AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA
Push down skill, responsibility, and authority. Challenge privates and specialists to be sergeants and sergeants to deserve promotion up the NCO ranks. Make it a BTN of Mustangs.
Prioritize equipment readiness and discipline:
1- Right away upon taking command, take the S-1, S-3, and S-4 to the motor pool/mechanic shop, mess hall, and armorer to say hello, show concern to help, ask what they need to get their work done, and impress on staff that they have to provide it not ASAP but NOW. This drives responsibility for performance down on the staff, generates grounds for dismissal if needed, and acquaints staff with the necessity to keep their work area organized and current.
2- Take S-1-4 through the platoons one at a time to say hello — direct commo, no oratory — ask what they need to fulfill their responsibilities, and impress on staff that they have to provide those things not ASAP but NOW. As part of this initiative, broadcast that every Soldier is to look and comport like a Soldier in uniform, hygiene, and grooming. If they don’t look, feel, and act like Soldiers, they won’t fight or train like Soldiers (Patton Principle). Penalties for non-compliance.
Work the BTN into operational readiness from the bottom up, not the top down. Go to the bottom first, the motor pool/mechanic shop, mess hall, and armorer, to get them happily functioning. Train the Staff to think like that and take care of the least considered first. Think General von Steuben acting as a Drill Sergeant at Valley Forge, which enabled the victory at Trenton (over Germans no less!).
And make known expectations are universal, no exceptions, as well as also punishments, equal and reasonable/fair no matter whom.
Usually early in a tenure an opportunity to make this point emerges, and everyone is watching to see if the commander has intellectual and moral strength sufficient decisively to punish the one who is testing him. Usually it is one presenting as a functional peer or even superior. Everyone will know the tester is out of line but is waiting to see if the commander has strength to cashier him. If the commander does, morale will soar and discipline with it.
Napoleon: The Moral is to the Material as Three is to One. An organization’s morale is the measure of its feeling and actuality of safety. And for a fighting formation, its lethality and therefore esteem among higher command.
Everyone wants to feel safe even though they know that ultimately they are not. They want to know that their commanders want them safe even as they enjoy the thrill of battle.
To elevate morale, elevate disipline.
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