By Oren Rosen
It was a typical day in ROTC when one of my students walked into my office. He had just returned from National Guard hurricane recovery operations and wanted to stop by for a quick chat. I was happy to see him and was ready to ask him about his experiences. However, instead of talking about his mobilization, he immediately apologized for the unprofessional email he had sent to me a few weeks prior. Furthermore, he confessed that he had knowingly been disobeying an Army safety regulation since last year. When I had confronted him about it earlier in the month, he had reacted emotionally, immaturely, and unprofessionally. He now recognized that I was enforcing the safety standard because I cared about his well-being. We shook hands and he left. But the conversation stuck with me. While my student had admitted to being unprofessional, he had also admitted to knowingly violating the Army’s motorcycle safety policy for more than a year. I had always thought highly of him because of his maturity and adherence to the Army Values. Apparently, I had been wrong.
If you have been in the Army for at least a minute, then you have probably heard the phrase, “Trust is the bedrock of our profession.” There are dozens of books and several Army doctrinal references dedicated to creating trust within your organization. Bottom line, a lot of time and effort has been spent on providing leaders with the tools on how to create and sustain trust. However, what do you do when you have to continue working with individuals that have broken your trust?
To begin, it can be incredibly tempting to ostracize people that have broken your trust, especially those that have done so in an egregious way. However, you cannot allow yourself to create a negative workplace environment. You must continue to focus on the unit’s mission and find ways to temper your emotions and remain professional at all times. This is much easier said than done.
When I was a platoon leader, one of the Soldiers in my battery, SGT Doe, was vital to our unit’s gunnery certifications. He was the MVP of the battle because of his late-night administrative heroics and technical skills. One week after the completion of the exercise, my Battery Commander called me and the other Lieutenants into his office and notified us that SGT Doe was being placed on suicide watch. I later found out that Army CID had caught SGT Doe with pornographic videos of his own kid. However, due to the military legal system and factors beyond my Second Lieutenant understanding, SGT Doe could not be placed in pre-trial confinement. Instead, he still reported to duty every day. My Commander stressed to me and the other leaders that it was crucial we remain professional in all our interactions with SGT Doe. While his alleged crimes were heinous, SGT Doe was still to be treated with dignity and respect at all times. It was our job as leaders to maintain the culture of the organization and keep the team moving forward in the right direction, regardless of what may be diverting our focus and resources. Every day, I came to work, saw SGT Doe sitting in the orderly room, and I was reminded of his alleged crimes. I had to face him every day, greet him respectfully, and say “thank you” when he completed tasks for me. It was incredibly difficult.
The hardest day for me was when we had to present SGT Doe with his gunnery exercise impact achievement award. (The award had been processed and approved prior to SGT Doe’s legal situation.) I was full of anger and frustration when SGT Doe was instructed to post to the front of the battery formation and receive his award, just like all the other Soldiers that earned awards in the unit. However, I understood why my Commander was conducting this action. He was a professional and was not going to allow his emotions to interfere with the conduct of his duties. It would have been highly unprofessional to not hold an award ceremony for SGT Doe. However, my Commander’s comments regarding SGT Doe’s gunnery actions were succinct (being professional does provide you some latitude) and the award was presented without additional fanfare.
This event was an important lesson because it taught me about placing my professional responsibilities before my personal feelings. It emphasized the importance of adhering to the standards of the Army ethic, regardless of the situation. By learning this lesson early on in my Army career, I was better prepared later when my trust was broken by superiors, peers, and subordinates. I understood that I needed to focus on the mission and not let distractions cloud my judgment. I was thus better prepared to understand which events destroyed my trust in someone and which events required me to provide more oversight and mentorship, with the goal of someone earning my trust back. I could be upset at those people that violated my trust and work to hold them accountable, but I could not let them distract me from my primary responsibilities of leading others.
Because of my experiences, I was able to help a friend navigate his own situation. Recently, a friend of mine at another ROTC program and I were talking about trust in the Army. He related to me that a cadre member at his program tested positive for illegal substances at their recent Urine Analysis (UA). The cadre member was new to the program and was supposed to be shortly taking over duties that my friend has been doubling down on. Now, those duties had to remain with my friend. He was frustrated, upset, and finding it difficult to be around the other cadre member. Initially, my friend began to avoid him or refrain from going out of his way to interact with him. However, my friend began to realize that this behavior was not acceptable. He understood that the ROTC cadets would notice this behavior and would pick up on the negativity, even if they did not understand why it existed.
I understood my friend’s frustrations because I had been in similar circumstances. We discussed ways to continue to work both operations and executive officer functions while the legal situation was handled. We also talked about how to ensure that the other cadre member still felt like a member of the team, even if trust had been severely diminished. After several weeks, my friend and I checked in with each other. I learned that the relationship between him and his peer had remained professional and that almost all of my friend’s operations duties had been transferred to the other officer. This dramatically reduced his workload. My friend also revealed that while he still did not fully trust his peer, their professional relationship had improved and he had been looking for more ways to incorporate his peer into team activities. The other officer was not receiving a pass for his transgression–but he was also not being ostracized. Ultimately, my friend’s commitment to maintaining a professional attitude enabled him to reduce his stress level and focus on his primary mission of educating cadets.
At the end of the day, people make mistakes. However, people also make bad decisions, and these decisions have consequences. In the profession of arms, the consequences of poor judgment can be the loss of trust up, down, and across the chain of command. Nonetheless, you have to find a way to keep the relationship professional between yourself and those individuals that have broken your trust. In the case of my student, I plan on telling him that he has lost my trust and that I had expected far better from him. He was one of my high performing students who had a military and professional bearing beyond his 21 years. However, I will not look at him the same anymore. I will be scrutinizing his actions in a way that I would not have previously. Yet, his career is just beginning; he is young and can learn from this experience. Ultimately, it is my job as a leader to ensure that I provide guidance to him and nudge him towards self-reflection. I am not writing off our relationship, but there is an asterisk next to it now. Whether he can earn back my trust remains to be seen.
Captain Oren Rosen is the Assistant Professor of Military Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He was commissioned as an Air Defense Artillery officer from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2016 and enjoys writing, reading, and playing soccer in his free time.
