Junior Officer
Developed at West Point, the Leader Challenge (LC) method for developing leaders is part of a profession-wide effort to improve learning and leader developmentâto make them more context-based, collaborative, and problem-centered. Each Leader Challenge session engages participants in a difficult leadership decision as described by the junior officer who actually experienced it. In Leader Challenge sessions, Army professionals with varying levels of experience engage with each other in small-group conversations about the situation to enhance their understanding of ethical leadership. Participants in Leader Challenge sessions learn not only from the true scenario and their conversations about it, but also from the LC process itself, which highlights the learning value of engaging in meaningful conversations about real problems with our fellow professionals
LC — Whose Team
Kevin Scott is a platoon leader in a signal company. […]
LC — Bystanders
A junior officer reflects on her sexual assault and its aftermath, including her difficulties with reporting and challenges with SHARP education.
LC — Reporting Loyalty
The company XO discovers that the monthly sensitive items inventory has come up short a few months in a row, howevever, his commander signs off on the inventories and sends them up to battalion anyway. The XO needs to decide what to do.
Fellow Leader Developer: We are honored to support your leader-development program. Each CCLPD has been designed to foster 15-45 minutes of quality professional conversation. The video clips and articles provide you and your team with meaningful topics to talk about. The suggested questions are ones that we find interesting, but you should guide your conversations to address the issues most important to your team.
Dedicating time to develop your subordinate leaders makes a powerful, positive impact that will ripple across every level in your unit.
We commend you and are here to support you!
CCLPD #18: What I Wish I Learned at Commissioning
This package is provided to spark insights among pre-commissioning cadets about potential areas of focus for individual development. There are a LOT of BOLC A tasks, and not all of them get the attention they deserve. Ideally, pre-commissioning cadets walk away from this package thinking about areas where they need to spend more time prior to becoming a second lieutenant.
CCLPD #17: XO Leadership of Peers
This package is provided to spark and support a professional conversation among junior officers about officer leadership among peers and near-peers. This package will be useful for units who have had significant transitions among the junior officers and/or have had friction among the junior officers in the unit. We all know that âan officer on duty knows no oneâ, but what does that mean in practice among peers? How do we manage this challenge?
CCLPD #16: Joe Did What?!
This package is provided to spark and support a professional conversation among officers and senior NCOs about what to do when Soldiers do dumb things. Participants are encouraged to share (in a non-attributional way) particularly egregious examples of this phenomenon and how they responded. Participants discuss expectations of conduct in the unit and why certain problems occur. Participants reflect on their obligations and responses to misconduct as leaders.
The Starfish and the Spider
Upstream
East of Chosin
Leadership is Language
A Passion for Leadership
Warrior Politics
Platoon Leader
This Kind of War
Turn the Ship AroundHere are some book recommendations to get you started
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You (10th Anniversary Edition)
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
The Alchemist
The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
Becoming
A Bell for Adano
Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death
The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism
The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever
Crucial Accountability: Tools for Resolving Violated Expectations, Broken Commitments, and Bad Behavior, Second Edition ( Paperback)
The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups
David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work
Ender's Game (The Ender Quintet)
The EQ Leader: Instilling Passion, Creating Shared Goals, and Building Meaningful Organizations through Emotional Intelligence
Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win (New Edition)
The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth
Find Your Why: A Practical Guide for Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team
First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable
Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae
Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't
HBR's 10 Must Reads on Change Management (including featured article "Leading Change," by John P. Kotter)
HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership (with featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive," by Peter F. Drucker)
HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself (with bonus article "How Will You Measure Your Life?" by Clayton M. Christensen)
HBR'S 10 Must Reads: The Essentials
Hope Unseen: The Story of the U.S. Army's First Blind Active-Duty Officer
How To Win Friends and Influence People
Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life
Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box
Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say--and What You Don't
Leadership Presence (HBR Emotional Intelligence Series)
Leading Change, With a New Preface by the Author
Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
Legacy
The Lost Art of Listening, Second Edition: How Learning to Listen Can Improve Relationships
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Now, Discover Your Strengths
Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World
Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions
Outliers: The Story of Success
Platoon Leader: A Memoir of Command in Combat
The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact
Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning
Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World (1) (Politics of Place)
Questions Are the Answer: A Breakthrough Approach to Your Most Vexing Problems at Work and in Life
Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity
Radical Inclusion: What the Post-9/11 World Should Have Taught Us About Leadership
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
Starship Troopers by Heinlein, Robert A.(May 15, 1987) Paperback
Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else
Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World's Top Minds
Thinking, Fast and Slow
This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition
Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Building Leaders by Breaking the Rules
Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen
What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful
Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life
The Mission, the Men, and Me: Lessons from a Former Delta Force CommanderResources
We listed some of the resources junior officers have found most helpful in their development. If there are others you think we should add, let us know!
