Tag Archives: Leader Development Program

Posted on

Leaders, Your Facebook Phobia is Holding You Back

Let’s start off by coming to an agreement that your Facebook feed probably looks like most people’s…vacation photos, social quizzes, kitten videos, weddings, parties, and babies. You might post a few thoughts about the latest political buzz, but you’re not writing to change anyone’s opinion or move them in a new direction. Facebook is a window to the social You, not the professional You. Am I right?

Now a question…where is your largest connected network? Is it at your workplace? Your gym? Through your family? Or is it through Facebook?

If you’re not in the business of influence, then this discussion is irrelevant. But if you are a leader, then its worthwhile to consider how you use your most expansive network. If you care about changing people in positive ways, then you need to rethink Facebook.

Facebook

Soldiers and Families now have another outlet to receive updated information about Fort Drum deployed Soldiers and upcoming events at the “U.S. Army Fort Drum 10th Mountain Division” Facebook page. Photo by Mrs Michelle Kennedy (IMCOM).
Posted on

Simon Sinek’s Advice for the Military’s Sexual Assault Problem

by John Gassman

Simon Sinek is an ethnographer who has written two books on leadership: Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action and Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t. His books are a study of leaders in action and he often uses military examples to illustrate his points. (In fact, Major General Jimmie Jaye Wells at US Army FORSCOM is using Leaders Eat Last as a part of his Professional Reading Program Forum.)

Simon Sinek is also a TED contributor and his two recorded talks are powerful tools for military leaders. His first talk, recorded in September 2009, is about How Great Leaders Inspire Action. If you haven’t watched it yet, stop reading right now and go watch it. If you ever found yourself looking for a way to explain why commander’s intent is so important, this is the kick-starter you wanted.

His more recent TED talk, titled Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe, holds a mirror up to military leaders and offers some fantastic insights into trust, safety, and teamwork. If you’re looking for a way to talk to your leaders about sexual harassment, equal opportunity, or suicide prevention, this can be a powerful tool to start the conversation.

Simon Sinek

Posted on

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.
Posted on

Forging Adaptive Leaders Through Crucible Training

by Chris Ingram

Are your teams capable of adapting to a rapidly changing environment? Do you have the best people in positions of leadership to deal with chaos? There are two ways we find out: in combat, or before. To answer these critical questions about our teams and our leaders, we often use a historically successful model: the crucible training event.

To do this, at the Company, Battalion, Brigade, or even Division level, crucible training must be well-defined, include the proper mix of participants, and evaluate the right set of skills in a way the challenges individuals and grows adaptive teams.

This is a guest post by Army Infantry Officer, Medium blogger, and Military Writer’s Guild member, Christopher Ingram. Connect with him on Twitter @chrisgingram.

training

Posted on

Being “Somebody” Isn’t Good Enough

“I always wanted to be somebody,
but I should have been more specific.” –Lily Tomlin

Today, we can draw some insightful leadership lessons from an unlikely source in Lily Tomlin. Her pithy quote certainly resonates to each of our personal ambitions, as it is dangerously easy to get sucked into the milestones of life without clearly defining where those milestones will lead…or the type of person we will become along the path.

Similarly, new Privates and Lieutenants step into active duty as proverbial blank slates, ready to combine real-world experience with the second-hand, academic, and imagined impressions they have of military service. Most have goals in mind, some vision of what “success” looks like for their time in service. Some want to be generals…some prioritize getting a college education…others are just happy to have survived Basic Training.

But how many service members, these future leaders, take their vision beyond a rank or position and specify the type of leader they want to be? Then, how many people outline how to develop those skills throughout their career to reach that endstate?

Somebody

U.S. Army Specialist Anthony Esparza provides security on the perimeter of the Khyber Border Coordination Center at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, Jan. 4, 2015. Esparza is assigned to the 3d Cavalry Regiment, Train, Advise, Assist Command – East. U.S. Army photo by Capt. Jarrod Morris. Link to photo.
Posted on

The Post-Active Duty Leadership Environment – Part 2 (Leadership)

This is the second of three posts by an Air Force Major discussing the organizational changes he experienced after leaving active-duty to fly for the Air National Guard and a civilian airline. Read the first post here.

In part one of this series, I described my transition from active duty flying in the US Air Force to my current job as a civilian airline and Air National Guard pilot. I addressed how I found my concepts of service and excellence to be more aligned with my post-separation life than my active duty experience.

I also asserted that many leaders I encountered focused more on serving their careers than serving their subordinates and that this mentality has become a cultural issue within the Air Force’s Air Mobility and Training Commands, if not the Air Force itself.

Today’s post compares the active duty and civilian/National Guard leadership environments that I experienced.

Posted on

Challenging the Army Culture – “A Good Answer to an Obsolete Question”

If you haven’t already read this paper from Casey Haskins, it’s definitely worth a look. You may not agree with the sweeping premise, that the present-day Army suffers under the administrative and philosophical burden of the Cold War era. But there are plenty of valid points that will cause you to evaluate the quality of your own leadership and your organization’s culture.

The SlideShare document is below and you can scroll through it for a quick look. I’ve also included the paper’s Conclusion, which is a bullet list of bold changes and a summary of the paper’s tone. Keep in mind that it is a few years old, too.

Posted on

Join the Women’s Mentorship Network

Mentorship is at the core of military professional development and is a crucial aspect in making the military an elite developer of leaders. Often what makes mentorship successful is a personal and professional kinship shared among the individuals. I look around my work environment and can find no shortage of combat arms officers to engage and learn from.

For women in the military, a pool of available mentors is not so easy to find. Sure, male service members can mentor women service members…but a same-gender mentor provides unique perspective and understanding.

That’s why the Women’s Mentorship Network is such a valuable organization.