Small Unit Leadership by Malone

Ref: Dandridge Malone (1983). Small Unit Leadership: A Commonsense Approach. Presidio Press.

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Summary­

  • An introduction to Small Unit Leadership for Military Leaders.

  • Leadership Roles

    • The officer creates conditions, makes the time and resources available, so the NCO can do his job.

    • Officer: Primarily involved with operations, training, and related activities; pays particular attention to the standards of performance, training, and professional development of officers and NCO's.

    • NCO: Primarily involved with training individual soldiers and teams; concentrates on standards of performance, training, and professional development of NCOs and young soldiers. The NCO gets the job done.

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Team Building

  • Whenever you can, reward the leader in front of his troops. And, if you can, reward him more on the basis of what his troops did than what he did personally.

  • Commitment to other soldiers is the main message in most congressional medal of honor citations.

  • Convince each team member that other team members are the team as a whole are dependent on him.

  • Convince him that much of the whole business of reward and punishment, for him, is tied to the output or performance of the team.

  • High stress and heavy pressure applied to the whole team will build teamwork- add danger, and teamwork gets even stronger.

  • Each individual team member, just like you, will normally operate in his own best interest. He'll do what he thinks is best for him. That’s a fact of human nature. In building a team, you have to work to convince each team member that the best way for him to get what he wants is through what the team wants.

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Leadership Styles

  • Able and Willing: Coach

    • Tell him what you want done. Don’t waste time telling him how. He already knows.

    • Tell him when to get started and when to be finished.

    • Supervise easy. Let him work. Give him your trust.

    • Always tell this kind of soldier how well he met your standards.

    • Stretch him out with a little more responsibility each time.

  • Unable but Willing: Teacher

    • Tell him what you want done. Tell him why. Tell him how and show him how - and where and with what, and when to start, and when to finish.

    • Encourage him to ask questions.

    • Show him the standard. Demonstrate if needed. Let him see what things look like when the job is done right.

    • Supervise closely. Check frequently. Help him correct mistakes. Give him time.

    • Reward heavy; punish easy.

  • Able but Unwilling: Father

    • Check first why the soldier is unwilling; generally, either lack of confidence, or a personal problem.

      • If lacking confidence: Get him to tell you how he would complete the task, give him encouragement and get him started, and handle him as able and willing.

      • If a personal problem: Arrange for him to talk about it with you later. Give him specific time to complete tasks and tell him what you want done, when to start, and when to finish.

    • Spell out clearly what the standards are.

    • Spell out clearly what the reward or punishment will be.

    • Supervise closely.

    • Check task completion against standards. Follow through with promised rewards or punishments.

  • Unable and Unwilling: Warden

    • Explain carefully what you want done and how you want him to do it.

    • Question him to check that he knows exactly what to do.

    • Spell out clearly what the standards are.

    • Spell out clearly what the reward or punishment will be.

    • Supervise heavy; this soldier will need frequent correction and will often quit working if he thinks he is not being watched.

    • Check task completion against standards. Follow through with promised rewards or punishments.

    • If repeated efforts to help this soldier to become able or willing have failed, initiate action for unsuitability discharge. The few soldiers in this category, because they require detailed instructions and constant supervision, absorb enormous amounts of time and effort and are of little benefit to a unit preparing for war.

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Asking Questions

  • Don’t ask any questions that can be answered just with a simple yes or no. Instead, ask leading questions that require some explanation- then listen hard between the lines as the soldier explains.

  • Don’t ask a soldier any questions that might require him to be outwardly critical of his unit or chain of command.

  • Keep working constantly to get the soldier to elaborate, explain, amplify his answers. Get into the habit of probing: "Why do you think this is so?" "When did you last do such and such?" "Where did you learn that?" "What do you think of this policy or that requirement." As a general rule, every other question should start with a why, when, where, who, how, or what.

  • SHOW THE SOLDIER YOU'RE INTERESTED IN HIM.

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