Is careerism still plaguing the military? Do we have a problem or has the military figured out how to keep the right people?

2017-09-11T09:39:42-04:00

This essay, updated in 2011, describes what the author calls "careerism," and links it to psychopathy and toxicity in the military. He quotes, "Maj. Michael L. Mosier posits in Getting a Grip on Careerism in Airpower Journal how military sociologists theorize that the idea of a higher calling has diminished as institutional values deteriorate. While institutional values deteriorate, careerists exhibit traits of psychopathy replacing the higher calling with ambitions of personal gain and unaccountability." Do we still have this problem? I just came out of the War College and saw some of this in the Pentagon, but are we doing a better job now than we were in 2011? Are we making the change that needs to be made...for the right reasons?

https://www.sott.net/article/228036-Careerism-and-Psychopathy-in-the-US-Military

Careerism and Psychopathy in the US Military -- Sott.net

"Glibness, Superficial Charm, Grandiose Sense of Self-Worth, Deceitful, Cunning, Manipulative, Lacks Remorse, Callous, Lacks Empathy, Does Not Accept Responsibility for Own Actions, and Impulsiveness ... " This essay attempts to make it easier...

Response by SSG Derrick L. Lewis MBA, C-HRM made Sep 11 at 2017 9:52 AM

2017-09-11T09:52:32-04:00

COL Private RallyPoint Member -I actually have the book that the image depicted above is titled from. Ironically the book is titled "When Psychopaths Go To Work". Thanks for the share.

Response by SPC Margaret Higgins made Sep 11 at 2017 9:53 AM

2017-09-11T09:53:38-04:00

COL Private RallyPoint Member: My prayer, Colonel, is that the military has figured out how to keep the right people. Thanks, Colonel- Margaret

Response by LTC Trent Klug made Sep 11 at 2017 10:34 AM

2017-09-11T10:34:52-04:00

When hasn't the military had an issue with careerism? Some of its most cherished leaders have reveled in it. MacArthur, Eisenhower, Marshall, Haig, and McCain to name a few. Some of these are cherished icons. Some not so much.

Response by MAJ Eric Greek made Sep 11 at 2017 10:48 AM

2017-09-11T10:48:20-04:00

All one has to do is look up guys like BG (now LTC(R)) SinClair and note that the then Secretary of the Army slapped a gag order on his shenanigans rather than really deal with the issues his actions caused. If we were concerned about a 'higher calling' to serve rather than unaccountability, the Army would have handled that episode well before it grew to such dramatic dimensions.

And that is just one ... COL Tunnel, COL Johnson, MG Haig, etc. etc. etc.

Response by COL Vincent Stoneking made Sep 11 at 2017 11:24 AM

2017-09-11T11:24:21-04:00

TL/DR: There is a grain of truth, but unfortunately, the article is utter crap.

Quite simply, if we are in a profession where people try to make a career of it, especially when their ability to do so relies on the positive regard of higher ups, you will have careerism. That's careerism with both its negatives and its positives.

If you have a field where average is substandard, you are gonna have problems. A center of mass eval [sorry still think old terms... "Highly Proficient" now??] LITERALLY means average. Ask yourself how well an Officer who is routinely rated average will do. The publication of board AARs really helps with this exercise. And then keep in mind that we have this weird world where "only" 49% can be above average... reinforcing that average is substandard.

Now review the last several years of tighter promotions and RIFs of various types. It is literally insane to expect Officers to act against their own interests on any sort of routine basis. This is where somebody trots out "the hard right over the easy...." Which is all good, but anything that requires an individual to sacrifice themselves and their family on the altar of the institution is likely not sustainable. What you will get instead is perverse incentives in the system acted upon. Especially with the historic "20 or nothing" retirement plan.

The best you can really expect, going back to agency theory (not the non-existent part that says "pay executives more") and attempt to align individual incentives with institutional priorities. This is where the Army fails more often than not, IMO. You learn very early that "You can love the Army, but the Army will never love you." As a practical matter, you learn early in your career that you need to devote a fair amount of attention to protecting your interests from the grind of the machine.

I can trot out dozens of examples of this, as can every other military person I know. To decry careerism is really to insist that people routinely act against the interests of themselves and their families. This will always fail in the long run. Someone might gut it through a particular assignment doing so (and I know I have, without complaint), but not for 20+ years... Higher callings are all well and good, but I still have an obligation to protect and provide for my family.

OK, so with that rant over, a few comments on the actual article. First, I think what he calls "careerism" is actually at least 2 different things. The first is learning the political skills necessary to thrive in a large, bureaucratic institution made up of people. See my comments above. To expect lack of adaptive organizational behavior where adaptive organization behavior is required for success is logically silly.

