Should an officer be allowed to continue to serve on Active Duty after being relieved from command?

It is the responsibility of every leader to mentor and prepare their subordinates for leadership. It is also their responsibility to evaluate each subordinate as to their weakness's and strengths. This is not an easy task and for most is the hardest thing they do. We as leaders need to make sure we don't promote some one beyond their ability. As a leader we hold another's future in our hands some can't handle this part of leadership, we must remind our selves that the good of our Corps is our first obligation every thing else is secondary. It is and always has been about promotion based on merit than any other consideration. The mediocre and the timid cost lives and must be thanked for their service and separated rather than promoted into critical billets where they will fail. We as leaders bear that responsibility, we owe that to those we lead, I would much rather tell a man that he won't be promoted than write the letters as a result of a failure I could have prevented. Every appointment of a fire team leader, squad leader or Platoon Sgt has a direct effect on performance and the lives involved. We have to make solid evaluations and act on them.

There can be a lot of contributing factors to being relieved of duty. It's evident just reading the comments on this article. I agree the army made a mistake getting rid of the higher specialist ranks. I think I might have been interested in promotion as far as making SP5 rather than sergeant. Another thing to consider is retention. I may or may not have been a good leader. The up or out policy may be detrimental in another way. The military loses competent, trained personnel. There is the high cost of training people today.

A fellow lieutenant went arty where he failed big time. He was not leadership material, and he had no business leading Marines. Because he had a degree in computer science (this was while the Corps was all papers and files) they stuck him on some make-do project at New River where he could watch over the installation of a new computer system. He took issue with the civilian contractor and basically took over, revamping the system. I don't think he was ever in a leadership position during his entire career, but he retired as a lieutenant colonel, and I had a general tell me once that this guy probably did more for readiness than any other single officer he knew.

This is where the 1970s book "The Peter Principal" comes into effect. Leaders should only rise to their highest level of competence. There are limits to certain skill sets of management, problem solving, delegating and assigning critical missions and tasks to the appropriate personnel. Once those limitations are reached, finding a proper fit for those people should be part of the program, not an aberration. The concept of promoting less than qualified O-5+ and E7+ to higher ranks is doing them and the personnel they lead a disservice.

Many armies allow 20 plus year Captains and 30 year sergeants. Not everyone needs to get to general/ sergeant major. We lose skilled soldiers every day due to up-or-out policies.

I think they should be allowed to continue serving just not i a command positions. I also agree that not all are fit to lead, that said the Army should bring back the specialist ranks i.e. sp4, sp5, sp6 and so on and something for the O ranks.

It is very often the other way around. Everyone has uneven talent. Very often, an officer may possess unique skills, developed through work and circumstance, yet be denied the chance of command because he or she hasn't filled one of the required squares for command - often because of the same circumstances in which they excelled In such cases they are usually forced out of the Service, regardless of their skills or dedication.

I'm with SGM Dawson on this...one of the problems in the force that I have seen is the inability to think out of the box and come up with other options...leaders are just as ineffective when acting hasty or pondering of other options to b used as they are to ineffectively lead in any other way...it is lazy to just entirely give up on our ppl without considering other options

I've seen Officers who were prior enlisted have to revert back to being enlisted because they didn't make Major. Why can't regular Officers be reverted to enlisted if they are found to be incompetent as an officer. On the other side of the coin why can't enlisted that have demonstrated time and time again they are worthy of being an officer be commissioned and placed in leader positions. Audie Murphy did it. It's all about people management. If they are poor performers then you pay them what they are worth, not more.

I agree... not every soldier can lead or push troops.. be it officer or enlisted.....but they can be valuable assets within the military in some other profession....