Back when I went to my first promotion board I was a student of military thought. Don’t laugh those of you who know me, it’s true. Scott Sturycz (yes that’s a real name) spent a solid month answering each others board questions from around 700 little white DLI flashcards (they rule!) and we knew our shit.

         Of course back then the board was a trifling bit different… When we walked in they had 2 laundry bags filled with parts from an M16A1 automatic rifle (I know the link is to an A2 don’t write letters), an M60 machine gun, and an M9 9mm pistol. All the parts were jumbled and before we were even allowed to start answering questions we were required to sort and re-assemble each weapon within a time limit and perform a successful functions check of each (and we had to walk uphill both ways). All of that not withstanding (boy I love to ramble) one of the things I remember most distinctly about the actual board questions was:

“What are the 4 elements of leadership?”

The answer : “The Leader, The Led, The Situation, and Communication”

         Why did this stick out? Well because the follow-up question from the CSM was “Which element will you always have control over?” A: “The Leader” (yourself). Now the stock Army answers have changed for boards as the Army has grown more politically correct and shifted it’s focus from leadership to administrative management but I the above aphorism still holds true.

         The difference between a Leader and a dictator is that the Leader knows that he is in fact working for the Led and not the other way around. A Leader enables the Led to do the whole mission. The Leader is not capable of manning every foxhole or of pulling every trigger. His job is to make sure that he has done his part so that the Led are able, willing, and free to do so themselves.

         Typically in the Army you will not be able to choose who you lead, what situation you must lead them through, or how you can communicate with them. You can always change yourself however. Over time you may be able to change aspects of your soldiers and aspects of the situation in which you find your collective asses but you only have immediate control of you and your leadership style.

         Sure, you can charge in like you think you are SGT Rock reincarnate. Try it, try dropping your soldiers for every infraction, verbally assaulting them for each perceived imperfection, and adhering slavishly to every bit of regulatory minutiae. You r soldiers will in fact do the things you tell them to do at the moment but they will take zero additional initiative of their own, they will submarine the mission just to make you look bad, and they will slap a 5.56mm round into your cerebellum at the earliest opportunity. These are the “Leaders” that soldiers wouldn’t follow willingly across the road to the chow hall at lunch time. When these guys tell a soldier that they are doing something wrong instead the soldier uses that as a guide that tells them that they are in fact doing the right thing. (I am talking to you CSM Little).

         An example: While standing guard one of your soldiers shows up with his field jacket but without his gloves. Since technically the gloves are part of the uniform that includes the field jacket you could in fact order the soldier to stand guard sans jacket and smugly think to yourself, “That’ll learn him!” When in fact all that he learned was that you the NCO are a tool who gives more of a shit about pin-dick regs than he does about you as a soldier. The better solution (in my mind) is the take the soldier and explain to him how we will all look like smacktards if the CSM were to come by ‘cuz you know he is the kind of jackhole who would make the whole guard post stand guard without our jackets because one soldier was out of uniform. Even better would be to find an excuse to send the soldier near the barracks on a “mission” so he can get his ass back into uniform! Just because you can do something shitty to a soldier doesn’t mean that you should.

         Then again what the fuck do I know?