Grooming someone for leadership positions is not an overnight process.
The cost of replacing a soldier, a sailor, an airman or a Marine is often confused with the cost of sending someone to basic military training and their follow on technical or individual training. The reality is that to replace a junior non-commissioned officer (NCO) or commissioned officer the cost includes the training costs as well as time and energy spent in grooming him to become a leader and a manager.
Instructions
Determine Leadership Approach
1. In order to get someone to stand out, a subordinate will need to be trusted to be able to complete the task.
Using the leadership style matrix from "The One Minute Manager," identify the leadership style required. Ideally, those to be groomed for senior leadership levels will require an S4 style, which is characterized by a delegation of power to or empowerment of the individual. In this model, the individual is given the task and its parameters, such as due date, but is free to complete the given task in his own time line using his own method of approach.
2. Monitor the individual. For grooming to take place, the junior member must be allowed to operate on her own. This does not remove the senior person from the picture, but it puts the senior person at some distance, so the junior member actually feels as though he or she is not being micromanaged.
3. Allow the junior member to fail. At times during the mentorship process, it is difficult to watch a protégé fail. The individual must be allowed to fail in order to allow him to see his own limits and capabilities as others see them. This not only builds character within the individual, but it also allows him or her to grow and recover from failure.
4. Limit a failure's long-term effects. In the event that the junior member fails at a task, limit the repercussions of that failure. For instance, if the task is to build the monthly duty schedule, do not allow a mistake in the schedule to cause mission failure. Do not, however, make changes to the schedule without informing the schedule drafter, as this may mislead the subordinate into thinking that his or her version was the correct one.
5. Provide feedback. Allowing a subordinate to create the duty schedule is a delegated task. Once the task is complete, monitor the outcome of the schedule being published. Did it enhance or detract from mission accomplishment? At this point, take the subordinate aside and go over any notes taken and mission impact that the task accomplishment had. Feedback should be constructive and limited to information that builds confidence in the subordinate to complete the task.
6. Repeat the process. Grooming is a process, not a step. Task given, task accomplishment is monitored, task feedback given and repeat are the steps of the process.
Tags: junior member, given task, complete task, duty schedule, leadership style