Junior Officer (our site)
Harvard Business Review
Forbes
Tactical Decision Games
3×5 Leadership/
From the Green Notebook
The Military Leader
The Army Leader (British Army)
The Angry Staff Officer
The Company Leader
The Field Grade Leader
The Leaders Huddle
Coaching for Leaders
The John Maxwell Leadership Podcast
Work Life with Adam Grant
HBR Ideacast
Dear HBR
Lead to Win
The Modern War Institute
Up First (News)
The Daily (News)
The Look and Sound of Leadership
The Army Officer’s Guide to Mentoring
The Army NCO’s Guide to Mentoring
The New Commanders’ Starter Kit
173d IBCT SmartbookResources
This is the area for Branch-specific Resources
Leader Challenge
Developed at West Point, the Leader Challenge (LC) method for developing leaders is part of a profession-wide effort to improve learning and leader developmentâto make them more context-based, collaborative, and problem-centered. Each Leader Challenge session engages participants in a difficult leadership decision as described by the junior officer who actually experienced it. In Leader Challenge sessions, Army professionals with varying levels of experience engage with each other in small-group conversations about the situation to enhance their understanding of ethical leadership. Participants in Leader Challenge sessions learn not only from the true scenario and their conversations about it, but also from the LC process itself, which highlights the learning value of engaging in meaningful conversations about real problems with our fellow professionals
LC — Whose Team
Kevin Scott is a platoon leader in a signal company. […]
LC — Bystanders
A junior officer reflects on her sexual assault and its aftermath, including her difficulties with reporting and challenges with SHARP education.
LC — Reporting Loyalty
The company XO discovers that the monthly sensitive items inventory has come up short a few months in a row, howevever, his commander signs off on the inventories and sends them up to battalion anyway. The XO needs to decide what to do.
Orig Leader Challenge
Developed at West Point, the Leader Challenge (LC) method for developing leaders is part of a profession-wide effort to improve learning and leader developmentâto make them more context-based, collaborative, and problem-centered. Each Leader Challenge session engages participants in a difficult leadership decision as described by the junior officer who actually experienced it. In Leader Challenge sessions, Army professionals with varying levels of experience engage with each other in small-group conversations about the situation to enhance their understanding of ethical leadership. Participants in Leader Challenge sessions learn not only from the true scenario and their conversations about it, but also from the LC process itself, which highlights the learning value of engaging in meaningful conversations about real problems with our fellow professionals
LC — Whose Team
Kevin Scott is a platoon leader in a signal company. […]
LC — Bystanders
A junior officer reflects on her sexual assault and its aftermath, including her difficulties with reporting and challenges with SHARP education.
LC — Reporting Loyalty
The company XO discovers that the monthly sensitive items inventory has come up short a few months in a row, howevever, his commander signs off on the inventories and sends them up to battalion anyway. The XO needs to decide what to do.
LC — The Weird Duck
A senior NCO is critically short-handed on a deployment when he notices a Soldier behaving oddly. Is this just a quirk? Or something more?
LC — Stray Rounds
A lieutenant is an assistant OIC at a range when he notices some out-of-the-ordinary actions. A soldier who is struggling to qualify appears to be getting extra rounds and possibly some other “assistance.”
LC — Christmas Day
A medical officer (CPT) is in Kunar Province, Afghanistan. It is Christmas Day and he and his Soldiers had just finished enjoying their holiday meal and prepping to bed down for the night when a medevac call comes in from an outpost. Both ground and air evac assets are available and the outpost is only a five-minute drive by ground. Air evac is much faster but it is unclear whether the aircraft can land or not due to the outpost still being under fire. The CPT must decide to evacuate the casualty by ground or air…the TOC eagerly awaits his decision.
LC — Head in the Game
A lieutenant takes over as the new platoon leader for a platoon that has just returned from Iraq, at the height of the Iraq Surge. During that period, Soldiers were being routinely stop-lossed and offered incentives to stay in the Army, one of which was a 6-month school option. One of his Soldiers in school is selected by pro scouts and wants to play minor league baseball instead…how does the lieutenant balance the needs of the Army during the surge period with the desires of the Soldier?
LC — Battle Damage Assessment (BDA)
A PL and his platoon are conducting BDA as part of a QRF and they come upon two IED emplacers that have been engaged by friendly forces. The two emplacers are likely to expire due to their injuries; the PL must decide whether to initiate CASEVAC or not.
