Brain Fertilizer

One of the things I hated about the Army was its over-emphasis on rank. Many times, it seemed like an E-2 just wasn't worth as much as an E-5. An E-7 was allowed to verbally abuse an E-4 at will. The Army as a whole didn't seem to care at all about junior enlisted.

But the Army seemed to excellent at growing leaders. Is there a connection? Could you develop top-notch leaders without having a rigid class structure based on rank? I'm not sure.

However, one thing I really liked about the Army was one pair of phrases I heard enough times to make me sick (at the time): "Setting up for success" and "setting up for failure".

The idea is, you don't just give a subordinate a task and let 'em go. Your job as a leader was to assess what your troop needed to succeed, and get it to them along with the task. Much of it was based on the level of experience of the troop, of course. A younger troop would need task, standards, detailed instructions, training, supervision, and follow-up. The more experienced the troop, the more you could drop.

The interesting thing was that if a troop failed at something, the first place they looked was at the troop's first-line leader: did you set up your troop for success, or for failure?

Where I work now, that's not really an issue, unfortunately. If your subordinate screws up, a "good leader" gives them negative paperwork. Enough negative paperwork, and the person is fired. That's doing a good job. I guess the best "leaders" must either be lucky enough to have self-motivated troops, or they are better at wording the negative paperwork to be inspiring rather than discouraging.

I wish I had some really profound insight to give on this subject. But simply put, if your subordinates aren't doing a good job, the first place to look is at yourself. Are you giving adequate and appropriate feedback? Are you ensuring the task and standards are fully understood? Are you providing adequate training for the task?

Not every subordinate is a good worker, of course. If you are setting them up for success, and they still fail, then perhaps the problem is with the subordinate. But that should be the last place to check, not the first.