A few months ago, I wore my Navy uniform for the last time. In total, I spent nearly 10 years in the service, first as a midshipman at the Naval Academy and then as a Nuclear Surface Warfare Officer. I am often asked why I left the military. It wasn’t because I hated or even disliked the job—in fact, I loved my work.
I left because it felt like my job was all there was to my life.
My interaction with the military began at 18 when I entered the Naval Academy. Like most college students, the next four years were filled with exciting self-discovery and newness—new people, cultures, ways of thinking, and more. When I graduated and commissioned, I felt prepared for my new role as a Division Officer and Ensign in the Navy. I had also developed a rich personal life outside of my academic and military “job,” one where I felt fulfilled mentally, physically, socially, and spiritually. I was excited to finally start my career.
“The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.” -Steven Spielberg
It’s 0200 and I’m flying to my first no-notice deployment. I look up and see my new commander calling me over. I move to the empty seat next to him and receive a brief verbal initial counseling. Afterwards, as I stare out the plane window at the black water below, I reflect on the meeting. It had gone well. However, instead of fixating on the mission or tasks at hand, my immediate and inescapable thought is these leaders are nothing like me.
For many minority groups in the Army, this is a common experience. According to the 2021 Army Demographics Report, out of the over 1.3 million active duty service members, 82.7% are men. 68.9% self-identified as White, while 31.1% self-identified with a racial minority.
Yet, no matter what background you bring to the Army, being able to mentor those unlike you is crucial. The Army’s diversity is increasing. According to recent scientific studies, when leaders reach across racial and/or gender differences and embrace underrepresented minority groups through mentorship, individuals are more likely to stay and succeed in the workplace.
So, below are a couple of concepts to frame how you mentor those who are unlike yourself.
Major Dave Leydet and Major Ryan Stephenson recently penned a phenomenal article detailing the importance of the relationship between a unit’s Executive Officer (XO) and its Operations Officer (S3). It also expounds upon those two field grades’ (FG) unique responsibility to their unit and its members.
By comprehending the significance of these relationships, JOs and senior NCOs can pave the way for personal success. Investing time to understand their FG bosses as well as FGs understand each other leads to better outcomes for their organizations. These takeaways primarily apply to JOs and senior NCOs who are running a staff section at the battalion (BN) level, but should also offer insight to any leaders working for or with field grade officers.
by Daniel R. DeNeve, Kevin J. Quigley, & Larry Kay
Army units at every echelon struggle to meet mission and training requirements due to lack of creativity, critical thought, and disciplined initiative. While repetition and trauma facilitate tactical and technical competence in training, they do not help units overcome these shortcomings. As an Army, we often practice singular solutions for singular problems. For a division-level exercise, this means that we only experience one way to do a wet gap crossing. At the Company level, we practice a singular way to conduct a combined arms breach. Yet, many of the great tactical and strategic victories in warfare have come from daring innovation. From scaling the cliffs of Abraham to the cliffs of Pointe Du Hoc, from the landing at Incheon, to the Anbar Awakening, some of our greatest victories have worked outside of the traditional confines of doctrinal lessons.
Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, written in 400 BC, has shaped strategic thinking for nearly two and a half millennia, foremost amongst military minds but also recently amongst western business leaders. The breadth of the book’s impact makes it worthwhile for military leaders at all echelons to understand its basic structure and principles and consider its efficacy via historical case study.
The Art of War consists of thirteen chapters which may be grouped into four sections. Chapter One identifies the critical calculations prior to war. These calculations include identifying the morale of the people, climate, geography, leadership and logistics. The next chapter lays out the costs and dangers of mobilizing a state to go to a protracted war. Then chapters 3-12 describe commanders’ skills in the way they lead, maneuver and organize their Army, as well as assessing the terrain and their enemy. The final section, chapter 13, concludes by explaining the importance of spies and intelligence.
This piece explores three principles (each one a chapter) from The Art of War: picking battles, knowing thy enemy, and using diplomacy as a weapon. In order to bring these principles to life, I will provide historical examples of Sun Tzu’s maxims using case studies from the Mongol military victories of the 12th through 13th centuries. The Mongols, at their height, built the most extensive single-connected Empire in world history—via military conquest according to Sun Tzu’s principles. Leaders today, in our era of great power competition can glean much from these principles.
“Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.” – John Wooden
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
Shortly after commissioning and attending the Armor Officer Basic Course (now ABOLC) I reported to Fort Hood, Texas. I was quickly assigned to the 1/12 Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, where I became an M1A1 tank platoon leader in 3rd Platoon, D Company. All my Soldiers and NCOs were veterans of the first Gulf War—I literally was the only one without combat experience. My platoon sergeant was Sergeant First Class Anthony Garcia. SFC Garcia was a tank Master Gunner with more than 17 years of experience. He would become the most influential person in my training especially as it pertains to understanding tanks and practical lessons in Army leadership.
As I filled out my location preferences ahead of Intermediate Level Education (ILE), I knew I wanted to try something other than the traditional path of the Army’s Command and General Staff College (CGSC) in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. I considered sister service schools like the Naval War College in Rhode Island or the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterrey, California but ultimately decided, after discussion with my wife, to put a foreign service school, the Ecole de Guerre in France, as my number one preference.
A few weeks later I was thrilled to learn I had received the assignment with the Schools of Other Nations program (SON) and would be PCSing with my family to study in Paris.
Authors’ Note: The authors of this post, @notyourtacofficer and @therecoveringcommander, are mid-career, post company-command officers wallowing in their KD-complete broadening assignment lives and contemplating what’s next. Referred to as the, “meme-lords of a generation” by literally no one, their views are their own and do not represent the United States Army, the Department of Defense, or From the Green Notebook.
Many a well-meaning senior leader shares their personal leadership philosophy or a, “how to handle me” letter and while it’s important to understand, “how the boss thinks”, we feel that many of our leaders fail to understand us as well. Especially in the Profession of Arms, we are duty-bound to obey orders that are legal, moral, and ethical. Yet, as much as leaders say that they want candid feedback, there are “unspoken truths” that are often contradictory to the “unspoken norms”. Dr. Lenny Wong demonstrated that the Army has a problem lying to itself and this problem persists.
We offer these perspectives as the junior military officer audience that LTC Dominick Edwards sought to reach (on this same website no less) in 2016. By no means is this a response or rebuff of his points: the authors of this article were First Lieutenants when LTC Edwards published this piece and could very well have been the ratees he sought to reach. We find many of them to be clear and relatable and with a few more years of service, may find ourselves agreeing with even more. Moreover, sharing your ideas publicly is admirable and we are grateful that leaders such as this consistently give of themselves to the profession. Thank you, Sir. Truly.
Despite claims of open door policies and that “feedback is a gift”, we humbly offer some truths that those you senior rate may hesitate to share with you and a handful of tips to help you understand their perspectives. Here are 16th truths your ratees believe you don’t understand and aren’t willing to risk telling you:
