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....

Some folks are just not cut out for command or ascending the ranks but are good at something and useful somewhere. This is why specialist ranks should be reinstated spec4 through spec 6 but in their absence, a lot of mostly unqualified folks make it to SSG. I do agree that many officers should be Warrants.

MAJ (Join to see) My gut tells me, if you are relieved, you should go... But, I suspect the regulations allow for it. If you are relieved, you are finished as far as future advancement. But, I am sure you are allowed to serve until retirement or MRD.

Agree with concept of a career staff officer or NCO vs line officer. But at what rank should they become stabilized? Perhaps bring back senior specialist positions for NCO's? Good dialog.

The biggest mistake the military as a whole makes is assuming that the only way to become an officer is getting a college degree. Why does a piece of paper automatically make you a leader of men? Personally I think everyone should be enlisted before they are chosen to become an officer.

The biggest mistake the military makes is the must command and be promoted or must leave. There are lots of officers and EM that are happy and excellent in certain jobs and woild love to do them for their entire term of servicebut are forced out because they are made to do something they cannot handle for various reasons.lots of money could be saved by putting them where they shine and enjoy what they are doing.

Yes. They should be allowed to continue to serve. Just because they failed once as a commander doesn't mean they won't be great staff, training or other special jobs in the military.

This zero defect always perfect mentality is not a reality.

I think this is a difficult question to answer without a complete file review of the officer in all assignments they have held. My reasoning is that I have observed officers that were deficient in leadership ability and the inherent requirements of a commander to motivate and develop their subordinate staff that were absolutely brilliant staff officers because of superior technical expertise and analytical ability. I think this is usually the road taken by the Army in reaching a decision on an officer's fitness to continue to serve. Case in point is an aviator that is a master of his aircraft that is not necessarily attuned to the needs of other troops. His ineffectiveness at being a good Aviation Company Commander has no bearing on his ability to pilot an Apache helicopter in a brilliant manner in combat situations.

That is a very broad subject!There are skill sets required for a field command which are unique, everyone does not have them and they not essential for leading and managing and organization in garrison environment. Of course some skill sets are required in all situations and good managers can succeed though they are not particularly good leaders. So it all depends is not what you are looking for but that is the answer. We hope the fitness reporting system will get rid of the truly incompetent and a senior will recognize when an officer is ill suited for their assignment and take action.

I served in the early 1980s. We had two officers in our BN Relieved for Cause; onebwas just incompetent, the other was caught in a lie .
A 3rd Officer was relieved from the Armored BN in our Bde as he did notproperly supervise the crew of his own tank when the order was given to remove some track pads from his tank. During an ARTEP his platoon was moving up a steep hill on a hardball road. His tank lost traction and slip backwards into a large Oak Tree. The Tortion bars on one side were literally ripped out of the hull of his tank.
As I recall his tank, an M-60A1, had to be sent back to the states for repair.

Of the 3 officers I described above I would only trust Armor Officer to serve on Active duty to fulfill his obligation. The other 2 were pond scrum in my opinion

You are assuming that the person relieved is 100% at fault. That frequently is not the case. Military commanders have discretionary authority to relieve anyone for any reason. If they don’t like someone, or they have reached their max level of competence and are poor commanders themselves, they can & will relieve someone unjustifiably. I knew a guy once who got relieved for a variety of small mistakes, because the commander was an asshole that everyone hated, and because there was zero chemistry between the two. The consensus across the division was that the guy was a good leader who got screwed. BTW, the commander was later passed over for his star. In the old days, being relieved was not the end of the world. Second chances were common because it was understood that sometimes things just don’t work out. Today, a zero defects mentality rules.