By Mike Shekleton
Many of us have seen a brand-new platoon leader, who is in peak physical condition, fall flat on their face during their first time leading platoon PT (physical training). Excited to lead and looking to impress their NCOs and Soldiers with their high fitness standards, they drag their platoon through an intense workout and top it off with a run where most of the platoon falls out. Fortunately for them, once the platoon is dismissed, the experienced platoon sergeant pulls the young LT aside and tells him: “Sir, you’re in incredible shape, but what the platoon needs is for you to lead them, not destroy them. If you keep this up, within a week, half of the platoon will be on profile and our formation will be a wreck.” Deflated, but with a hard lesson under their belt, the new PL bounces back and learns how to throttle back some, so they can lead their platoon successfully. This is an example where a strength can become a weakness – an individual superpower that creates leader kryptonite.
While the PT example is pretty easy to catch because the results can be very visible, there are other examples where it’s harder to see, but course correcting is just as important. To help better illustrate this phenomenon, this article will explore the concept of the “golden mean,” provide some examples on how to apply it across the Army Leadership Requirements Model (ALRM), and then provide some TTPs to collect feedback from peers and subordinates to help leaders identify when their individual strengths may be causing counterproductive behaviors – leader kryptonite. Doing so is critical, as leadership is the most important dynamic of combat power.
The Golden Mean
The golden mean has its roots in Aristotle’s virtue ethics, which asserted that a virtuous life was found by avoiding extreme excess or deficiency of a virtue – one must live in the mean between these two extremes. For example, to be courageous is virtuous, while cowardice (a deficiency of courage) or recklessness (an excess of courage) are not virtuous. Put differently, it is the “Goldilocks principle” – you don’t want to be too cold (cowardly) or too hot (reckless), but just right (courageous).
In the Army leadership context, being virtuous is encapsulated by successfully implementing the Army Leadership Requirements Model’s Be-Know-Do framework and the supporting attributes and competencies. Leaders who exhibit infrequent counterproductive behaviors, exist across a wide range of strengths and developmental need combinations. When necessary, these leaders find ways to use their strengths to compensate for areas that need development. However, it is important to note that just as extreme weaknesses can lead to more frequent counterproductive behaviors, leaning too far into extreme strengths can cause similar problems.
Outside the Golden Mean
An example of “too much of a good thing isn’t good” – where an extreme strength becomes a weakness – is when someone with higher intellect finds success earlier in their career with the solutions they develop, but consequently never develops their delegation skills. As demands on their time increase during the field grade years, they then struggle to delegate work that subordinates can perform, resulting in less engaged and developed subordinates. Even when these leaders do delegate missions, it may tend to come only later in the day when it’s obvious that they cannot do it all, resulting in subordinates receiving the tasks so late that they consistently end up working late to achieve the mission. While the unit may be successful, it does so in a counterproductive way that harms morale and cohesion.
Another example is an officer with “high” standards that is seen by others as having impossibly high standards. This leader may get results, but the exacting standards result in their subordinates having to work overtime. Again, morale and cohesion suffer.
Below is a table that captures leader behaviors that appear to be strengths, but in reality, exist outside of the golden mean.
| Leader perception | Reality |
| “I am intelligent and develop great solutions.” | “You don’t delegate problem solving, resulting in not developing subordinates.” |
| “I have high standards.” | “You have impossible standards.” |
| “I handle stress very well.” | “You don’t see how you generate counterproductive stress for your subordinates.” |
| “I’m physically ready for anything.” | “When you lead unit PT, it is adversarial and does the opposite of building the team.” |
| “I’m good at getting things done.” | “You take over tasks, leaving team members feeling untrusted, uninvolved, and unempowered to act independently.” |
| “I’m decisive.” | “You make quick decisions without team input, causing resentment and reduced commitment from your team.” |
| “I’m very empathetic.” | “You hesitate to address poor performance, leading to unresolved issues and declining accountability.” |
| “I’m visionary and innovative.” | “You constantly introduce new ideas without completing ongoing projects, causing the team to feel overwhelmed and unfocused.” |
| I’m a strong communicator. | “You dominate every conversation, leaving little room for others to contribute or share ideas.” |
The Solution
To remain within the “golden mean” and avoid or reduce occurrences of counterproductive behaviors, leaders need to develop feedback loops across their superiors, peers, and subordinates. While Project Athena, a series of assessments across a leader’s professional military education (PME) path, and the Command Assessment Program (CAP) provide Army-driven opportunities to receive feedback from these different perspective groups, leaders that solely rely on these assessments may find these opportunities are too infrequent to surface potential blind spots that undermine their own leadership.
Instead, leaders should make a habit of seeking feedback on their own, especially from peers and subordinates, since there are no formal mechanisms to prompt feedback from these two groups (unlike with superiors who provide counseling and evaluations). When combined, the superior-peer-subordinate feedback can allow leaders to assess if their leadership is hitting the center mass of where they want it to – within those effective leadership behaviors that comprise the ALRM. However, if feedback is absent from all three perspective groups, blind spots can emerge that may cause the leader’s self-assessment to inaccurately reflect the actual center mass of this shot group. More importantly, without this feedback, it is not possible to make adjustments to bring the errant behavior onto the desired target – you cannot “zero” your leadership.
