Leaders, what techniques did you utilize in order to develop your young service members into the leaders of tomorrow?

Praise in public, punish in private. Whether you are a squad leader or a platoon leader, set the standard high and, if needed, give your soldiers a boost on bended knee to reach it. Train all soldiers to act in the absence of leadership by giving them an opportunity to make a decision, but be ready to redirect them when the decision they made could have been better.

Empower your subornidate leaders to make decisions that affect the organization, because it gets them invested in the team as well. Set high standards, and execute to those standards. Praise work done beyond the standard, aid those who are not meeitng at least the standard, and tactfully take those who are rebellious and deal with them in private. Treat them like human beings, and how you yourself would want to be treated. Its a professional relationship, so leave all personal feelings at the door.

I think you are spot on about counselings. A lot of soldiers look at it as a bad thing, but they can actually be a really, really good thing! I've done both. One was about a PT failure, which wasn't fun because we had to flag said soldier, but another soldier got credit on the extended scale for the APFT, which was awesome to see. An E4, I put him in charge of the PT program, and he ran with it. Now he's an E-5, Air Assault qualified, and a stellar NCO. Empower those who are good, to better the organization.

I coached, mentored, and trained relentlessly and gave them as many opportunities to lead as was possible. Mistakes were always viewed as lessons learned. I trusted them and they knew it - their confidence was onvious.