How does an incoming commander deal with a weak 1SG?

Don't come into the Company with a preconceived notion about what is or isn't the problem. Take what the outgoing guy is saying with a grain of salt. He's on his way out, maybe he's had a rough time with the 1SG. But, the fact that he's leaving you with what he considers a unit that's "in the toilet", when HE is ultimately responsible for that as the Commander... well... consider the source.

Have an interview with the 1SG - one-on-one - not to find out what's wrong with him, but to get a candid view from his side of the story. When you get there, do a Command Climate survey - or, better yet, see if the outgoing Commander will do one on his way out.

DO NOT GO INTO THIS COMMAND THINKING YOU HAVE A PROBLEM TO FIX. Assess the situation once you are in the seat. Talk to your NCOs. Talk to your Soldiers. Let the outgoing Commander go in peace and look forward, not backward. You can't change what's done, but your attitude will set the tone going forward. Be positive, build your company, build your team and show your Soldiers you care about them first.

Cpt D K - You have your work cut out for you and it likely will be neither easy or pleasant.
You do not say in what areas he is weak or if he is simply not a leader or has no desire to lead.
Therefore I suggest you give him several simple tasks and one quite complicated and watch his behavior measuring his performance against the current leadership model to determine where he misses the mark on those points. This can also be used to either validate the opinion of your predecessor or debunk it. (Sometimes an SM will not perform well if the senior leader is toxic - although that should never be an issue with a first shirt)
Bring your training officer / XO into the conversation to learn what they have observed and when you have witnessed and heard enough, bring the matter to the SGM to get their opinion on how to best approach the problem so as to bring your FSG into compliance for retention purposes.
Somethings are considered "Sergeants Business" and are better left to the NCOs to sort out and the SGM may well tell you "Leave it to me, sir - I"ll handle it." I've known of such cases and it works reasonably well. Frankly speaking, I'm wondering where the SGM has been on this issue - perhaps he was told not to get involved and that is something to consider as well.
At any rate, it may come down to replacing him and letting the Army take care of the matter for you.
There is a great deal to consider here and I hope this will help you in one way or another.
Good luck with this.

CPT (Join to see) I would pursue this route:
- sit down with the CSM and have a fact finding conversation about your 1SG and what has been going on. Do this before you take over if at all possible. Three things: if you have to relieve the 1SG, you'll need the CSM on your side. If he isn't, your going To have to work with who you have. second: there may be something you are not being told that is key to your situational understanding. Finally, if you engage with the CSM in a developmental/collaborative way, you'll likely pick up an ally and cross off your list someone you'll have to battle. It may also set the stage for the flow of the right NCOs to your formation.
- you need a long term operational goal to focus on to drive what follows. This should come from mission or mutually with the BN CDR.
- set clear, easy to understand expectations of soldiers and NCOs in your command philosophy and initial counseling. Aim for the elegance of simplicity in straight forward easy to remember things YOU believe, not that sounded good in someone else's philosophy. Do this off the bat. Brief your 1SG one on one, explain you need him on board. Then brief your officers and your 1SG off to the side. Fuse your relationship with the 1SG. How much of your 1SGs weakness is tied to crap support and being written off at the jump? If he fails, at least you gave him the benefit of the doubt. Then just brief the NCOs. Then you do a Company level roll out of these things. By doing this, you let the NCOs and Officers be in an environment to ask questions and get clarification without the rank and file there. It sets conditions so when Joe starts asking questions of the NCOs, you are all one voice.
- issue orders and intent. Give it to Officers to see through, but make it clear what things you expect NCOs to supervise and execute. Build their confidence and ability in small things and turn up the intensity, accountability, and feedback as you go. You don't walk into the gym for the first time and bench 450. You have to build leadership muscles.
- the immediate way to build credibility for NCOs is to show they care. They have to build soldiers and help them solve problems. A soldier problem that they help solve is the single best opportunity to build that trust and credibility. Opportunity for your First Sergeant is to build a NCOPD program that works on skills, knowledge, and abilities of getting soldiers to the right resources to enable them to solve their problems, and follow up, and follow up, and follow up.
- the next biggest source of NCO credibility is making them technically/tactically proficient. Your First Sergeant should be certifying them on soldier skillls and ensuring they are squared away. Checking that they know how to train soldiers in the same. Once you have a solid base of 10 level skills, start getting the NCOs proficiency at Squad, then Platoon Level. At the same time your Officers must be doing the same. Sometimes just as Officers, sometimes as a team building with their senior NCOs.
- you'll have to figure out when you start collective training and exercises. Tough and realistic training is a huge morale builder. Follow it up with disciplined AARs and recovery.
- look at taskings as an opportunity to build mission competence, planning capacity, problem solving, and NCO expertise and confidence. Give a young Sergeant a mission and some resources and have them Plan and execute. Do the same with your LTs with additional duties and larger taskings.
- Pair and officer and an NCO for all additional duty areas. Same reasoning. Even the grind of a CIP can build capability and capacity while ensuring readiness.
- focus on the METL and readiness. The BS before, was the BS before.
- what you want to build is a reputation for your company being competent, exercising disciplined initiative, and generally squared away. When your soldiers see they are more squared away than others, they'll start believing it, and morale will improve. Keep throwing challenges right on the edge of their capability so they can do it, but it will be a stretch.
- seriously get all your systems and processes to a B plus. Delegate as much as you can and spend time looking forward.
- a lot of success in company command grows directly from taking care of soldiers, building NCOs and officers worthy of being stolen by BN, doing routine stuff routinely, and being able to actually do what you say your company can do.
- unless you follow up and check on things you'll get yep'ed and nothing will change. Hold leader's feet to the fire. Follow up, schedule it on your calendar.
- Soldiers need to see you as someone who cares, but is tough, competent, practical, and takes no shit. But you have to be your authentic self. You can't play a part for 12-18 months.

