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Advice for the Starving Staff Artist

by John McRae

I once had a senior rater observe that life for staff officers like the ones assembled before him consisted of 80 percent making the railroad run – that is, doing the standard and recurring activities common to military staffs around the world. The other 20 percent, he mused, was for pushing things forward:  innovating, dreaming, adding one’s personal mark in new ways.

I think that for most staff officers this maxim is true. For some of the most fortunate among us, however, the ratio is reversed:  20 percent boilerplate activities, and 80 percent new and different. Whereas their 80/20 peers are more like “Conductors”, the 20/80 folks get to be “Artists.” Approached correctly, it is an exciting opportunity that can result in a highlight of one’s career.

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Photo from NATO Rapid Reaction Corps – Italy Exercise Eagle Action, May 2005.
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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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Sebastian Junger Knows What We Know About Combat

Sebastian Junger speaks Infantry. He’s an American journalist with no military service, but that doesn’t matter. He speaks our language. The sound of a bullet, the constant fear, the instinctual drive to save a buddy laying in the open. He knows the combat experience because he chose to live it in the treacherous terrain of the Korengal Valley in Kunar, Afghanistan.

Sebastian Junger

A Soldier watches as U.S. Air Force F-15 fighter jets pound insurgent positions with bombs, after a 20-minute gun battle in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, Aug. 13, 2009. The Soldiers are assigned to the 4th Infantry Division’s Company B, 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team. Photo by Sgt. Matthew Moeller.

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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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The Top Posts from 2015

As 2015 closes, I’d like to thank you for making leader development part of your life. It means a lot that you commit to developing yourself through reflection, discourse, and study. And it means even more that you employ that insight to grow those you are responsible for leading. I hope The Military Leader has been a valuable part of that leader development process.

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A soldier provides protection as UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters fly from a landing zone on Marine Corps Training Area Bellows, Hawaii, Dec. 2, 2015. The soldier is assigned to 25th Infantry Division’s 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team.
U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Armando R. Limon
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The Most Important Leadership Quote You’ll Read this Year

When I read this leadership quote a few weeks ago, I kicked myself for not having found it sooner. (It’s the type of advice I’d put in my signature block…and I’m not even a “signature block philosophy” kind of emailer.) It is attributed to the immutably inspirational leader of the Allied coalition in World War II, General Dwight D. Eisenhower. This insight is powerful because it captures the fundamental nature, the heart, of what it means to be a leader. And Eisenhower uses only 26 words to do it.

Leadership Quote

Senior military commanders of World War II. Link to photo.
[Seated L-R: Gens. William Simpson, George Patton, Carl Spaatz, Dwight Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, Courtney Hodges, & Leonard Gerow
Standing L-R: Gens. Ralph Stearley, Hoyt Vandenberg, Walter Bedell Smith, Otto Weyland, & Richard Nugent.]
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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.