November 2021

Leaders!

As we enter the month of Thanksgiving, I encourage you to take a moment to reflect and express gratitude for the positive things in your life.  We’ll share some timely work related to gratitude and leadership later in this SITREP but I wanted to highlight one easy way you can express gratitude – recognize a junior leader by nominating him/her for the 30 Under 30 Leader Developer Award!

Now on to our regular update-

Highlights from the past month

• WIN as a Platoon Leader in the Arctic
• Innovative Leadership in the Army: Four Lessons from a Start-Up Incubator
• Three Things to Make You Good at Any Job
• What do the US Army and Google have in Common?

 Coming up

Some things we have in the works that you’ll see in the weeks ahead on the CJO website:

• Lost and Found: Junior Leader Counseling in the Army
• Innovating the Bureaucracy from a Junior Officer’s Perspective
• A Soldiers Death – A Leader’s Challenge
• Building Resilience Through the Stoic Philosophy
• Leading With More Than the Rank on Your Chest

Other posts of interest

While we run/focus on The Center for Junior Officers site, we know there is a lot of other great content out there that can help junior officers in their pursuits.  Below are a few articles/podcasts/products from other sources that you might find interesting – we did!

• Research reveals why gratitude is an important leadership quality.  Besides making you more productive, did you know gratitude and humility are mutually reinforcing?  There is a lot of work on how humility allows leaders to be more effective- expressing gratitude can help you become more humble if that’s a goal you have.
• The Center for Creative Leadership provides info about how giving thanks will make you a better leader – highlighting benefits and sharing thoughts on how you can encourage others to express gratitude.
• 3×5 leadership share some thoughts on how you might be able to express gratitude.

Leader Development Opportunities

• 30 Under 30 Leader Developer Award.  This award is designed to recognize top cadets and junior officers who have demonstrated excellence in the “Develops Others” realm of leadership. Army units, and the junior officers in them, represent hundreds of small laboratories for leader development, with people testing new ideas, activities, tools, and approaches. Identifying those officers that are developing and employing effective leader development practices or approaches, recognizing them, and sharing their insights is something that can help inspire others and help improve leader development across the Army. The deadline for submissions is 1 January 2022. Please share!  https://juniorofficer.army.mil/cjo-30-under-30-award/
• Become a Leadership Fellow.  The Center for Junior Officers Leadership Fellows Program is an unpaid, non-resident fellowship sponsored by the Center for Junior Officers.  The purpose of the Leadership Fellows Program is to create and support a cadre of junior officers who voluntarily produce developmental content for the broader junior officer corps within the Army. Supported by the Center for Junior Officers, Fellows will be thought leaders who can help the Center for Junior Officers construct developmental opportunities, shape conversations related to issues impacting junior officers, and share their insights to build the leaders of our future force.  Fellows will take one of two forms: Leadership Fellows or Senior Fellows. Applications are due NLT 5 p.m. EST on 9 January 2022. You can read more about the Fellowship here: https://juniorofficer.army.mil/cjo-leadership-fellows-program/

Join the team

If you’re an active-duty junior officer who is interested in obtaining a fully-funded advanced degree  (or if you already have an advanced degree from a top-tier institution in a topic related to organizational behavior, I/O psychology, MBA, or related area), will have completed your key development position requirements as a Captain by May 2023, and want to PCS to West Point to join the Center for Junior Officers team, please reach out and let us know

Additional information is also located here.

In closing

Reminder- we’re on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.  Please follow us if you’re on those platforms.  We’re posting new content almost daily. 

Until next month – lead well my friends!