I recently sat in on a council of senior NCOs (E8 and above) and the vast majority of them said they have never received counseling as a PSG or 1SG and above. All of them stated they wanted counseling.

I won’t repeat all of the great advice, just offer you my take on it. My personal opinion is that the more junior someone is and the more their performance is poor than the detail and frequency of counseling needs to increase. Your PSG is not junior and you must assume given his position of trust, without any other evidence, that he is a strong performer – keep that in mind for your first counseling.

Your counseling session is more about getting him or her to understand, based on your initial assessment, where the platoon is and what they need to do to improve. You can simply ask what you think he needs to do, any PSG worth their salt will tell you where they think they can improve.

Your counseling should be less focused on his performance as an individual and more focused on the Platoon’s performance. You do not need to counsel your PSG that you want him to pass his PT test, meet height and weight, qualify at the range – I would recommend leaving these things out unless they give you a reason to include them later. These are expected of them as a SFC or SSG in the Army.

Here’s a simple 3 step process to help formulate your counseling.

IDENTIFY: What is or is not happening and who is doing/not doing it.

ASSESS: If you want it to improve or sustain what you identified.

COMMUNICATE: Communicate to your PSG what you identified and how you assess he or she can help you fix it.

An example of an observation turned into a talking point:

You asked the PSG to do a walkthrough with you of the barracks and many of the Soldiers are living filthy (IDENTIFY). You know, even with 0 days in the Army that Soldiers who live like pigs is unacceptable and this behavior should change (ASSESS). Convey in counseling (COMMUNICATE) “I expect the platoon to care for their living areas as they would their equipment and themselves. I see the reflection of Soldiers living quarters as a direct reflection of how we and the NCOs in this platoon care for our Soldiers”

Always remember this is a two-way discussion. Sometimes you may need to dictate what must occur, but remember that their years of experience gives them an idea of how to solve most of the problems you’re encountering. In the end your PSG will respect your position of responsibility and will work with you to make the Platoon successful. Harness that team energy to make your counseling about observations you BOTH made and try to find the best solution together.

The best advice I ever got from one of our military professors, Colonel Rosso, about being a Lieutenant “Just don’t be an ass”.