Strive for perfection: Small Unit Leadership

The NCO's who have the biggest impact on a Soldiers life are the Corporal, the Sergeant, and the Staff Sergeant. They are responsible for their physical and mental fitness, training, mentoring, and counseling. Ensuring they are physically and mentally fit gives them the ability to both endure the rigors of training and real world deployments. Ensuring they are trained in their PMOs means they will be an integral and productive member of their team, ensuring its success. Mentoring and developing them will ensure they are ready for each promotion as the opportunity comes for them, and ensure the future quality of the NCO Corps. Finally, counseling them (in both the personal and professional, and in the negative and positive) lets them know where they stand in the grand scheme of things.

Soldiers do not come to work with the intention of making mistakes; if they are not counseled, they do not know if they are performing above or below the standard. There is an old saying, "if you walk by a mistake, and don't correct it, you just created a new standard." Personal and professional counseling shows them you care about their life and their ability to do their jobs well. Both negative and positive counseling shows them you are leading them because you are correcting their deficiencies, and complimenting their accomplishments. Many times leaders are quick to punish but slow to recognize achievements. This gives the impression that you really don't care about them, but that you just want to work them to death.

The Army's leadership paradigm, Be-Know-Do, has been successful for many, many years. I equate that to mean: Be the type of Soldier and Leader that you want your Soldiers to be, Know everything there is to know about your job, and Do everything you expect your soldiers to do. I believe leadership is 20% technique, and 80% caring, heart, and soul. The techniques can be taught, but the caring, heart, and soul can't be; you either have them or you don't. Lead from the front!

My definition of leadership is: the ability to inspire someone to do something they don't want to do, and like it. If you can do that, then you and your team will be unbeatable more times than not.

A couple of good quotes that I like are:

"Great leaders inspire. They maintain a hopeful attitude, even in the face of discouraging setbacks, constant criticism and abundant opposition. People don’t follow discouraged leaders. They follow those who persist with hope." (Rick Warren).

"Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand." (General Colin Powell).

Too many leaders worry about what is going on in someone else's foxhole, leading to the neglect of their own. Think of it this way: if every leader in the Army took care of their own foxholes, and made them the best it could be, we would have thousands of foxholes that were close to perfect.We should strive for perfection.

Be sure to watch your leaders, both the good and the bad. You can pick up some techniques from the good ones, observe how not to behave from the bad ones, and develop a few methods of your own to mold you into the type of leader you think you were meant to be. Soldiers leave the Army every day because of a lack of good leadership; be a good leader.