As an Army National Guard officer, I get infrequent opportunities to connect in person with my junior officers. To hold effective leader development sessions, I learned that I have to engage outside of our 63 days together a year. But in the past few months, I felt that I was not effectively developing a cadet or my staff Lieutenants, many of whom are relegated to assistant to the assistant duties.

Luckily, some talented and more seasoned officers posted leader development content that caught my attention, particularly Lieutenant Lessons…Continued and Iron Major’s Survival Guide. I shared these articles with my officers and gave them a simple homework assignment:  write a one page essay outlining their views on the articles.

(It may sound asinine to tell Army officers to write a simple report, but as often discussed on #CCLKOW and #MILPME on Twitter, the ability to write coherently and simplistically is dying art in the midst of today’s PowerPoint decision making methodologies.)

Then, Joe Byerly provided inspiration with his Company Command Article on developing a team through a digital LPD. Digital leader development typically refers to professional products stored on mobile devices for easy access, and but also represents the methods leaders use to connect external enablers to the unit (videos, speakers, or directly by phone or Skype).

I took action to develop our own. Here is how we did it.