LC — Authentic Duty
The commander of a Quartermaster company is faced with one of his Soldiers having committed suicide. He wants to inform his company of the death but is unsure if he should show emotion when he addresses the formation.
LC — Pushing Back
A PL’s platoon is carrying out a difficult mortar registration mission which is exacerbated by poor communication and understanding by the company TOC. Once they arrive back at the TOC, one of the LT’s squad leaders goes off on the CO, in front of the entire TOC.  The CO and 1SG want to remove the squad leader, one of the platoon’s best assets. What would you do?
LC — Cohesion or Abuse
The senior drill sergeant for a Basic Combat Training company observes another drill sergeant striking a trainee who is duct-taped to a chair. The drill sergeant says it is part of a birthday observance for the trainee. The senior drill sergeant tries to engage the drill sergeant about the incident, but the other drill sergeant has no interest in discussing it any further. What would you do?
LC — Partners
A lieutenant and his platoon are conducting a joint patrol with the Iraqi National Police (INP) when they stop a vehicle with two Sunni men in it. When the LT doesn’t allow the INP to detain the two Sunnis, the INP suddenly surround him and his platoon with their crew-served weapons. To make matters worse, the incident is being videotaped by the media crew embedded with the unit. What would you do?
LC — Weighty Risk
The Platoon Leader and his cavalry platoon just completed a 22-hour dismounted zone reconnaissance in the mountains of northeast Afghanistan. That action concluded a week of near-continuous platoon missions in support of a squadron operation. The Soldiers engaged in numerous fights and had not slept in more than 24 hours. As they arrive at the platoon area, the CSM tells the PL to expect a FRAGO to leave that night for possibly another firefight. He tells him “Sergeant Major, seriously? We justâĤ weâre done right now. These guys are toast.” …
LC — New PL
A brand-new platoon leader feels overwhelmed. She has a SGT that is very charismatic and wields great influence within the platoon; influence that leads to an incident that involves the platoon leader unknowingly.
LC – Butting Heads
An infantry platoon leader is having challenges with his platoon sergeant (PSG). When he first takes charge of the platoon, the PSG is reluctant to cede full authority over the platoonâs actions in contact.
CCLPD
Fellow Leader Developer: We are honored to support your leader-development program. Each CCLPD has been designed to foster 15-45 minutes of quality professional conversation. The video clips and articles provide you and your team with meaningful topics to talk about. The suggested questions are ones that we find interesting, but you should guide your conversations to address the issues most important to your team.
Dedicating time to develop your subordinate leaders makes a powerful, positive impact that will ripple across every level in your unit.
We commend you and are here to support you!
CCLPD #18: What I Wish I Learned at Commissioning
This package is provided to spark insights among pre-commissioning cadets about potential areas of focus for individual development. There are a LOT of BOLC A tasks, and not all of them get the attention they deserve. Ideally, pre-commissioning cadets walk away from this package thinking about areas where they need to spend more time prior to becoming a second lieutenant.
CCLPD #17: XO Leadership of Peers
This package is provided to spark and support a professional conversation among junior officers about officer leadership among peers and near-peers. This package will be useful for units who have had significant transitions among the junior officers and/or have had friction among the junior officers in the unit. We all know that âan officer on duty knows no oneâ, but what does that mean in practice among peers? How do we manage this challenge?
CCLPD #16: Joe Did What?!
This package is provided to spark and support a professional conversation among officers and senior NCOs about what to do when Soldiers do dumb things. Participants are encouraged to share (in a non-attributional way) particularly egregious examples of this phenomenon and how they responded. Participants discuss expectations of conduct in the unit and why certain problems occur. Participants reflect on their obligations and responses to misconduct as leaders.
CCLPD #15: Quality vs Convenience
This CCLPD is provided to spark and support a professional conversation among officers and senior NCOs about when to streamline actions like procurement and purchasing, and when to go âby the book.â This package will be useful for any units who want to talk about purchasing, logistics, and the DoD standards for both. It can also be used to talk about standards as a whole: as leaders, when do we have the latitude to bend or break standards? Does it matter what the standards are about?
CCLPD #14: Dealing with a Suicide
This CCLPD is about how to deal with, and move on from, a suicide within your unit with the intent of learning from this Soldierâs experience to improve the unitâs performance. The video features a drill sergeant sharing her story about a Soldier committing suicide in her platoon.
CCLPD #13: Mission Command at the Company Level
This CCLPD is about building and leading teams consistent with the principles of mission command. The video features a Company Commander sharing his experience of utilizing mission-command principles in order to command successfully in a high-OPTEMPO environment.