The second really addresses the so-called revolving door from military service some combination of federal service and/or military-industrial and/or lobbying/policy influence. On this, I can only say that it is eminently logical for a person to gravitate towards a post-military career where they have cogent reasons to believe that they will do well & fit in. All the better if they already know a lot about the industry and know many of the relevant players and rules of the game. *I* personally have no interest in that area post military. Then again, I am 1) a reservist and 2) despise DC and everything about it and 3) don't travel in the circles that would make me valuable in such a role. And as far, as agency theory goes, I fully reserve the right to change my mind at any instant if a great opportunity should come my way.

To the extent that the second is a problem (I think it is, but the article hasn't made the case, IMO), this is an area where wise application of the principles of Agency theory should come into play. Perhaps a new retirement rule that states if you work for any defense contractor with over $100MM of government contracts, your military retirement is suspended for that time period. Don't know that that's the right answer, but it's better than saying "Well gosh, retired Generals should just go play golf, because I find it more convenient."

"For a sizable majority - about 20 percent" -- I couldn't let that line remain unremarked. Someone needs to review the definition of majority.

As for a the "paradox of power", where it is claimed that all the "noble" motives that advanced someone in their early career are thrown away and "baser" motives adopted, I would counter that they seem to have very rose colored glasses when looking at the lower ranks of the Officer corps. especially those who get promoted "on track." It is much more accurate to say that the institutions in question (I can only talk to the Army) select for those who display the allegedly unwanted behaviors. Quite simply, to hop up the the Boyd quote on careerism (which I think is a lot more sound than the Author's own), the military selects for those who aggressively market themselves. The quiet professionals get more work. The guy who makes sure all his accomplishments get on his evals gets the ACOMs an the promotions.

Moreover, the bad behaviors that the these senior leaders exhibit (impulsive, rude, reckless, etc), which are often true, is well explained by the Bathsheba syndrome (since you just did AWC, I won't trot that out again, but it is one area that I think they nailed). This is a real problem that the institution desperately needs to address, though it is a very hard one, as the people who should come up with the solution tend to be the ones who don't see it.

Placing our highly circumscribed and lockstep procurement process at the feet of careerists is a red herring as far as I am concerned. Do some milk the system for all it's worth? I'm sure they do. But as you'll remember from the HTAR classes, the procurement process - as decreed in US Code as well as policy at every level is a lumbering beast, designed to take decades, and required to be done in lockstep. I am honestly surprised we ever get anything that is still relevant out of it. It needs to be trashed and rebuilt from the ground up. But to complain about the players at the rigged game seems disingenuous to me.

The "remaining silent" complaint raises my eyebrow every time it comes out, from "Dereliction" to this article's comments about Bremmer. Especially as we are lectured in the same breath about "the unequal dialog" and the "supremacy of civilian control" and how we have to "be non-partisan and support the NCA." And, of course there is the ethic of "give your advice in private, but support in public." However, it seems in certain, special circumstances the expectation is for Officers to commit ritual suicide, but do it in a way to doesn't undercut or question civilian leadership in the least little bit. I can support one side or the other of the contentions, but not both. And in this case, the author is stating that the PROPER course would have been for senior Officers to disobey legal orders from a competent authority....

(For the record, I am strongly of the opinion that senior Officers should state their opinions on the record. There should also be a tradition of resigning in protest, which there is not. These opinions gave me many "remedial" lectures both from SGLs and seminar-mates when I went through AWC...). I did state my opinion about disbanding the Iraqi Army at the time, but I was a non-mobilized NG CPT and nobody cared.

And as far as "network consultants", it appears that the author's issue is "they aren't saying what I KNOW they should!!!!" In other words, they disagree with him.

Anyone who thinks that the 4 stars are the ones running foreign policy is seriously deluded. Also, this claim tracks poorly to either known reality or the author's own claims elsewhere in this article (i.e. Bremmer) about being too self-interested to speak truth to power and refuse lawful orders from civilian authority.

It is interesting when he states that the "one" important change is that Officers are more religious than their civilian peers, unlike decades ago. I think it would be more correct to say that their civilian peers are less religious. I haven't seen the stats, but I would be willing to bet a review of same would find that in this by-nature conservative (in the social sense) institution has just about the same % of religious people has it has for the last 100+ years. What has changed is the pool of people who look to the military as a potential career or calling. Smaller pool, same demographics. Except, I would also argue (and if I didn't have to get to work soon, would actually look it up), that the Officer corps comes from a much more generally middle class background than it did 50 years ago.

