By James Duncan
Recently, I engaged a trusted squad leader for some much-needed feedback. I wanted to know his perspective on the state of the company: what are we doing well and where do we need a course correction? After several minutes, the NCO steered the conversation in a direction that really struck me.
When describing the landscape of junior NCOs across our military police formation, he said that an alarming number of team leaders are simply playing the part of a leader instead of truly carrying themselves as one. From what he has witnessed, “Soldiers with stripes” are being put into leadership positions without the tools to properly coach and mentor our young Soldiers.
His observations mirror my own. Our sergeants, the most critical leaders in the formation, have consistently demonstrated that most do not possess the experience, technical expertise, support system, or mindset to perform at a high level or prepare our Soldiers for professional excellence.
Soldiers are becoming NCOs far too quickly. When I first took command and introduced myself to my Soldiers, there was a sizable population of privates first class and specialists. Most were between 19 and 21 years old. They had never previously held a job, and had only just moved out of their parents’ house prior to basic training. Few had a past or current serious relationship. Additionally, because of the company’s mission set prior to the deployment, most had only ever conducted access control—gate security—in their short time in the Army. Nine months later, almost all of those same Soldiers were getting Basic Leader Course dates and handily making points to promote to sergeant. From a pragmatic standpoint, they had gained very little in terms of technical competence and had yet to accrue the kind of experience needed to help others navigate life stressors—but they were now set to be our next generation of team leaders.
Automatic promotions and a heavily emphasized promote-from-within mentality have led to a pronounced culture of “quantity over quality”. As a result, leaders feel immense pressure to usher personnel along their career path the moment they demonstrate an inkling of potential. For example, when Soldiers are able to meet the minimum requirements of a company and battalion-level board, we signal to them that they are ready for the next step. The gaps in this established process are becoming increasingly evident. Though the board was intended to be more of a symbolic rite of passage than a defining crucible, it has become the only practical test for promotion. Just because a Soldier is able to put together their uniform, reference a few regulations and answer a couple questions does not mean they possess the qualities and knowledge needed to train and mentor subordinates. If the newly promotable leader-to-be has never been to the field, how can they then be expected to teach their Soldiers?
Team leaders are massively underprepared to train their subordinates on foundational Soldier skills because they themselves lack the requisite expertise. During our rotation, one particular iteration of leader’s time training highlighted this disparity and prompted me to recalibrate my expectations of the formation’s junior leaders. One of the squads was scheduled to train on communicate tasks. When it was time to meet at a designated location for training, not a single Team leader arrived prepared. They had no prior experience setting up the equipment and made no attempts to learn and rehearse the skill beforehand to be effective trainers for their Soldiers. To an outsider looking in, it appeared they simply showed up to the training event with the same mindset as a Soldier fresh out of Advanced Individual Training.
I have personally witnessed countless examples of this phenomenon over the past year, and its implications on unit readiness are wide-ranging. When presented with opportunities to practice our combat support tasks, units struggle immensely to build collective proficiency because most of the time is spent teaching junior leaders how to navigate their basic duties. Instead of beginning the field cycle with an established baseline of strong individual proficiency, we spend an inordinate amount of time correcting deficiencies that should have been addressed during prior institutional and experiential learning. Because opportunities to train collective proficiency in our combat support role are increasingly limited, the cycle repeats itself year after year for each generation of junior leaders.
This same dynamic is equally prevalent within our scope of responsibilities as law enforcement officers. Training glide paths are becoming increasingly truncated and, when paired with an ever-growing list of requirements prior to mission assumption, cause units to once again opt for “quantity over quality” in order to make mission. As a result, patrol supervisors are systematically underprepared for their newfound level of responsibility when compared to their counterparts in civilian law enforcement agencies. Though there are plenty of experienced leaders with the knowledge to address these gaps, their time and efforts are increasingly diverted to other endeavors.
Team Leaders do not receive the appropriate level of development because the senior NCO’s role as primary trainer is overshadowed by their role overseeing administrative requirements. Platoon Sergeants, First Sergeants, and Sergeants Major are compelled to spend an inordinate amount of time monitoring medical readiness, legal updates, and various HR metrics instead of spending time training and mentoring the leaders below them. This shift in priorities has become so apparent in recent years that senior NCOs are now being formally briefed that their sole focus is administrative readiness. If that is to be the backdrop of the future, who is equipped to step up and offer the same level of knowledge and expertise as a seasoned Platoon Sergeant? Who will mentor the Squad Leaders if not the First Sergeant? Who will shape the Team Leaders?
Perhaps the most significant problem of all, though, is that young sergeants often enter the ranks of leadership without the requisite professional mindset. For many of these individuals, their role as a Team Leader is hardly different from the role of a local shop manager or retail supervisor. Many are inclined to simply clock in, put forth the level of effort needed to avoid consequences, and clock out. Only a select few appear to internalize the philosophy of servant leadership and demonstrate an understanding of what it means to be a Soldier, regardless of whether one is on or off-duty. When these young leaders passively adopt the mentality that the Army is a job rather than a profession, their attitude negatively shapes how their subordinates view their own career.
Over the course of 15 months in command, I have witnessed concerning gaps at the team and squad levels of leadership. From a division’s perspective, the most recent Army Force Structure change will further exacerbate this deficit in combat support readiness due to oversights in installation law enforcement manning requirements. Within the next two years, not only will combat support military police companies be few and far between, but those that remain will be almost entirely relegated as backfill to each installation’s directorate of emergency services. There simply will not be enough MPs to support the brigade combat teams appropriately.
If the Regiment continues to shift its focus toward professional installation law enforcement, the risk presented by this emerging reality is unlikely to increase in significance. The mission will be accomplished to standard, but junior leaders will not flourish and are likely to grow disenchanted with their career path.
Given the challenges of our present landscape, I offer the following recommendations.
First, we must make the criteria for promotion more comprehensive and significantly more challenging. Instead of a single-day board, I recommend implementing a week-long training event that tests the entire gamut of expected skills. This will ensure Soldiers who achieve promotable status have fully demonstrated not only the abilities necessary to train Soldiers, but the willingness to overcome a challenge for the privilege to lead them.
Second, we must protect senior NCOs’ time and empower them as the organization’s primary trainers. If they remain tethered to their offices and simply oversee the completion of administrative work, our formations will continue to atrophy at an alarming rate. Metrics alone are not and will not be reliable indicators of competence and combat lethality. If we continue to treat them as such, our formations will ultimately be less ready than the data might seem to indicate.
The issues outlined above are deeply entrenched and of great concern, but they are absolutely within our power to correct. Decision-makers and their senior enlisted advisors not only have the experience to know what right looks like, but the authority to bring it to life. We must take a hard look inward and reapproach how we define and message readiness to the formation at large. If we are truly an Army whose success on the battlefield is predicated on our ability to shoot, move, and communicate, we must rethink how we teach, grow, and empower our NCOs.
CPT James Duncan graduated from the United States Military Academy in 2017 and is currently serving as the company commander of the 59th Military Police Company, 759th Military Police Battalion at Fort Carson, Colorado.
