I LOVE these ideas! I especially like the idea of hand written notes and homemade food/potlucks. It speaks volumes to thank someone specifically on how they’ve impacted the organization. Meaningful versus generic goes a long way. Giving thanks and showing appreciation should be a part of every Leader’s personal battle rhythm.

I think Management was my biggest gap as a junior Officer. As a senior CPT, we are expected to be proficient in our leadership style and how we manage teams. I think we could do a much better job to ensure that senior CPTs and junior field grades do feel more confident in their management style. I’ve been in the military over 8 years now and still…[Read more]

I have found that Soldiers and even myself are more appreciative of small gestures of appreciations.

I took to writing personal notes after I was wowed by a General officer doing the same for me. It was one of the first times I had Soldiers come up to me and personally tell me how much that gesture meant to them.

Pizza!  I’ve used food a lot o…[Read more]

As a junior officer in the National Guard, Mission Planning seemed to be the most difficult to be successful at with the limited time and resources I had available.  When I studied the choices, I realized that I had full-time staff to help with the others, but Mission Planning was something that I was left to my own devices to figure out.

I found that I understood the things I needed to do, I just couldn’t figure out an optimal battle rhythm in which to get them all accomplished.  My lack of knowledge on how to manage my time was a huge distractor for me.

Since you’re short on time and attention, here’s my down and dirty. Perspective of someone who was an S1 from 2LT to a CPT, worked with 5 different headquarters commanders:

1 – Please. PLEASE. Let the staff primaries do their job.  They WILL need your guidance (don’t let them fool you otherwise) – maybe as a peer, maybe as a superior, maybe for…[Read more]

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<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>…[Read more]

Intangible: thanking Soldiers for a specific act they did goes farther than “thanks for all your hard work”. “Hey, thanks to your attention to detail working on X spreadsheet/vehicles/etc, we’re the first done in the BN…or, the Boss personally said s/he was impressed with the work, and I told them you were taking the lead on this.  Your…[Read more]

Intangible: thanking Soldiers for a specific act they did goes farther than “thanks for all your hard work”. “Hey, thanks to your attention to detail working on X spreadsheet/vehicles/etc, we’re the first done in the BN…or, the Boss personally said s/he was impressed with the work, and I told them you were taking the lead on this.  Your…[Read more]

Here’s a few more ideas:

“Bad Leadership” by Barbara Kellerman – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/185913.Bad_Leadership

“Followership” by Barbar Kellerman – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2438898.Followership?from_search=true

‘Imbeciles’ by Adam Cohen – details the eugenics movement in the US in 1920’s, which is both fascinating to…[Read more]

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<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>…[Read more]

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<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>…[Read more]

Justin! As I logged into JO I was sending out my first appointment letter to one of my 2LTs. Talk about coincidence!

Resources. Your main resource will be your legal representative/JAG. Don’t be afraid to ask questions about procedures, processes, etc. Another great resource are other officers who’ve done this before. Things like here (JO), M…[Read more]

Jeff,

Ray noted a lot of key things you need to really put some thought into. Understanding where you want your company to be helps you determine what you need to focus on now to get it there.

As for specific details on your meeting content, a lot of the necessary details will come from your battalion and your sister companies. Your battalion…[Read more]

Jeff,

Ray noted a lot of key things you need to really put some thought into. Understanding where you want your company to be helps you determine what you need to focus on now to get it there.

As for specific details on your meeting content, a lot of the necessary details will come from your battalion and your sister companies. Your battalion…[Read more]

Some of the best advice I can offer are the following:

1) Get an example of what the approving authority is looking for. Some BDE CDRs accept 4 achievements on an ARCOM written as simply as “Joe did X, X helped the unit Y amount.” Then again, some BN CDRs want full, multi-sentence write-ups in each achievement block to justify an AAM. Know what…[Read more]

A couple things I do/have done:

Visit posts at off hours to have time to just talk to my Soldiers, and do same with my attachments.

Buy ice cream and take it to posts (always bring enough for the local nationals, though!!!)

Develop competitions at the individual/team/squad/platoon level and purchase some unit and individual awards to go along…[Read more]