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*whispers*
Your source of commissioning does not matter to your subordinates, only to your peers and senior officers.
Your source of commissioning does not matter to your subordinates, only to your peers and senior officers.
Ive known terrible and great Officers, have worked for terrible and great ones. The best one by far was ROTC.
That doesn't mean all ROTC are good or the others are all bad. It just means as a leader you are defined by your actions not what class or college you went to.
I used to think that the best Officers had to be mustangs because of their experience being enlisted. Not anymore. To me, its more important that you give a shit about the people you work for (!) (yes I said that).
You work for your subordinates. If you work for anybody else or that OER then you are a mistaken. Thus, the GiveAShitFactor. To me the GiveAShitFactor will inform how you provide purpose, direction, and motivation for your Soldiers day in and day out.
The GiveAShitFactor (GASF) doesn't care about gender, rank, sexual orientation, skin color, origin, economics. It means you care about your Soldiers as people and that their accomplishments mean more to you than yours.
We all should have GASF, we all should be asking ourselves everyday how can we make our Soldiers lives better? The biggest issue I had as an E3/E4 in the Army is when I perceived that my time was being wasted.
The best leader that I know is a FGO. And what matters to me is that he genuinely cared about my and my peers well being as a person. Our section did some great things but it was never about him. it was always about us and my peers.
I never felt that my time was being wasted when I was doing stuff for him. It wasn't exciting stuff (garrison sometimes isn't) but he provided the Purpose Direction and Motivation needed for us daily. I would run through a wall for that leader, thus my motivation to accomplish.
I aspire to be that leader for someone else and have that impact. Someday maybe but I challenge everyone to have a little bit of GASF. The great thing about it is that it doesn’t matter if you’re FORSCOM BCT, staff, echelons above god, or even in the Army.
It applies to whatever your doing and whatever your trying to do for someone else. The minute PFC CJ sees a leader trying hard to GAS about me and my peers then things suddenly change positively for all. Whether that’s OR rate, medpros, PT scores, that brief to the Colonel, etc
There are lots of ways to GAS. Maybe it’s going to the barracks and talking to Soldiers and finding out about the broken A/C that DPW hasn’t fixed, finding out what the quarantine soldiers are eating today, or asking SPC Smith about what she wants to be in the Army.
“SPC Smith did you know that the Army will pay you to go to school to become a (PA, LT, JAG)? Did you know you can go work with Company X and still be in the Army (TWI) ?”
“SPC Smith do you want to fly helicopters? Do you want to get out and go to school? Do you want to have my job? “
So many problems in the Army could be fixed if we just GAS. I don’t know why I did this today just kinda what I’ve been thinking and talking about very recently. But that’s my piece of advice for new leaders. Everything else will follow after that. Fin.
