E1-O2 Chapter 1-2 Summary

Independent of the Army and country you serve, leadership is always an important subject. There are many civilian books and military manuals talking about leadership. The United States Army divides the subject leadership in three levels. These levels are Direct Leadership, Organizational Leadership, and Strategic Leadership. In this paper, the focus will be only about the first two levels. According with you rank, you will work more in one of these levels. Because of that, most part of time there is not much interaction between higher-level leaders and lower level leaders. Despite the limited interaction between higher level leaders like Brigade commanders with the lower level leader like company commander it’s not affect a satisfactory mission accomplishment.

The book Black Hearts opened my eyes to how leadership from a single Officer can have a grappling effect on such a wide range of soldiers from the lowest of ranks. One of the best takeaways from Black Hearts is to never do anything: illegal, unethical, or immoral. Although this is a easy statement to repeat, Black Hearts demonstrates the difficulties that lie behind these words. It has also painted a picture of how leadership can topple extremely quickly from a top down view. The Army is portrayed in a bad light throughout the book relentlessly. This is due to the concentration of poor leadership of the 1-502nd Regiment (Referred to as “First Strike”), a battalion of the 101st Airborne Division.

An Army Leader is able and willing to act decisively, within the intent and purpose of his superior leaders, and in the best interest of the organization. Army leaders recognize that organizations built on mutual trust and confidence, successfully accomplish peacetime and wartime missions.” (2006, P. Viii). Balance molds a leader and in turn, an effective leader is a proactive person who works a whole lot smarter. President George Bush (1997) states, “Leadership to me means duty, honor, and country; It means character and it means listening from time to time.” (Adrain, p. 35).

LTG Ulmer fully discusses the Army’s concern of compromising command authority and how that can foster toxic leaders. SF is susceptible to toxic leadership for this same reason. A sergeant major will crush a group of teammates who try to solve their toxic leadership issue through collective mutiny. The military is a top down driven organization and chain of command is more important to maintain than removal of one toxic leader.

those leadership traits we learned as NCO’s. I have seen, and heard, too many times about fellow 150A’s that take a very hands off approach to leadership when they go to the company level as platoon leaders. I feel this happens because those individuals now think they don’t have to work as hard anymore simply because they are now a warrant officer, when it is the exact opposite. As a warrant officer you are now looked upon as the subject matter expert not only by your Soldiers, but your NCO’s and commander. As an NCO Soldiers look to you as someone whom sets the example on what to do, this is exponentially truer as a warrant officer. Furthermore,

In the book this was a constant and consistent factor and an obvious hint as to what to expect further along in the chapters which was a vicious tailspin out of control. Chapter 8 talked about a series of communication break downs. LTC Tom Kunk, the commander of the 1-502nd infantry regiment, set the standard of how the communication was going to exist within the platoons. The book talked about how he would lose his temper at his soldiers regardless how minor the issue. You could leave your weapon unattended or leave trash on the ground either way he would confront you in the most unprofessional way about it. This made his whole leadership style completely ineffective. I personally understand how much this can influence a soldier especially those who are still trying to figure out their leadership styles. If this is the only leadership style you deal with on a regular bases after a while it will start to become the standard for you. LTC Kunk being the commander of the regiment should be demonstrating better discipline and restraint. Instead this makes him appear to have no self control. He should have been setting the standard in a more positive way on communicating with members of the platoons, and creating a more cohesive environment. There were many other leaders in the platoon who made similar mistakes. This example doesn’t just apply to this particular situation but can also result the same in a family. If your mom and dad are constantly bickering and your always

From the battalion level to the company level the leadership from the top started to makes its way the individual squad members. As 1st platoon continue to have their struggles with the leadership they begin to also have them with the battlefield. The constant stress from the leadership began to build up and continued to build up with the environment they were set in. A lot of the company commanders became passive leader not knowing what to or did not want to do anything that would get on LTC Kunk’s bad side. CPT good did show signs of stress in some of his decision making one in particular cost him the lives of his men. The platoon leader of first platoon LT Britt was an enthusiastic leader who everyone in his platoon respected but later feared for his life before dying to IED. The platoon sergeant seemed to take everything well even with the lack of sleep and supply. The squad leaders

In today’s Army, we as leaders have become inundated with having to know every little piece of information out there that we have become afraid to make certain tactical decisions for fear of not doing it

