Tag Archives: Counseling

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It’s Time to Rethink 360 Degree Reviews

by Nathan Wike

The Military Times recently published an article discussing the usefulness of the 360 degree reviews in assessing leaders. This study (which was not included in the article) concluded that 360 degree reviews “probably should not be used as a part of the formal military evaluation and promotion process.” It cited “a long list of legal, cultural and practical concerns…(and that) Stakeholders were overwhelmingly against using the tool for evaluation.”

Given the integration and widespread use of performance feedback tools, this topic is clearly relevant. This year the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum asked its followers and readers to offer their opinion.

Here is my take.

360

Nathan Wike is an officer in the U.S. Army, and an associate member of the Military Writer’s Guild. The opinions expressed are his alone, and do not reflect those of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

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How to Leverage Digital Leader Development

by Mike Denny

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.

Leader development

Sgt. 1st Class Jason Wright, Observer Controller, HHC Joint Multinational Readiness Center, coaches, teaches and mentors Canadian Soldiers from I Company, 2nd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment during practice for a live fire event Wednesday during Cooperative Spirit 2008 at JMRC near Hohenfels, Germany. Cooperative Spirit 2008 is a multinational Combat Training Center rotation intended to test interoperability among the American, British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand armies (ABCA). Link to photo.
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18 Ways to Mitigate Off-Duty Risk

Last week’s post, “The Leader’s Role in Preventing Off-Duty Risk,” tackled the varying perspectives surrounding the issue of how far leaders should involve themselves in subordinate lives to prevent off-duty risk. Too much involvement, and resentment and mistrust develop. Too little involvement, and potentially destructive problems grow unnoticed. Leaders hold passionate opinions on all sides of the discussion, but it’s a safe conclusion that this area is truly the art of leadership.

Today’s post is all about The How, the methods that leaders on every side of the discussion can use to achieve their intent. The mindful leader will devote time, organizational energy, and cognitive space to figuring out how to engage his or her people in this critical area of leadership.

Risk

ROTC cadets take a break from Leader Development and Assessment Course training to engage in a question and answer session with Lt. Gen. Benjamin C. Freakley, commander of U.S. Army Accessions Command and Training and Doctrine Command’s deputy commanding general for initial military training, July 19, at Fort Lewis, Wash. Link to photo.
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The Leader’s Role in Preventing Off-Duty Risk

Ah yes, the age-old question:  How involved should leaders be in the personal lives of Soldiers to prevent risk?

I posed a question on Twitter that led to a discussion about mitigating off-duty risk. How can leaders protect Soldiers while still providing them autonomy? Why do Soldiers need protecting at all? They’re adults, right?

risk

Every time I’ve witnessed a discussion on this topic, passionate people express valid points stemming from very personal beliefs about leadership. This post will examine the Twitter exchange and the next post will provide methods leaders can use to creatively mitigate off-duty risk.

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12 Tips for Effectively Counseling Your Subordinates

Counseling your team is a lot like creating a leader development program…if you overthink it, it’ll never get done. Plenty of leaders groan when we talk about counseling and typically cite any of the following reasons for not getting it done:

  • “It takes so much time to counsel everyone each month.”
  • “I give plenty of feedback in meetings and other times.”
  • “My people already know where they stand.”
  • “We have more pressing priorities than counseling. You know we’re deploying, right?”

Counseling

But most often, leaders don’t counsel because they’re uncomfortable with giving direct feedback. They also have difficulty telling subordinates that they’re doing an average job (it’s the best and the worst performers that are the easiest to give feedback to).

Leaders have to overcome these objections.