CPT (Join to see) Start with Trust but verify.
Perhaps the entire issue is the out going commander. so trust what he is telling you, but dont act before you verify .
Perhaps the outgoing commander is a micromanager, which of course never works, and thus the company fails, he of course blames "them" for the failure.
Perhaps the company just needs leadership, trust, empowering the NCOs and PLs with a tasks, supporting their needs in both knowledge they lack and materials needed to be successful.
My advice..... listen to everyone, change nothing going in unless its unethical, immoral or illegal.
Trust , but verify, then after personal observation make changes as needed. They may surprise you or qualify the outgoing commanders comments, either way, the plan and needed changes will clearly present themselves.

I have nothing more to add beyond what others have said — but I just wanted to note that I love seeing threads like this. This is why we started RP in the first place...

I heartily second LTC Wayne Brandon's Motion. Determine what your consequence management plan is. Not big homework. When you talk to the XO, your E-9 SEL, and don't forget OPS, find out where, how, and why the Skipper is driving the Command. What are the big rocks that you and your NCOs need to pay attention to etc. Find out what the upline level of support or lack of it will exist. Find out what if/then actions will be supported. One thing being a senior O-3 is you're being flicked the duty booger. That can be by design (compliment). How you deal with it will be judged. Low external overhead that results in slow but measurable improvement may be better than churning the system in the short term. You'll get a sense of what level of tolerance and amount of rope you'll have. Don't hang yourself over it. Now you probably ask, why Ops? Ops will have an ongoing judgement of where your Company hangs in the balance vs. the other companies. Whatever the negatives are, you'll want to change that mind too. Your CC peers should be willing to give you some success pointers which are consistent with the mission and Command culture. Finally, just remember the toughest jobs are first line leaders. You're second line. You must make sure your PLs are supported and their NCOs are not running over them. You can't do it by yourself. I had a senior O-3 job where I followed an Alpha Hotel. Lots of things to clean up to get people looking forward to showing up the next day. It takes time. You may think there isn't much credit in house cleaning, but good O-5 Skippers will typically have more interest in that vs. finishing something a day early. Good luck son.