“The United States Army is structured on several values and principles that it upholds, among these are military bearing, discipline and respect. These principles represents what the organization strongly believes in and governs the most basic customs and courtesies that all its members should abide by, otherwise legal repercussion and punishment is enforced that could ultimately result in separation from the organization.” The standards must be met by Soldiers or they can face a number of repercussions such as, barring from re-enlistment or even separation. Non commissioned officers should always uphold the standards so that all Soldiers know what they are and what can happen to them if they do not meet the standard. “One is to observe a sense of calmness even in the most stressful situations, leaders of the United States Army should maintain their military bearing even in situations where it seems chaotic, out of control or a civilian would respond in panic.” The reasoning behind this goes back to situations where non commissioned officers would have to make fast decisions in a war zone that may impact the lives of their Soldiers. In a battlefield situation their Soldiers are relying on their non commissioned officer to make a quick decision and trusting that decisions made are the best out of all situations given. Non commissioned officers should be able to make big decisions with all his confidence projecting with his military bearing. “A leader should look like a

Army is a hierarchical organization comprised of people; leaders or supervisors and subordinates. Organization like this is a living organism which made up of multiple units and sub-units that communicate with each other. Some units flourish under certain leaders more and other units have degraded morale, poor motivation and mission ineffective. What are we talking about? Toxic leadership! An organization of people will have good leaders and bad leaders. I have experienced it myself. Another word for toxic is abusive. Abusive leaders intimidate and insult their subordinates, sometimes openly other times discreetly. Some characteristics of toxic leadership are: self-serving and arrogant, creates a hostile climate and accommodating to their seniors.

leadership decisions that further degrade the military influencing enlisted members to end their careers early.

Toxic Leadership is a legitimate problem that severely affects the ability of a unit to accomplish its mission in garrison or combat. The Army is a flexible and adaptable organization trained to fight and win our nation’s wars against a complex, ever-changing enemy, however quite often the greatest enemy often comes from within. Consequently, leaders who look out for themselves rather than for the welfare of the Soldiers or unit, as Ulmer (2012) stated, “…are unconcerned about, or oblivious to, staff or troop morale and/or climate. They are seen by the majority of subordinates as arrogant, self-serving, inflexible, and petty.” (p. 48). They leave a unit with low morale, poor esprit de corps, and a degraded ability to accomplish its mission.

The Effect of power and influence that leaders have on followers in the organization is paramount. “There are various issues and consideration that the core criticism is that organizations of all sorts; corporations, government agencies and not for profit organizations tend to be over-managed and/or over administrated and under led.” (Ghasabeh & Reaiche & Soosay, 2015) Leaders have the power and influence to make the organization either a great one or a feared one. The followers have a better outcome by following a leader that they respect. I have experienced both in my career in the military; my most recent experience in the organization was with an E-9, Chief Master Sergeant. She ran the group with legitimate and coercive power by having the leadership and Airmen fear her because of her rank and

Nothing kills morale quicker than members of a team not knowing what they should be doing. A pack's trust in its leader will afford a belief that the leader knows what is going on. Yet, when it becomes a regularly occurring theme, or the leader outright tells his troops he doesn't know what is going on or what the team is doing, it hurts a team’s motivation. A leader needs to have a plan, and though he may not always be informed, a leader must strive to always obtain clear orders enabling him to be effective. And when that is not possible, the NCO Creed states that a leader should exercise initiative by taking

Leadership is not a skill that you are born with. It is created by one’s life experiences and influences from others around them. We learn from both the positive and negative examples that are presented to us in our lives from the earliest of our years. When I was a three year non-rate reporting to my new duty station the USCGC Hatchet in Galveston, Texas, my expectations were that it was going to be a hard assignment. What I did not expect was that I was about to learn how not to be a leader from my Boatswains Mate Senior Chief OIC. One day while completing an almost 30 hour non-stop building project of a range on the Houston ship channel, I was aloft the 60 plus foot tower hooking up the lights and batteries. Since my head was down all I heard was a train coming my way. I looked up and a water spout was less than 50 yards away. I immediately started my way down the ladder. My OIC picked up the loud speaker and shouted expletives at me and said if I came down that light that I would be booked. I proceeded down the ladder and the light assembly that I had just installed was damaged by the near miss from the water spout just seconds after I made it to safety. This is just one example of the many lessons that I learned from a leader whom makes poor decision by not thinking about the welfare of his members and it made me re-think the responsibilities of a person in charge of other people’s lives and destinies.