This one is very near and dear (perhaps the wrong word…?) to me. My current and previous (command) assignment were heavily impacted by both of these issues.

As far as the leading of civilians, to be clear, I have never been the de facto supervisor of a civilian. However, during my command, I was essentially a counterpart to a GS12 civilian and was put in a position where my boss expected me to take responsibility for his actions and manage his organization. Based on this, I was able to observe and gain a lot of knowledge about how to and how to not lead civilians.

One key thing is to be inclusive. In my time, I heard things such as “civilians can’t be held responsible” or “civilians can’t be leaders”. Generalizing about that cohort has really bad implications. If you have an organization with a large cohort of civilians, you will find yourself with a large group of individuals who don’t trust you and won’t go above and beyond for you. Civilians, whether you like it or not, can be an organizational multiplier and they *are* a part of your team.

Know what areas you can utilize your civilians for. Are you going to be able to call them in at all hours of the night? Probably not. Overtime is a real thing. Can you assign them random jobs like you would a Soldier? I don’t know, “other duties as assigned” is a vague phrase if it is included in their job description. The specifics depend on the requirements of their job description and the union, if they are unionized. But what you can do is trust that whatever duties could be reasonably expected for that person to know and do, they will do it with a high level of expertise.

Be careful with change. Your civilians have probably been there for multiple chains of command. They’ve probably seen the idea for change you have and the positives and negatives attached. If your best reason for change is that “change is good”, your civilians will probably not react well. Regardless, if you feel it is necessary to change something, bring your civilians in so they can at least be a part of the process and have their voice heard.

Reward outstanding performance. There are multiple options to reward civilians for outstanding performance. Recommend them for a battalion or brigade coin, submit them for extra paid time off (there are limits), submit them for a cash award, or submit them for an actual award. Before you do, it may be prudent to talk to the civilian or their supervisor to see what they value. The cash award is particularly a dangerous one, you may get a reaction of “Oh, you think I do it for the money?”. However, if you reward good performance, you will probably see an increase in buy-in.

Stay grounded (this is important regardless of who you are leading). No, you don’t need people to like you. You don’t need their buy-in for whatever decision you’re making. You can say and it will be (unless it’s illegal, etc.). But you do need them for your organization to exist. And that aforementioned buy-in by your subordinates, that genuine concern for the success of the mission, has probably saved you many times in the past.

As far as leading those you don’t have command or supervisory authority over, it is difficult. Especially if it’s a case of your boss (or whomever has supervisory authority) not wanting to deal with the individual. This is basically how the civilians I mentioned above worked. I had no supervisory authority, by any means. I was not in the rating chain. UCMJ was not an option either (since they’re civilians). Basically, I had to give and take where I could and try to make the civilian supervisor understand that the success of our units were tied together. So if I failed, he would fail (eventually).

If you can’t come to terms, you really don’t have much choice but to go to the supervisor with your efforts in hand. I did this a few times. The civilian cohort all basically ran up through the BN XO. So I’d sit down and have a frank conversation and show how I tried to handle things but they weren’t cooperating.

In short, many things to consider.