Trusting your Soldiers If we are honest, most soldiers want competent leaders. This basic truth is repeated by all noncommissioned officers when they recite the NCO Creed. “All Soldiers are entitled to outstanding leadership; I will provide that leadership” . In fact, most people want those who are in senior positions to be competent in their jobs. This is true in the military and civilian worlds. The problem is that trusting your Soldiers inherently means that you trust your ability as a leader to have shown them the right way to execute a task. While NCO’s “strive to remain tactically and technically proficient” , how can an NCO train that same level of competence? Using the example of an NTC rotation, how often are soldiers, who should be executing a skill level 1 task with proficiency, standing to the side so the junior leader (in this case, an E-5 or E-4(p)) can do it “the right way”? From establishing communications, sending SITREPs and SPOT Reports to Searching an Individual in a Tactical Environment (159-COM-2026), NCOs must empower themselves to ensure that their soldiers are proficient in basic tasks . This is the crux of the issue. Leadership means that an NCO not only trusts themselves to train their subordinates to standard, but also trust their Soldiers to execute the task to the same standard. Utilizing this basic idea, young leaders begin to develop their own leadership style when their NCOs demonstrate “what right looks like” as opposed to “doing it the right way” and not allowing their soldiers to learn. Trusting yourself as a Leader In a zero defect organization, leaders do not lead. In all honestly, leaders don’t even manage in that environment. Rather, each individual looks out for his or her own best interest, with a keen desire to not “rock the boat”. Again, anecdotally there is ample evidence that a zero defect mindset ensures a lack of leadership development. FM 6-22 states the challenge for leader
Trusting your Soldiers If we are honest, most soldiers want competent leaders. This basic truth is repeated by all noncommissioned officers when they recite the NCO Creed. “All Soldiers are entitled to outstanding leadership; I will provide that leadership” . In fact, most people want those who are in senior positions to be competent in their jobs. This is true in the military and civilian worlds. The problem is that trusting your Soldiers inherently means that you trust your ability as a leader to have shown them the right way to execute a task. While NCO’s “strive to remain tactically and technically proficient” , how can an NCO train that same level of competence? Using the example of an NTC rotation, how often are soldiers, who should be executing a skill level 1 task with proficiency, standing to the side so the junior leader (in this case, an E-5 or E-4(p)) can do it “the right way”? From establishing communications, sending SITREPs and SPOT Reports to Searching an Individual in a Tactical Environment (159-COM-2026), NCOs must empower themselves to ensure that their soldiers are proficient in basic tasks . This is the crux of the issue. Leadership means that an NCO not only trusts themselves to train their subordinates to standard, but also trust their Soldiers to execute the task to the same standard. Utilizing this basic idea, young leaders begin to develop their own leadership style when their NCOs demonstrate “what right looks like” as opposed to “doing it the right way” and not allowing their soldiers to learn. Trusting yourself as a Leader In a zero defect organization, leaders do not lead. In all honestly, leaders don’t even manage in that environment. Rather, each individual looks out for his or her own best interest, with a keen desire to not “rock the boat”. Again, anecdotally there is ample evidence that a zero defect mindset ensures a lack of leadership development. FM 6-22 states the challenge for leader