CCLPD #12: My Most Challenging Experience as a Platoon Leader
This CCLPD is about designing hard, realistic training and learning from those experiences to improve the unitâs performance. The video features a lieutenant sharing her most challenging training experience which occurred at NTC.
CCLPD #11: Property Accountability – Command Supply Discipline Program (CSDP) Overview
This CCLPD is about property accountability and the Command Supply Discipline Program (CSDP). The video features a lieutenant sharing his experience as a platoon leader with property accountability.
CCLPD #10: Property Accountability – Dealing with a FLIPL
The CCLPD is about handling a FLIPL. The video features a lieutenant sharing his experience with a FLIPL, and an investigation into the whereabouts of three high-valued pieces of medical equipment.
CCLPD #9: Taking a Step Back
This CCPLD is about handling confrontation with a superior officer. The video features a lieutenant sharing his experience with a confrontation he had with an SFAAT Team Leader and Senior NCO while providing security for them in Afghanistan.
CCLPD #8: Essential Platoon Leader Characteristics
This CCLPD is about what essential characteristics are needed to be a good platoon leader. The video features a captain sharing his opinion on the two most important characteristics a good platoon leader must possess.
CCLPD #7: PSG Initial Counseling
This CCLPD is about counseling, expectations, and the Officer-NCO relationship. The video features a lieutenant describing his approach to conducting initial counseling with the four platoon sergeants he has worked with.
CCLPD #6: Duality of a PL – Managing Loyalties Up and Down
This CCLPD is about loyalty, taking care of soldiers, and mission accomplishment. The video features two platoon leaders describing the tension created from being loyal to both their platoons and to the commander.
CCLPD #5: Withstanding the Initial Shock of Casualties
This CCLPD is about handling the initial shock that comes when your unit takes a casualty. How might it affect you? How will you inform your unit? How will you lead your Soldiers and unit to move forward and continue the mission? The video features a company commander in Afghanistan describing her thoughts and actions after a squad in her company suffered a catastrophic IED attack.
CCLPD #4: Fire Discipline and Minimizing Civilian Casualties
This CCLPD is about the considerations, trade-offs, and consequences of making life-and-death decisions that affect our Soldiers, the mission, and non-combatants. The video features a platoon leader in OIF-1 and a company commander in OIF 06-07 describing their experiences of making decisions about using force that would likely harm civilians.
CCLPD #3: Watching Our Words
This CCLPD is about our responsibility as leaders to not gripe or complain around our subordinates.  The video features a lieutenant discussing the challenge (we all face) of making sure that he and his NCOs refrained from complaining in the presence of their junior soldiers, regardless of how messed up the situation.
CCLPD #2: Leader as the Moral Compass
This CCLPD is about leaders’ responsibility to serve as moral compasses for their units and soldiers. The video features four lieutenants sharing their experiences as deployed leaders.
CCLPD #1: Traumatic Events and Resilient Teams
This CCLPD is about building resilient units that empower Soldiers to respond well to traumatic events. The video features the Physicianâs Assistant and senior medical officer on the ground at COP Keating during the October 2009 battle during which 8 soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice, and which resulted in the award of 27 Purple Hearts, 9 Silver Stars, and 2 Medals of Honor. After the battle, the troop (B/3-61 CAV) still had to complete the remaining 7 months of its combat deployment.
CCLPD
Fellow Leader Developer: We are honored to support your leader-development program. Each CCLPD has been designed to foster 15-45 minutes of quality professional conversation. The video clips and articles provide you and your team with meaningful topics to talk about. The suggested questions are ones that we find interesting, but you should guide your conversations to address the issues most important to your team.
Dedicating time to develop your subordinate leaders makes a powerful, positive impact that will ripple across every level in your unit.
We commend you and are here to support you!
CCLPD #18: What I Wish I Learned at Commissioning
This package is provided to spark insights among pre-commissioning cadets about potential areas of focus for individual development. There are a LOT of BOLC A tasks, and not all of them get the attention they deserve. Ideally, pre-commissioning cadets walk away from this package thinking about areas where they need to spend more time prior to becoming a second lieutenant.
CCLPD #17: XO Leadership of Peers
This package is provided to spark and support a professional conversation among junior officers about officer leadership among peers and near-peers. This package will be useful for units who have had significant transitions among the junior officers and/or have had friction among the junior officers in the unit. We all know that âan officer on duty knows no oneâ, but what does that mean in practice among peers? How do we manage this challenge?
CCLPD #16: Joe Did What?!
