Toxic Leadership, Bureaucracy, and Maintaining Lethality

[Recce101]

I have just recently separated from the military after 10 years and am enjoying getting back into academia and giving my mind some much needed fuel. I will graduate this summer and have begun developing new and exciting courses of action for the future. Unfortunately, my previous years of service have illuminated the many obstacles that detract from critical lines of effort such as maintaining lethality and mastery of your profession. While understanding the larger strategic and operational goals of an organization are crucial to being a successful leader, occupational proficiency and development are the cornerstone to achieving those strategic objectives. An ineffective and incompetent organization cannot be successful whether it is in combat, or in garrison. This was especially apparent the last 2 to 3 years before I separated from service. Priorities shifted to administrative and logistical tasks rather than combat focused fitness and training. Instead of getting my recon teams out to the range for some UKD or to the woods for some field craft, I became inundated with seemingly pointless tasks that contributed to the political climate of the organization rather than the warrior climate I was raised in. It soon became apparent that training for our actual mandate of closing with and destroying the enemy was second to what I was told was the "new military," and that I as a leader needed to align myself with these new strategic objectives. In the end, I could not accept this paradigm shift, which was one of the driving forces behind me separating from service.

With my goals and aspirations now shifting towards finishing my career in military SO after I finish school, I have regrettably become hesitant to fully dedicate myself to this path. Which very much contradicts my previous performance standards over the last 10 years. I have seen the detrimental effects that toxic, weak, and conforming leaders can have on the warrior culture and the welfare of your subordinates. Not only can you not take care of your guys the way they deserve, but you can't train them to be masters of their profession in an effort to preserve their life should they be placed in a life-threatening situation overseas. How then, if I decide to move forward with my new scheme of maneuver do I overcome the toxic leadership that detracts from accomplishing these basic, yet critical tasks? How do I accept that there are leaders who don't value training as a means to accomplish the mission and preserve life? I think that this concept is the only mental hindrance I am facing in order to achieve my goals, I am just not sure how to adjust my focus in order to cope with these type of cultural changes that contradict my ethical foundations.   

[mynewunit]

I have never heard such big words. Even if they all fell out of a field manual.

Training to improve lethality has been deprioritized by leadership. To be honest, I would say this is a fair assesment. They like all industries are being influenced by the new toys and technology and away from the cursory eye test of troops to test their metal.

SO how do you continue on in this culture with you experience telling you they are making a mistake reducing training? 2 things. Number 1 is lead from all levels. You can steer the off hours of your coworkers. Much like you are training outside of work, encourage and enable them to also train. Help them improve all aspects of lethality and effectiveness. From reading terrain to tasks of a medic, you can put lots of little improvements into your immediate coworkers.
Number 2 is to get more training out of the training you do get. For this one read Coach John Wooden's book. He spends 1 hour of preparation for a practice for every hour of practice per player. So if there is a training for a team of 20, you can get a lot more out of it if you spent 20 hours planning each hour of training. This is also a common rule for meetings. Sometimes we do it in terms of dollars to bias the equation to "important people" in private industry.

Good question. Loosing your desire for your career path at 10 or so years is a common thing. That is around the time I looked around and said what am I doing here? Good news is it is typically when you gain a lot of perspective. You can finally see yourself beyond earning your next stripe, or getting enough points for more rank. You can say if my choice is this or selling life insurance, what makes this more meaningful. What would I like to accomplish, be known for, or teach a) the guys who are 3 years in? As you answer those questions, you will better understand the options.

You will dominate no matter what you choose. Choose wisely. And let me know where you end up. Guys like me find it much more interesting to work near guys like you.

[Recce101]

Yeah, I guess old military writing habits die hard lol.

Thank you though for your detailed response. It is unfortunate that priorities of training and lethality have shifted, but just as you said, it is important to train from all levels. That is one thing I could have done more effectively was influence the training of my guys during their off hours. I would normally challenge them within the professional environment to research new TTPs and develop their own approaches to skills and tactics we had been taught through the various schools we had attended. One of my team leaders was actually the driving force in developing multiple sections of our own internal TACSOP as a result of this approach. But shifting focus on simple tasks and training that could be achieved at home or in the community would have definitely been a more effective approach when not permitted to allocate time to train at work.

It's funny you mention Coach Wooden's planning and training strategy. At first, an approach like his wasn't necessary to achieve solid replicated and sustainable training events. But as the culture slowly changed and priorities shifted, I recognized the need to capitalize on the time I was given. I definitely adopted his planning strategies along with several others in order to achieve this. A two-day sniper range was planned over the course of two weeks with specific focus on addressing capability gaps in marksmanship or observation within my individual teams. A progressive building-block approach was taken in order to solidify and hone skills, and build on tactical proficiencies. Had I not shifted to these methods of planning, I wouldn't have achieved even a third of the results that I was able to. While still frustrating I had to dedicate so much time to a singular event and could not be given the time to train for months on end, the method proved very effective and continues to be how I plan training in all aspects of my life. Plus it was really the only logical approach at the time. 

You are absolutely correct. If it is one thing I have gained since separating is perspective. I had some of the greatest experiences over the last 10 years in the military, and I wouldn't change it. Yes there are a couple regrets like not pursuing a career in special operations sooner, or learning to cope and adapt to poor leadership cultures as we have discussed. But I think getting out was the right choice to enhance my perspective, recharge while finishing up my degree, and setting myself up for the next operation. I have also discovered that if I don't go back in to achieve my unaccomplished goals that I will likely regret it for the rest of my life. At the end of the day, if something I can do for my team or my organization ends up bettering their lives or saving them in combat, then that is a win in my book. I think with that basic approach moving forward it can help me decide on the direction to go in my career and gain the necessary mental strength to achieve my goals. Thanks again for the great response.