s effective management of the many many emails you would get on a daily basis.
(7) Don’t over-CC. CYA, “Need to Know”.
Similar to number 6 above, we all get way too many emails on a day to day basis. There are so many responsibilities and so much information that leaders must manage, that the amount of email traffic needs to pertain to this adage, Consider Your Audience, or CYA. Typically, how many emails do you get Courtesy Copied on, or CCd? I am assuming that it is inherently way more than you need to be CCd on. Too many times subordinate leaders (or even supervisors) overuse the CC line in email traffic and over communicate the ongoing operations. As company level leaders, you need to find the balance between keeping the organization synchronized and on the same page, and overburdening the organization with useless information or sausage making.
A tool that worked for me (unfortunately later in my command) was saving information for the key meetings that they referred to. For example, if I went to a training meeting at higher echelons and had some information that had to make it to the subordinate leaders, I would ask myself the following questions: (1) who else needs to know this?, (2) what backwards planning is needed to accomplish this task?, and (3) can it wait until our next meeting? If you take this concept and apply it to every meeting you attend, and every email you get, it will limit the amount of traffic that you send and inherently provide more time to your subordinates to actually execute the tasks you have provided them.
(8) K.I.S.S. / Manage Expectations (Lower)
The balance between making a difference in your company and overcomplicating is sometimes a gray line when you consider the whole of the organization. The saying Keep It Simple Stupid, or K.I.S.S., has never rang more true to me than in command. At the bottom line of it, it is all about setting and managing expectations with your subordinates, and yourself overall. Keeping it simple doesn’t mean leaving opportunities off the table (see 9 below), it only implies that you’re not going to overcomplicate the situation any more than it has to be. Having clear goals and expectations with the company leadership will aid in better management of expectations and an overall happier organization.
While in command, I was extremely big on managing expectations to both my subordinates and supervisors. This also is the one area that I could have improved on to run a more effective organization. Like number 2 discussed above, you cannot meet every expectation and that is why one needs to prioritize and, more importantly, manage expectations. I ensured that all my subordinates had left and right limits under which to operate, and that in my rater or senior rater initial counseling’s I covered the concept of the band of excellence: everything we do in an organization ebbs and flows. Sometimes what we do meets the high expectations, and sometimes it doesn’t. But if we are consistently putting our best into it, then over time we will meet more expectations.
(9) Be value added to the operations; look for opportunities for training
There are opportunities that exist with any company level task or mission to be accomplished. The amount of requirements that we are given on any given day, week, month, or quarter is sometimes astronomical, so you must look for opportunities to conduct the training and readiness objectives that you know your organization is in need of. Too many times I have seen my subordinate leaders get pigeon holed, or have some sort of tunnel vision, and think that they can only accomplish one task at a time. I challenge you to push them a little harder and have the conversation early on of what are you doing with the natural white space in any task or mission.
Throughout my command, I’ve had limited time to conduct training needed to build and grow the team to a new level. Time and again I had to seek out opportunities that existed within a given operation to do more with the time allowed. For example, AR 350–1 training can be conducted before or after a company formation, during field training downtime, waiting for a mandatory briefing, etc. There are also key collective task opportunity training that exists to make the team more tactically sounds. During a recent gunnery, my company determined and executed the requirements for ammo and fuel distribution to the supported battalion. Everyone knew we needed to spend time on tactical convoy operations. So instead of trying to find alternate training time available, we merged the mission requirements with the training need of tactical convoy operations and accomplished both to standard. There are many areas where you can get more out of your organization without burning them out.
(10) Build Relationships; Brigade / Brigade Support Battalion / Sister Forward Support Companies’ / Supported Battalion
Early on in my career I learned the importance of two key concepts; management of relationships and use of resources as the keys to sound leadership. Of the two areas of Army leadership two things that will get you father than you could have imagined is proper utilization of the people you know and the tools you have at your fingertips. Hanging on to both relationships and best practices will save you well. The Army has been around for a very long time, and rarely anything that we do today has not been previously done by some past leader, in your organization or another. People we keep in contact with and relationships we build over time can be a commander’s greatest asset. They are truly a resource that doesn’t go away.
To be successful as a commander requires you to be tied in to the units left and right of you. I made it a point to keep in contact with many key leaders from the past that I have had the pleasure of working with. What this enabled me to do was network ideas, solve problems, and gain new perspectives at an unimaginable rate. While in my brigades I routinely checked in with key leaders in the sister Battalions, supported Battalion, Brigade Support Battalion, and Brigade S4 and Brigade Property Book Offices. These five relationships that I maintained paid dividends, in addition to the key leaders I have stayed in contact with over the years. It not only builds up rapport with your brigade counterparts and Army professionals, it enables you be a smarter commander, working more effectively and efficiently. Instead of trying to figure it out on my own, I would glean perspectives from the many Army leaders who deal with similar turbulence on a daily basis.
This blog was not meant to be an all-encompassing guide to effective command, but one that you could scan through and elicit some thoughts on how you may be able to better lead organizations. I have struggled every step along the way, whether it was relationships with my First Sergeant, the multiple Executive Officers, subordinate leaders, or my rater and senior rater. Over the twenty months of my tactical command I have grown as a leader and Army professional due to the hard lessons learned that I have shared with you in this blog. If there is one key that I have gleaned to a successful command, it is to ensure leadership over “liker-ship”. Making tough, hard, and sometimes impossible decisions is what we do as leaders in the Army Profession. As long as the decisions you make are grounded in your morals, Army ethics, UCMJ, and overall safety of your unit, then make that tough decision, and own it as your own.
I have never been one to “paint bubbles green”, regardless of the picture it has painted for me or my organizations and I think that not compromising your ethics, morals, or leadership is TRULY the key to success in any command.
I can only hope that you are more successful than I have been at leading your future/current organization.
Falcon 6
“Falcons, Rise Up!”
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Captain Wade Cady is a recent Field Artillery Forward Support Company post-commander who finished a 20-month long tenure, where he served in both OPERATION SPARTAN SHIELD and OPERATION INHERENT RESOLVE, in addition to rotations at the National Training Center. He was first assessed into the branch of Transportation Corps as a 2LT in May of 2011. After graduating the Logistics Captains Career Course in November of 2015, he became part of the Logistics Corps. Captain Cady has served at the both the Platoon level, and through the Corps level. He has held tactical, operational, and strategic positions at those echelons. Captain Cady pursued a degree at the University of Florida where he earned a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences in Criminology with minors in Business Finance and Military History. He also a graduate of the American Military University where he earned a Master of Arts in Transportation and Logistics Management. Captain Cady has been happily married for seven years to the former Valerie Van Scoy of Dallas, Texas. They currently reside in Leander, Texas and have three children; toddler twins, Abigail and Aaron, 2.5 years old, and Andrew, 10 months old. He and his family are now enroute to Kaiserslautern, Germany to assume his role as a logistics planner in the 21st Theater Support Command.
