Army worries about ‘toxic leaders’ in ranks
 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...c=nl_headlines


BMT

This is an interesting article. We were given a writing assignment using this article in the Warrant Officer course. Our papers made for some good conversations among the students.

Common sense and the historical record tell us otherwise.

Richard :munchin

I had a long diatribe written about this but that fact is no one who can do anything about it really cares...

If a commander wants to know how one of his subordinates are doing ask those under that guys charge to write his leadership evaluation. Not sure why everyone is afraid to say what needs to be said...

Crip

Might change if GEN Dempsey is serious about the idea of implementing "360 degree evaluations."

As a private school, we used to do them for staff and faculty, and they were used to both evaluate your effectiveness and potential, as well as identifying weaknesses and developing individual professional development plans.

For example, in my case, I received survey evaluations from both the Head of School and Board of Directors, as well as several randomly chosen board members, staff and faculty members, recent alumni, parents, and students.

As the Head of the Upper School (high school), the Head of the Lower/Middle School and I also did survey evaluations of the Head of School, Board Chairman, and every staff and faculty member. For some, it was a scary change to implement, but once we started it and everyone saw us using it to honestly evaluate our effectiveness and implement viable changes, it proved to be a very useful program and worth the effort it took to use.

However - all that changed with the hiring of the current Head of School, a text book toxic leader type, and...well...:(

And so it goes...

Richard :munchin

I think this dichotomy is an intricate part of the process of selecting leaders..

Type "A" (read ego trip) leadership traits do shine in some eyes. Typically the ones that have these traits are also the ones that do the selecting.

Hence the dichotomy. How do you tell someone that the traits they admire in themselves are not what they should select in their future replacements??

There are many more MacArthur's than there are Bradley's..

:munchin:munchin:munchin

The problem isnt always toxic leadership...
...some folks are just poor followers.


Leaders make poor choices. Sometimes in self-interest sometomes because they are human. Sometimes what "looks" like a bad choice only looks bad because it is unpleasant.
Not everyone is in charge; I see a shit-ton of younger generation soldiers that seem to think they are smarter than everyone else and as such dont need to follow instructions but the minute they see a counseling staement, or get a poor NCOER, they are quick to point out how fucked up everyone else is.

I have seen SF NCOs bitch and whine like infantry privates because the company SGM told folks they could not wear civilian hiking shoes around BAF when they were in ACU's.
"The company SGM sucks!"
"All that M-Fer cares about is bullshit"
"Why cant we wear our shit"
"That guy is a backstabbing SOB"

Is that SGM really a toxic leader?
If so, I may need to rethink my career and start looking at retirement.

I had guys flip out when we had a mandatory class A inspection a few years ago...
...the first one in over a year.
I had a few guys complain like the CDR was asking them to come in on a saturday morning and GI the team room in Class-A's
It was actually because there was a dining out just around the corner and the boss wanted to make sure everyone 'remembered' what dress uniforms looked like so folks wouldn't show up at a formal event looking like they hadn't worn dress clothes in 2 years.

Was that a toxic leader?

The survey bold prints that we have a problem with toxic leaders, but they only gave a few words to the statistic that 97 percent of those queried stated they have had "exceptional leadership" in the last year.


smoke and mirrors....

Good points.

While in the Army I served under some Officers and senior NCOs who would have been described as 'toxic' but they were actually good leaders. It's the people who are in positions of leadership that are poor leaders and who are also 'toxic' that cause morale problems.

I was just introduced to the term "toxic leader" a few months ago. I asked a bud of mine for some references, and he sent me a couple articles from the BN PCC he just attended. It was interesting. Of course there is a ton of other stuff out there.

Attached for your reading pleasure:

Attachment 19324

Attachment 19325

This isn't really about that one time event, a couple of ass chewings, or displaying one of the "symptoms". This is a multi-symptom, chronic disease.

To think there have not always been "toxic leader" issues is naive at best - it just didn't start "under Klinton and the way he downsized the military" (which was a choice his administraton made to continue the reorganization begun by the previous administration).

I would argue the records of the likes of a North, Burnside, Hooker, McClellan, MacArthur, and Custer would certainly fit one or more of the traits of 'bad leadership' described by Barbara Kellerman - incompetence, rigidity, intemperance, callousness, corruption, insularity, evil - as would many others at all levels of command back through the annals of US military history.

A problem I think many reformers struggle with when discussing such a topic is what I think BLB was talking about in his post - the difference between leadership and command. As experienced soldiers know, they are not the same thing, for not all commanders are good leaders, and not all leaders are good commanders. George McClellan, for example, was a truly inspirational leader who won the total devotion of his troops, yet consistently failed to achieve decisive victory in battle and politically challenged his CinC (a career ending move if there ever was one). On the other hand, U.S. Grant was an excellent combat commander to whom few in his command showed any great affection.

Here's my last boss in the Army before I retired - I was his WHNS SPOC for the BW (TKN and TKS) and Luxembourg - he walked the walk, and his staff meetings were < 30 mins and ended with a short Three Stooges episode for those who could stay the extra 15-20 mins:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F40d3...embedded#at=44

We had a running joke - he used to refer to me as a "leaf eater" (I'm tall and he's short) and I used to tell him it was easier to see what was going on from up there.

I think 'toxic leadership' is an issue which has plagued the military throughout History and always will.

"Now...everyone not committed to any other details go report to the Group CSM NLT 0900 for area beautification." ;)

And so it goes...

Richard :munchin

Although I was not familiar with the term "toxic leader(ship)" until a few months ago, after careful consideration I was personally exposed to this type of leader (read the articles I linked for how I defined it) in 1987 (Reagan), 1988 (Reagan), 1990 (Bush), 2003-4 (Bush Jr.), and currently 2009-2011 (O-Ba-Ma). Noticeably absent was most of my time in Group (save for COL Parker). The president doesn't have anything to do with it. The principles and ethics of of the organizational leadership do.

I will concede the point, however, that troop draw-down periods "could" (possibly/theoretically) result in short term goal oriented personalities surviving the cut in less than ethical organizations. Because that environment is the only way a less than ethical personality can survive in a position of authority. Generally speaking, a dick is a dick...and everyone knows it.

I'd be interested to learn how the argument that downsizing the armed forces in the post Cold War era turned into bad leadership works. (Such an argument would be more convincing were it applied to the Carter administration.)MOO, I would add GEN W.T. Sherman to this list for his post-Civil War career. His cynicism towards politicians and his belief that military policy should be determined by warriors alone have played a deleterious impact on civil military relations to this day.