What an opportunity! It sounds to me like you've talked with an outgoing who couldn't handle the unit. He says he lost all of his experienced (favorite?) SNCOs and as a result his unit's "atmosphere and morale" is in the toilet. If there is anything an incoming CO can impact immediately and show significant changes in a short time it is atmosphere and morale.
Yes, there are weak NCOs and SNCOs, but they are in the minority and it sounds to me that you've been sold a bill of goods by an outgoing who expected excellence to be generated from the ground up by others instead of him enabling and developing it.
My first step would be talking to the 1SG; not about the outgoing CO's opinion of him or his opinion of the old CO, but about the unit's status. I assume you'll have briefing from your senior; compare the 1SG's opinion with your senior's opinion and share appropriate portions of that briefing. Then work with him on a plan to bring your unit to where you want it.
The outgoing CO has categorized your people as the second class vestiges of a good unit. That's BS. Nothing can cause a unit to underachieve as quickly as a CO who believes and demonstrates such an attitude. Most of your people want to be proud of their unit, have the same basic training as those who were transferred out, and just need a leader who doesn't consider them second class and will give them the opportunity and leadership they need to prove their excellence.

This is something you cannot do on your own. First, take command assess as you have been trained to do. Put out your goals and objectives to your leaders. Watch how the Company responds you your orders. Then assess whether if not the 1SG is weak. Sometimes Commanders are poor leaders. If the Company is broke, it would indicate that the Command Team may have been weak and your predecessor has failed in his responsibilities.

If after your initial assessment you believe that the 1SG is weak, seek the council of the CSM, and the XO. If the Company is broken they should know.

It is true that a poor 1SG can have a negative affect in a unit, but he can’t break it alone. Again, ask yourself why the outgoing admits the unit is broken but points the finger in every direction but his own. Ultimately, It is the command Team that makes it breaks units, not one or the other. Thank you for your service, you got this!

I spent most of my senior NCO time in staff positions or as a PSG, but I also had some fun playong 1SG here and there. A couple of thoughts from the "weak 1SG" side of things.
As that 1SG, I would ask of you to do EITHER one of two things. 1) Tell me what you want to happen and let me figure out how - but don't get mad if I don't do it "your" way (obviously, legal, moral, ethical constraints apply). OR 2) Tell me what you want to happen AND how to get it done.

When I was most successful as a PSG or as a 1SG, I had an Officer who followed that mold. When I ran into trouble, and became a less effective (I won't say inneffective) leader was when I had an Officer who wanted things done a certain way, but never communicated that. It leads to frustration, and it erodes my credibility, as my subordinates see that I (or we) have to keep re-doing tasks because they weren't "right" the first time.
I am not saying that this IS what happened between the outgoing and the 1SG, but just some food for thought.

And it is OK to specify some things and not others, 1SG should be flexible enough to accept both modes.

Once you have established 1SG's priorities, however, you need to be generous with both your support, and your feedback. If he isn't getting it done, let him know. Sometimes the problem is that he thinks he is doing great, because no one had the intestinal fortitude to tell him otherwise. A 1SG should never NEED a swift kick in the nethers to get them jump started, but sometimes it happens.

CAPT. B, LTC. Brandon and LTC. MacKay have all made excellent points and good advice.
I have had to remove a CSM and a 1SG. Don't take this route if you can possibly help it.
Spending time with the CSM is a good first step. He have be aware of the situation and may be waiting to speak to you about your 1SG. when you take over your new command. I would also
get one-on-one with your 1SG. and make it a social get together Q and A. Try talking about subjects
that are not work related. See how he responds and get an idea of his reasoning and thought process. Later publish and post your Command Philosophy including your expectations of your NCO's and enlisted people. Your 1ST. can get directions from this source as well

Likely you and your 1SG. will have sit down together and talk about his performance. Be very positive
but give firm directions. Measure his performance. A good question is to ask at some point when together is: "Is there anything I can help you with or Do you need my help with anything"? If his performance has not improved over a reasonable period of time. More formal counselling may be necessary. If so, document well each session.

Take Care, good luck and have a wonderful season.