Ugh, speaking of which, I will have to leave off critique of the article here, as there is so much crap crammed into it. In closing, this article does an active disservice to the discussion of the Profession of Arms. I am highly critical of a lot of how the military is run & the perverse incentives we have in our system, and have made many posts on this site about changes I think would make it better. My most "popular" post has to do with bringing back the specialist ranks, but I have another post basically arguing for the end of up or out on the Officer side, allowing the career CPT of MAJ. Both allow from greater institutional knowledge, without the need to "kiss the ring" to get the almighty ACOM. I've argued for the end of mandatory PCS all the time, limiting ACOMs to perhaps 10% (exceptional people should be... exceptional), as well as breaking the lockstep promotion process - allowing stronger performers to be promoted earlier (and not just "earlier" of BZ, when they are promoted AFTER all the zone people, and likely no more than 6-9 months earlier than their average peers - But basically doing away with the concept of YGs and instead promoting based on actual performance). However, all of my recommendations have a theme of making organizational incentives align with the behaviors we claim we want. This author argues that Officers should commit career suicide in ways that are guaranteed to ruin their lives, make it impossible to provide for their families, and get called disloyal to civilian authority - likely by this same author.

Response by Sgt Wayne Wood made Sep 11 at 2017 3:13 PM

2017-09-11T15:13:46-04:00

Perhaps the question should be... are we losing the people we should be trying to keep?

Response by CPT Randy Zales made Sep 13 at 2017 12:49 PM

2017-09-13T12:49:49-04:00

It's not that complicated. You manage your career or someone else will manage it for you. As long as you keep Mission first, People always! on your radar screen when you make decisions you will be good to go. As far kissing rings? Not snowball's chance in hell! One of my mentors was a multiple tour Vietnam NCO (Coffe mug tip to MSG Keyes/Spooky Woods) who stressed the importance of giving your commander the "ground truth" and NO BS assessments even if they weren't going to like it. He followed that by saying... "What are they going to do you? Bend your Dog tags and send you to Vietnam!"

Response by SPC Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 14 at 2017 11:39 PM

2017-09-14T23:39:03-04:00

bad leadership is plaguing the military

Response by SSgt Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 19 at 2017 1:51 PM

2017-09-19T13:51:24-04:00

I think it is certainly still a problem. I've seen the wrong people stay in, people that are awful leaders and seem to just be there for prestige and a paycheck. One guy in particular barely makes weight standards and actively tries to escape all weigh-ins, does not teach and develop the Marines under him, purposely holds others back so he can continue to rest on his laurels and look better than everyone, lies about his scores on his PFT and will do anything he possibly can behind your back to try and burn you. This guy is about to be in zone for E8/Master Sergeant. I don't know how he slipped through the cracks for so long but I guess he just knows how to play the game.

Response by SSG Harry Herres made Jun 22 at 2019 12:49 PM

2019-06-22T12:49:59-04:00

There is nothing wrong with Catherine, it what you want from it that makes a difference. If you are there to make other develop their potential to the max. If you are there to insure that when need your unit will give its all and get the job done. Then it is better for all. If you are there for your ego, your only reason is your advancement, your authority over other, then you are in the wrong place. Ego monger, authoritarians get people killed! They get people killed because they don't care about others or their real responsibility. Too many have paid the price for leaders who were out for themselves!

Response by MAJ Geiter Dunn made Jun 22 at 2019 5:28 PM

2019-06-22T17:28:34-04:00

My experience is that up to and including SFC on the enlisted side and LTC on the officer side, there's some for whom the Army is just paycheck first, mission....meh. It's a small percentage though. They are easy to detect (no combat patch, 5 consecutive tours in Korea, the Pentagon or TRADOC) and easily ignored, especially if the person above them is serious about the mission. Above those ranks, I've only met professional, by God, soldiers and leaders.

Response by LTC Private RallyPoint Member made Jun 22 at 2019 9:35 PM

2019-06-22T21:35:14-04:00

Let me begin by saying there are good leaders in the Army. That said, they are too few and too far between.
I will not suggest that I am the best thing since sliced bread. I know better. The level of ass kissing, don’t tell the emperor he/she is naked (not that they would believe you), I am a (fill in the rank), therefore I am better than you, bull shit, is so common that it appears to be the norm.

Is it too much to ask our leadership to care about his/her soldiers? I would love to have a candid chat with any of our most senior leaders who care. Not just for a bitch session, but to find ways to make things better.