Figuring it Out
To fill the gap, leaders need to institute collecting feedback from the various perspective groups, especially from peers and subordinates, both on an informal and formal basis. To prepare themselves to collect and action this feedback, leaders should read the latest doctrine: ADP 6-22 Army Leadership and the Profession. Not only will this help frame how to view their own leadership, but it will also help these leaders to provide better developmental counseling and coaching to their own subordinates. After reading the doctrine, especially the sections that define the ALRM and counterproductive leadership, they should reflect on the past several years and examine critical decisions they have made, important tasks that they led, and any challenging relationships and dynamics that they experienced. Leaders need to take note of how they assess themselves across the ALRM’s attributes and competencies through these experiences and how frequently they exhibit counterproductive behaviors. It is critical to understand that counterproductivity is not a “yes” or “no” question, but rather, a question of how often, how intense, and whether one went back to repair the damage and restore trust.
3 x 5 cards. Next, leaders should periodically use a subordinate to collect anonymous “hot wash” feedback. For example, a company commander can ask their XO to pass 3 x 5 cards to the First Sergeant, platoon leaders, platoon sergeants, squad leaders, and fellow company commanders, soliciting the Top 3 “strengths” and “developmental needs.” The leader should clearly signal ahead of time that they would appreciate the feedback, that they have already conducted a self-assessment, and how they will use the feedback, all of which is designed to motivate the assessors that the feedback will be valued and used. Ensure to include personnel with whom you may have had a conflict or whom you feel may be more critical of your leadership – they may provide some of the most valuable feedback. Once collected, the XO then can provide the company commander with the stack. While this is unstructured, and so the assessors may not cover the entirety of the ALRM, it is not time intensive and can provide a sense to the leader of their most impactful leadership behaviors – both positive and negative. Once the leader has analyzed the feedback, they should thank their peers and subordinates for the feedback and provide a short outbrief on how it was helpful and motivating. Leaders should consider doing this 1-2 times a year, offset from using a formal tool like the LDR360, discussed below.
Formal assessments. On the formal end, leaders should leverage the Leader 90 (LDR90) and Leader 360 (LDR360) tools currently available on the Army Enterprise Assessment System (AEAS) for Army leaders. The LDR90 is a confidential self-assessment of your Army leadership competencies, attributes, and counterproductive leadership behaviors. Leaders should conduct one annually, comparing their results over time. The LDR360 is an assessment of your leadership effectiveness using all four perspective groups – self, subordinate, peer, and superior. Like with the 3 x 5 cards TTP, leaders should prepare the battlefield by informing subordinates and peers of their plan, soliciting the feedback, and then outbriefing what they have learned. Because a LDR360 is more time intensive than the 3 x 5 card technique, it should be done no more than once a year, but at least once in each position.
Two-way counseling and coaching. Next, while developmental counseling and coaching are traditionally seen as more of a one-way conversation where leaders provide feedback to subordinates, these engagements are also opportunities to collect valuable feedback. During the conversation, leaders should explicitly ask for feedback on how they could better lead their subordinates and help them improve. Leaders have a responsibility to tailor their leadership to subordinates, and this is a perfect time to receive this granular feedback. It may surface, for example, that a subordinate struggles with how you communicate guidance, that you don’t fully answer questions, or that you don’t differentiate when you are “thinking out loud” versus issuing directives, all of which can create confusion or undermine good faith efforts by your subordinates to execute your direction.
Napoleon’s Corporal. Finally, Napoleon would leverage a technique where he’d have a corporal shine his boots while the general staff briefed the battle plans. At the conclusion of the brief, he’d ask the corporal if the plan made sense; if not, he would have his staff refine the plan to address the identified issues. Likewise, today’s leaders should seek feedback deeper into their formation, using subordinates that they do not rate and that they know will tell it like it is, using this feedback to complement the feedback garnered from peers and near subordinates using the TTPs above.
Countering Kryptonite
As leaders develop these feedback loops, not only will it help them identify individual superpowers that are leader kryptonite, it will also help to identify other leadership behaviors that they need to address. For example, learning that you’re not as smart as you think you are and that your directed courses of action frequently don’t solve the problem provides an opportunity. By learning to better identify and employ subordinate leaders (and peers) to compensate for this gap, you can create more effective delegation skills, develop your team members, and build the team. Also, because the team created the solution, they are already bought-in and understand it, increasing the chances of effectively executing the solution.
In conclusion, a key to improving your leadership is seeking feedback from peers and subordinates, not just from superiors, and then purposefully reflecting on your leadership “sight picture.” Sometimes, it is possible that individual strengths, rather than being features, turn out to be leadership bugs. When doubling down on these “strengths,” the actual result is an exponential increase in the counterproductive impact. Building and maintaining active, continuous feedback loops across prospective groups will help to minimize potential blind spots and allow you to fine tune your leadership over time to evolve with the ever-changing demands on your leadership as you promote into positions of increased responsibility.
Colonel Mike Shekleton is an Army Strategist that currently serves as the director of research at the US Army War College. “Shek” served as a moderator during the inaugural Battalion Commander Assessment Program (BCAP 21) and then led the planning and served as the chief of staff for the inaugural Command Assessment Program (CAP 22). The author would like to thank Adelaido Godinez, Dwayne Wagner, and Bob O’Brien for providing suggestions to improve the article.
