Category Archives: Personal Development

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Professional Etiquette in the Digital Age

by James Welch

Perhaps more than any other professional culture, the military demands that Soldiers perform their duties with a particularly high level of decorum and professionalism.  This is manifested in our hierarchical rank structure and our daily interactions with superiors, peers, and subordinates.  While the rise of digital technology has the potential to make these relationships stronger and improve the overall performance of individuals and organizations, it also has the potential to significantly damage one’s image.

etiquette

Photo Credit: Army Sergeant Christopher M. Gaylord, 5th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment
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More Important than Rank

This weekend I was happy to discover that I had received my copy of What to Do When it’s Your Turn (and it’s Always Your Turn). Seth Godin has an understated, grassroots following in the marketing and social media world because he can convey keen insight in concise doses.

What’s impressive, too, is Seth’s understanding of the human psyche as it relates to interacting with the congested world of today. He sorts through the noise to deliver both the motivation and the reality needed for success. Here are a few Godin quotes worth writing down:

“If failure is not an option, then neither is success.”

“Change almost never fails because it’s too early. It almost always fails because it’s too late.”

“If you can’t state your position in eight words, you don’t have a position.”

“If you’re brilliant and undiscovered and underappreciated
then you’re being too generous about your definition of brilliant.”

“I can tell you this: Leaders have nothing in common.”

And in his new book, this passage hit home with me…

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My In-Depth Guide to Creating a Blog Post

The Military Leader - from "Birth to Buffer"

There are two types of people who will really like this post. First are the content producers (bloggers, website managers, writers), because I’m going to lay out some really geeky blog stuff. The other people who will enjoy this are those who want to peek behind the curtain of The Military Leader blog. This post is an inside look at everything that I invest and every step that I take to make The Military Leader what it is today. If you’re not a content producer, don’t worry. I’m going to give you a few takeaways right up front. Here we go!

The Military Leader

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7 Ways to Fail as a Staff Officer

by Nate Stratton

“I want to claw my way up to brigade staff!” No little kid ever grew up wanting to be the best at briefing slides, brewing coffee, or writing operations orders. There’s a reason war movies don’t portray the struggles of warriors whose meritorious planning performance led to the creation of the perfect brief. Slideology 101 isn’t a required course at West Point.

Time spent on staff, where officers spend the majority of their career, is thankless, laborious work that is too often viewed as a block check between command positions. Much of the Army’s educational emphasis is on success as the man in front of the formation, but the officer’s plight is that he will spend much more time rowing the ship than steering it.

staff officer

U.S. Soldiers of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division provide information to the ground units from the tactical operation center while a Latvian soldier, right, observes during exercise Combined Resolve IV at the U.S. Army’s Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany, May 17, 2015. U.S. Army photo by Private First Class Courtney Hubbard.
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A Glimpse of Hell in World War I

Some time ago as I was driving to work, I caught a glimpse of something that transported me to a hellish battlefield one hundred years ago. The thermometer hovered just north of freezing. Pellets of rain hit my windshield like shrapnel, which concerned me little because I was cozy and warm in, ironically enough, my German-engineered driving machine. The Starbucks latte was a pleasant addition to my comfortable morning.

I glanced around at the surrounding commuters, then to the traffic situation on my navigation display, and then to the roadside construction dedicated to widening the roadway from four lanes to eight. It was the landscape of this construction that instantly gripped my mind with visions of battle, my stomach with the grotesqueness of total war, and my heart with the fear that follows both.

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Starting with “No, But, or However” (Habit Series #5)

The fifth habit that Marshall Goldsmith discusses in What Got You Here Won’t Get You There is all about telling people they’re wrong. Leaders do it, a lot, and often without realizing it’s happening. This habit is also about telling the truth and providing clarity, but before we dive into the details, imagine this scenario.

Habit

Mr. Roger Astin, exercise scenario manager of U.S. Army South,
briefs a group of multinational officials during PKO North ’08, MANAGUA, Nicaragua. Photo by Maj. Tim Stewart.
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What Combat Leaders Need to Know About Neuroscience

We remember the books that change us…that alter our thinking, move us emotionally, or reveal unseen, enlightening perspectives. Powell’s My American Journey did that for me. So did Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything. And when I read Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking in 2007, I recall connecting so many new insights that I didn’t have enough book margin to capture them all. The relevancy for the military profession spilled off of the pages and sparked an intellectual curiosity that has lasted for years.

The topic is neuroscience and the breakthrough discoveries that its researchers have made in recent years. As neuroscientists publish fascinating papers about how the brain functions, authors like Gladwell, Jonah Lehrer, David Rock, Joseph LeDoux, and others translated their work into digestible language with real world application. From decision psychology to organizational efficiency to change detection and management, new understanding of the brain is changing how we live our lives.

But as I made connections from neuroscience to the military profession, specifically tactical combat leadership, I found few resources to aide the service member, Dave Grossman’s On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society and Warrior Mindset being the most useful. So I decided to embark on a personal quest to publish something that references neuroscience to improve military leader performance. What resulted was my first published article and a Master’s thesis on the topic. This post is an adapted version of that endeavor.

Neuroscience

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Stop Telling Me to Listen to Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History!

For the last year, friends and colleagues have recommended that I listen to Dan Carlin’s podcast, Hardcore History. People from separate circles and professions brought it up as a “must-listen-to.” I even subscribed a few months ago but never got around to beginning any of the multi-hour episodes.

I finally succumbed to the pressure last week and skeptically began the five-part series, The Wrath of the Khans…and I’ve listened to nothing else since. I admit it…I’ve officially converted and am now a staunch, overt, unapologetic Dan Carlin fan.

Bringing History to Life

HistoryI’ll concede that I often forget how important history is to personal and professional development. Sometimes I focus too much of my reading on topics that break new ground or dive into lofty concepts. I’m interested in history, but I get pulled away from it. History, however, is the never-ending repository of real-life lessons that we should repeatedly visit.

Dan Carlin brings those lessons into vivid clarity through detailed retelling, thorough research, and heartfelt enthusiasm. He’ll admit that he’s not an historian, but instead coalesces the prominent historical writing and assess its validity and logic. He explores the details that typically get left out and in doing so, transports history into the present day perspective.

Whether you’re studying history or just looking to get lost in a story, Hardcore History is a fantastic option. And if my word isn’t good enough, Hardcore History is the #1 ranked History podcast and the #6 podcast across all categories in iTunes.

My Recommendation

Dan Carlin has over 56 podcast episodes to choose from, with 14 of them free on iTunes and his website. The two big series are Wrath of the Khans, a year by year account of the conquest of Genghis Khan and the generations that followed him…and Blueprint for Armageddon, a retelling of the colossal tragedy that was World War I. He also has series for sale that cover the fall of the Roman republic, the Punic Wars, the German-Russian fight in World War II, and many others.

I recommend starting with Wrath of the Khans. It’ll grab you right away and give you a good sense of what Dan Carlin brings to history.

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