Gen. Trainor, you need to listen harder to what that departing lieutenant is saying

By Lt. Cdr. Victor Glover, USN


Best Defense office of JO
retention

This is a great debate of great importance.  The topic of leadership writ large and
the risk management strategies of our leadership culture are national security
issues that don't receive much media attention until tragedy befalls us.  Instead we ought to be searching for
root causes and details whenever we can. The
letter from the Anonymous Lieutenant who is resigning his
commission and the responses to it, specifically the retired Marine General's, highlight the very disparity that the young
officer elucidated (very eloquently I might add). 

The responses to this young warrior have been one-sided in attempts to
paint a picture that, although precise in argument, is offset from the actual
target.  I agree that there
is a way to criticize the military enterprise as Captain Brett Friedman points
out and that, as Capt. Doug Pelletier states, "junior leaders need to be actively
involved in the debate about the future of our organizations." This articulate
LT is doing just that and meeting standard intuitional (and dated)
responses. Unfortunately the responses have overlooked a trend of risk
aversion that is affecting our leadership department-wide. 

In the Navy the numbers of Commanding Offices relieved in recent years
has garnered attention in the media and academia.  As US Army War College faculty member
Navy Captain M. F. Light notes in his analysis of recent Navy CO firings, we have a "small but steady tradition-fed
stream of misconduct at all levels-misconduct that is more likely than it once
was to be detected, more harmful to the Navy's mission, and more likely to make
headlines when it involves a CO." This
very public trend of firings is changing the risk management capacity of our
services.  Technology
constantly changes, the enemy has changed, our acceptance of risk has therefore
changed and often it is this aspect of change that impacts our junior officers
and their perceptions of the organizations they have volunteered to
serve.  It is important to
understand this perception and the impact it has on retention.  More needs to be written on risk
management and its impacts on job satisfaction and retention.

The military culls talent intentionally and unintentionally.  In a 2011 Proceedings article the Honorable John Lehman adamantly defended aviation culture and
lambasted the "intolerable policy of ‘zero-tolerance' applied by the Navy and
the Marine Corps." Zero-tolerance
creates and environment where organizational change and social vigor are often
stymied.  While we need to
do a better job of identifying and encouraging our creative and novel young
leaders, this must be balanced with the protection of the institution.  The Captain Honor firing was an example of the US Navy attempting to protect the institution, though some
consider it an example of risk-aversion gone wrong.

Institutional inertia is necessary.  From my own experience as a first tour
combat aviator who wanted to exact punishment on an enemy that attacked a
convoy I was escorting.  I
wasn't able to due to the timeline required to get approval.  I now understand that this is often a
necessary aspect of combat and any coordinated venture in attempts to
dispassionately do the right thing.  And
as long as the right thing is the goal, I am OK with institutional
inertia.  At issue are the
times where the good of the organization is sacrificed for the good of a career
or ego. 

The impact of leadership is not only immediate in addressing the issues
of the day, but it is long lasting in that leaders create or destroy
culture.  This culture
leaves a wake that is apparent long after the leaders themselves have moved
on.  The types of people we
retain and promote are affected by this.  We have looked at bonuses and other
incentives as retention tools but no military service has actively addressed
leadership culture as a retention matter, why not?  In 1998 Rear Admiral Natter and
Lieutenants Lopez and Hodges wrote a prophetic article titled "Listen to the JO's."  They
cited reasons why JO's were dissatisfied with and leaving the Surface Warfare
community.  In this
masterfully written and widely applicable analysis they report that junior
officers, "spoke of feeling betrayed: the ideals for which they had
joined-Honor, Courage, Commitment-had not materialized. The problems that they
described are real, serious, and require that we address them if we want to
have a say in who will man and lead our Navy of tomorrow."This was before the
attacks of September 11, 2001.  As
we wind down the wars that have ensued, the chorus of the junior officer is a
vital source of experience and reason that needs to be seriously
considered.  Senior leaders
like to call today's military the most combat experienced ever.  What war has honed, let us respect.

I encourage you to reread the Anonymous LT's words and think about how
he got to that point vice trying to make a point.  As Tim Kane warned in his Harvard Business Review blog entry "Bleeding Talent," "we commit a sin of omission if we neglect to offer criticisms" of military leadership.  

As someone who desires to lead our military men and women into the
uncertain waters of the future, I am listening to this Marine LT's plea that "what concerns me ... is that among my peers, the ones with ideas
are the ones getting out, because they just don't feel the organization values
them." We need to be enterprising
in addressing this issue as we have been in the face of issues past. Please ask
yourself: What are you willing to do to
create and sustain value in our young leaders?

Lieutenant
Commander Victor Glover recently completed a tour as a squadron department head
on the USS George Washington (CVN-73). He is currently a Legislative Fellow in
the United States Senate.