How to recover from a serious incident within your unit...
With the seemingly constant slew of bad behavior that has been taking place across the Army (and other services); my question is how do you as leaders help your unit to recover after an incident has occurred? If your unit has a serious incident such as a Soldier putting something on social media (see the several recent incidents for reference), or a Soldier getting a DUI, or a Soldier accused of Sexual Assault, what steps do you take to recover? Is there a decrease in unit morale? If so, how do you regain it?
This question is also specifically aimed at recruiting professionals. When a Soldier within a recruiting unit makes an egregious error in judgment it often spills over to the civilian community. How then is damage control conducted, both restoring faith in the Army through your civilian communities, and also re-establishing the faith within the unit itself?
Professionalism
Recruiting
I've been in several units where some of the misbehavior you have mentioned had occurred. DUIs are a recurring problem around the Army, and all misconduct can give the Unit a Black Eye so to speak. But its really up to the Leaders to get their Soldiers through the hard times. Your going to have your mandatory training and such following an incident, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Leaders getting their Soldiers to see that yes whatever incident that occurred had a negative impact on the unit but now that's over and we have to focus on getting out of this hole. If Leaders cant recover then the Soldiers wont recover, and the unit will continue to fail. Be open and honest with them, Praise the good stuff, reprimand when needed, and set the Example for others to emulate, and eventually everything will fall back into place and the unit will continue on like the incident never happened, even tho they are more educated from the experience.
Personal Story, We had a Soldier, Take a dump at a semi professional Baseball game, on Military Night, while the Post commander was giving his speech thanking the city, and in front of a Senior NCOs wife and children. He was arrested, headlines were made. Yelling occurred, investigation was conducted, punishment was given, Classes were taken, Leaders got involved, Soldiers regained confidence and pride, Unit recovered, and was back doing great things and receiving accolades, within a month or two.
Personally, remedial training isn't the answer. If I'm like half of the joes out there I know, they hate MANDO training. Especially REMEDIAL MANDO training. So telling someone not to drink and drive isn't going to make them not drink and drive.
I believe the root of the problem is trusting your leadership (immediate and CoC) to not harp on you for trying to do the right thing. I've seen it so many times. Joe has no trust in his leadership not to hoot and hollar at him for drinking/being an ass/not being or doing something whatever, so he doesn't call his leadership when he needs a ride... he decides it'd be easier to just "go for it" and gets caught.
This goes into my personal relationship "Commandments" if you don't have TRUST and COMMUNICATION in a relationship your bound to fail. The Army needs to learn that lesson, Communicate your intent, then Trust your soldiers to meet that intent.
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