Leadership Essay-- Michelle D ClaytonThomas--

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Feb 20, 2024

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Running Head: Flexible Leaders 1 Title: Resilient Leadership Develops Effective Leaders Organization: SSI, NCOA Name: SGT Thomas MOS/Class: 36B ALC Class Number: 001-17 SGL: SSG Quiroga

Running Head: Flexible Leaders 2 Abstract Page This paper explains the many challenges leaders face when leading soldiers. While outlining how we can be more resilient and effective as a leader, mentor, and role model. I begin my paper with a quote from Colin Powell explaining how when your Soldier stop following and coming to you for help, you have failed them as a leader. I then go on to talk about seeking great mentorship vs the strong delegator from our senior leaders. How the lack of order and discipline from soldiers today, effects our leaders due to the evolving time compared to back when I first joined the military. Then I finish up with how we can prevent the overall failure to gain experience and knowledge for all personnel in their career fields before they are promoted. I briefly talk about a transformational leader which is a person who motivates and inspire with intellect. While writing this paper I didn’t not use many sources, most of the information in this paper is from my own personal outlook throughout my military career, things I have experienced, heard or seen.

Running Head: Flexible Leaders 3 Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped lending them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or conclude that you do not care. Either case is failure of leadership (POWELL, 2001- 2016) . Today many people have their own ideas and opinions on what leadership is, nonetheless what an effective leader is. To me leadership is when a leader guides and influences there soldiers to complete any task given by providing purpose, motivation, and direction. Throughout the military you will find that there are many soldiers with difference views of their leaders. These differences are due to the many leadership styles leaders can develop and adopt to overtime. Many leaders face many challenges when leading soldiers such as, seeking great mentorship and guidance from their superiors, the lack of order and discipline from soldiers today, and the overall failure to gain experience and knowledge for all personnel in there career fields. Although these challenges are all factors in the way we as leaders lead our soldiers, how resilient we are make us more effective leaders, mentors, and role models. One of the greatest challenges faced by our leaders is that there is not a lot of positive mentorship and guidance from our superior leaders anymore. In the military today leaders often delegate task down to their subordinates without mentoring them on the proper way to complete the task. In ADRP 6-22, it states that mentoring takes place when the mentor provides a less experienced leader with advice and counseling overtime to help with professional and personal growth (TRADOC, 2012) . We as leaders of the future are often failed by our superiors when they expect us to know something, but aren’t trained on the proper way to do things. Traditionally delegating has helped get task completed in the fastest way possible, but mentorship is known to help train more proficient and effective leaders. While finding a good leader is rare in the military now, finding a good leader mentor is the challenge. One way to promote resiliency with

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Running Head: Flexible Leaders 4 this is to have an open mind when viewing your leadership, and understand it’s not easy to have all eyes on you. Also by understanding one day that you could be in your senior leaders shoes, trying to find a mentor to help shape you into a better leader than them. Although seeking great mentorship and guidance from our superiors is a challenge, we must not forget about our even greatest challenge the lack of discipline and order within our junior ranks. When I joined the Army in October 2012, I feared my senior leadership starting at basic and all the way until my first duty station. I did not fear them because they were mean, actually it was the complete opposite they were all really nice, it was because I knew my career was in the palm of their hands. When told to do something I never asked, “Why?” or “Sergeant, can’t you get someone one else to do?” all I did was execute. Order and discipline in the service today has become a major challenge for leaders because some soldiers fail to be a part of them team, while the others see it as analogical. For example, when I became a noncommissioned officer in April 2016, I started the first month after getting promoted observing and getting to know my soldiers. Eventually within that month I noticed select soldiers always tried to find a way out of things or they found that only a small handful was doing all the work. My soldiers are often released at 1630 to go home for the day, but one day I realized no one was there to do section training. Well since they could not get there work and training done before the close of business, I extended the time we were going to be there so that we did not have any issues. Sooner than later my Soldier started to realize the training was just over the issues we had in the section that day and maybe they would learn something new they were not taught in AIT. We as leaders can become more resilient with our Soldiers by understanding the military is changing and times are becoming more relaxed than when we can in. however, this challenge should not

Running Head: Flexible Leaders 5 hinder is from properly correcting our Soldiers, or reminding them about the basic standards they were taught in training. In addition to the lack of discipline and order from our Soldiers, one of the greatest factors and hardest challenges our senior leader face, is the overall amount of knowledge, skills, and experience we allow our leaders to have in their profession before they get promoted. This challenge is the most avoidable, yet the most commonly seen in our junior Noncommissioned Officers. In the military we have what many would call our point chasers and our exceptional leaders. Our point chasers are those in which get promoted because they eligible, but not because they are ready in their profession. These leaders in turn to do not care about the effect of having limited skills and knowledge in their profession would have an effect on their future troops. They care more about the rank, money, and the authority that comes with the promotion. A good example of this leader would be our delegator, in which whom we talked about earlier in this paper. They are limited in their profession because most often they do not know there jobs, they were too focused into where the points where and looking good on paper for the board. When viewed by their troops they are often seen as selfish leaders or possible toxic leader, the do as I say not as I do leader. Then we have are exceptional leader, these are the Noncommissioned officers that encompasses the overall scope of an Army Soldier. They often want to bring the team with them. They care about helping others, excelling at the profession, while setting a positive standard for their troops to follow. Not only do they look good on paper, but you ask them about their profession and they know where to find the answer. A very good example of this type of leader would be a transformational leader (Cintron, n.d.). When viewed by their soldiers they are often seen as a role model and an influential leader and mentor. Senior leaders can promote a more resilient outlook to this challenge by looking through their ranks and

Running Head: Flexible Leaders 6 ensuring that the troops they promote are truly ready. That these future leaders encompass the skills, knowledge, and experience needed to move on to the rank. Finding the high speed, hardworking, still willing to learn Jane or Jim rather than the, I can do enough to skate by because I have the points Jack or Jill. Thus, we have learned throughout our lives leading others is not an easy task, it comes with a lot of hard work and understanding. It is much more than telling someone what to do all the time, it is about the empowerment and influencing of the team in the end. While some people think they know what it means to be an effective leader, the only thing that changes is the difference in the way subordinates view their leaders that makes them effective. Whether it be the way we were trained by our superior s through positive mentorship or strong delegation, or the way we train our Soldiers due to their lack of discipline and order, the positive outlooks on these issues only made us more resilient to the evolving times of the Army. While identifying the Soldiers early on, whom do not yet have the skills, knowledge, and experience in their profession to move on to the next level, could help the promote more proficient and resilient leaders. Those in which are willing to go the extra mile and put their troops first. As you can see there are many challenges leaders face within our ranks starting all the way at the top. Although I only focused on a few there are so many more adversities we as leader face, but the fact of the matter remains no matter how hard they may be how resilient we are make ours leader more effective overtime.

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Running Head: Flexible Leaders 7 Reference Page Cintron, J. (n.d.). Leadership in the Military . Retrieved from yourbusiness.azcentral: http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/leadership-styles-military-25296.html POWELL, C. (2001- 2016). Colin Powell Quotes . Retrieved from Brainy quote: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/colin_powell.html TRADOC. (2012, AUGUST 01). ADRP 6-22. Retrieved from ADP.ARMY.MIL: http://www.apd.army.mil/Search/ePubsSearch/ePubsSearchForm.aspx?x=ADRP

Leadership Essay-- Michelle D ClaytonThomas--

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