This package is provided to spark and support a professional conversation among officers and senior NCOs about what to do when Soldiers do dumb things. Participants are encouraged to share (in a non-attributional way) particularly egregious examples of this phenomenon and how they responded. Participants discuss expectations of conduct in the unit and why certain problems occur. Participants reflect on their obligations and responses to misconduct as leaders.
CCLPD #15: Quality vs Convenience
This CCLPD is provided to spark and support a professional conversation among officers and senior NCOs about when to streamline actions like procurement and purchasing, and when to go âby the book.â This package will be useful for any units who want to talk about purchasing, logistics, and the DoD standards for both. It can also be used to talk about standards as a whole: as leaders, when do we have the latitude to bend or break standards? Does it matter what the standards are about?
CCLPD #14: Dealing with a Suicide
This CCLPD is about how to deal with, and move on from, a suicide within your unit with the intent of learning from this Soldierâs experience to improve the unitâs performance. The video features a drill sergeant sharing her story about a Soldier committing suicide in her platoon.
CCLPD #13: Mission Command at the Company Level
This CCLPD is about building and leading teams consistent with the principles of mission command. The video features a Company Commander sharing his experience of utilizing mission-command principles in order to command successfully in a high-OPTEMPO environment.
CCLPD #12: My Most Challenging Experience as a Platoon Leader
This CCLPD is about designing hard, realistic training and learning from those experiences to improve the unitâs performance. The video features a lieutenant sharing her most challenging training experience which occurred at NTC.
CCLPD #11: Property Accountability – Command Supply Discipline Program (CSDP) Overview
This CCLPD is about property accountability and the Command Supply Discipline Program (CSDP). The video features a lieutenant sharing his experience as a platoon leader with property accountability.
CCLPD #10: Property Accountability – Dealing with a FLIPL
The CCLPD is about handling a FLIPL. The video features a lieutenant sharing his experience with a FLIPL, and an investigation into the whereabouts of three high-valued pieces of medical equipment.
CCLPD #9: Taking a Step Back
This CCPLD is about handling confrontation with a superior officer. The video features a lieutenant sharing his experience with a confrontation he had with an SFAAT Team Leader and Senior NCO while providing security for them in Afghanistan.
CCLPD #8: Essential Platoon Leader Characteristics
This CCLPD is about what essential characteristics are needed to be a good platoon leader. The video features a captain sharing his opinion on the two most important characteristics a good platoon leader must possess.
CCLPD #7: PSG Initial Counseling
This CCLPD is about counseling, expectations, and the Officer-NCO relationship. The video features a lieutenant describing his approach to conducting initial counseling with the four platoon sergeants he has worked with.
CCLPD #6: Duality of a PL – Managing Loyalties Up and Down
This CCLPD is about loyalty, taking care of soldiers, and mission accomplishment. The video features two platoon leaders describing the tension created from being loyal to both their platoons and to the commander.
CCLPD #5: Withstanding the Initial Shock of Casualties
This CCLPD is about handling the initial shock that comes when your unit takes a casualty. How might it affect you? How will you inform your unit? How will you lead your Soldiers and unit to move forward and continue the mission? The video features a company commander in Afghanistan describing her thoughts and actions after a squad in her company suffered a catastrophic IED attack.
CCLPD #4: Fire Discipline and Minimizing Civilian Casualties
This CCLPD is about the considerations, trade-offs, and consequences of making life-and-death decisions that affect our Soldiers, the mission, and non-combatants. The video features a platoon leader in OIF-1 and a company commander in OIF 06-07 describing their experiences of making decisions about using force that would likely harm civilians.
CCLPD #3: Watching Our Words
This CCLPD is about our responsibility as leaders to not gripe or complain around our subordinates.  The video features a lieutenant discussing the challenge (we all face) of making sure that he and his NCOs refrained from complaining in the presence of their junior soldiers, regardless of how messed up the situation.
CCLPD #2: Leader as the Moral Compass
This CCLPD is about leaders’ responsibility to serve as moral compasses for their units and soldiers. The video features four lieutenants sharing their experiences as deployed leaders.
CCLPD #1: Traumatic Events and Resilient Teams
This CCLPD is about building resilient units that empower Soldiers to respond well to traumatic events. The video features the Physicianâs Assistant and senior medical officer on the ground at COP Keating during the October 2009 battle during which 8 soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice, and which resulted in the award of 27 Purple Hearts, 9 Silver Stars, and 2 Medals of Honor. After the battle, the troop (B/3-61 CAV) still had to complete the remaining 7 months of its combat deployment.