Musings, leadership tidbits and quotes posted by a retired Navy Captain (really just a high performing 2nd Class Petty Officer) who hung up his uniform a bit too early. He still wears his Navy service on his sleeve. He needs to get over that. "ADVANCE WARNING - NO ORIGINAL THOUGHT!" A "self-appointed" lead EVANGELIST for the "cryptologic community". Keeping CRYPTOLOGY alive-one day and Sailor at a time. 2015 is 80th Anniversary of the Naval Security Group.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Sound familiar?
The Navy is raising a generation of officers who believe that technical training is not essential and that they can rely on management techniques to make decisions. Admiral Rickover
Amen! And it continues to amaze me how often those in leader positions mistake their management decision as leadership. This is certainly not limited to officers, unfortunately.
This is a rather accurate statement for many of our current leaders.
That being said, there is a strong contingent of junior to mid grade officers and CPOs who truly value technical expertise. It is imperative that we go out of our way to reward those willing to break the norm and act as technical leaders vice solely as managers or we will continue to get more of the same.
Every command I have been to during FITREP/EVAL time there is a healthy debate on leadership vs technical expertise as the seniority of the group increases. There shouldn't be a "vs" here, but rather an "and".
Ours is a technical profession and requires in-depth, technical knowledge. No one is a SME on everything but leadership requires knowledge to make the best informed decisions. The dilution of technical acumen is a real danger of IDC "cross-detailing" and the aperiodic push to eliminate/reduce LDO's is unwise.
I completely agree with this post; however, I'm dismayed at how, even pre-IDC, our community has miserably failed to provide Officers technical training to help them lead their sailors (CDOC, NCOBC don't count and DLI is the rare exception). So, while I agree that we are a technical community, shame on our leaders both past and present for failing to afford Officers any "true" opportunities to refine/develop their technical skills. Even to this day, we encourage "technical degrees," but the community continues to fail to take that technical knowledge and add "practical" technical training, and or continuing education.
This is interesting to me because one of the things about our community that I often contemplate is whether I have gained any "hard" IW skills during my time as a 1610/1810. Realize that there are some specialists out there (guys and gals with extensive experience and education in computer science who work at some of our centers of excellence in that area, the few who have the opportunity to learn a language on the Navys dime, etc), but I am curious to know what people on here think are the "in-depth" technical skills and knowledge that should be acquired and that, based on some of the comments, we think would make our IWs better leaders, at each stage of a "typical" career path. I don't consider the basics like understanding radio wave propagation/theory, EM spectrum, GSM, and EW as technical skills or expertise, nor do I consider regional area studies/knowledge as technical; that is a soft science. So, for example, as a direct support officer (pick your flavor) which technical skills and expertise do we feel some JOs are not getting or striving for that could make them better? are we talking about learning how to sit pos and break signals? taking apart and putting back together gear? and how about during a PCS afloat tour? which technical skills there should we be striving for (outside of ship driving and the shipboard tactical realm)? on a staff? how about at a big NIOC?
not trying to be contradictory at all; these are honest questions.
@1034, Those sound like perfectly valid questions to me. I might also throw in Acquisition Professional after DAWIA and PMEI and II and on. If you also consider sending your very best and brightest to OPNAV N2/6 for a couple of tours, once as a jO and once as somebody devoted to resourcing the community with $, it quickly becomes a matter of how much time are you willing to spend on education/training vice operations. The Air Force never had a problem with this but then they had a different management technique. I recall the memo they let slip into the light of Congress from one General to another that he had an excess of 6000 Colonels that he did not have any billets for. That left them free to send half their officers to schools to get PhDs. The commencement speaker at my Department Head class told us the best thing we could do as new Department heads was to read the technical manuals for our equipment. I found it to be very sound advice.
10 comments:
Amen! And it continues to amaze me how often those in leader positions mistake their management decision as leadership. This is certainly not limited to officers, unfortunately.
Welcome to the IDC...
Welcome to the IDC...
Welcome to the IDC....
Mike,
This is a rather accurate statement for many of our current leaders.
That being said, there is a strong contingent of junior to mid grade officers and CPOs who truly value technical expertise. It is imperative that we go out of our way to reward those willing to break the norm and act as technical leaders vice solely as managers or we will continue to get more of the same.
Every command I have been to during FITREP/EVAL time there is a healthy debate on leadership vs technical expertise as the seniority of the group increases. There shouldn't be a "vs" here, but rather an "and".
Ours is a technical profession and requires in-depth, technical knowledge. No one is a SME on everything but leadership requires knowledge to make the best informed decisions. The dilution of technical acumen is a real danger of IDC "cross-detailing" and the aperiodic push to eliminate/reduce LDO's is unwise.
Well said Seth. There shouldn't be a "vs" but an "and."
I completely agree with this post; however, I'm dismayed at how, even pre-IDC, our community has miserably failed to provide Officers technical training to help them lead their sailors (CDOC, NCOBC don't count and DLI is the rare exception). So, while I agree that we are a technical community, shame on our leaders both past and present for failing to afford Officers any "true" opportunities to refine/develop their technical skills. Even to this day, we encourage "technical degrees," but the community continues to fail to take that technical knowledge and add "practical" technical training, and or continuing education.
This is interesting to me because one of the things about our community that I often contemplate is whether I have gained any "hard" IW skills during my time as a 1610/1810. Realize that there are some specialists out there (guys and gals with extensive experience and education in computer science who work at some of our centers of excellence in that area, the few who have the opportunity to learn a language on the Navys dime, etc), but I am curious to know what people on here think are the "in-depth" technical skills and knowledge that should be acquired and that, based on some of the comments, we think would make our IWs better leaders, at each stage of a "typical" career path. I don't consider the basics like understanding radio wave propagation/theory, EM spectrum, GSM, and EW as technical skills or expertise, nor do I consider regional area studies/knowledge as technical; that is a soft science. So, for example, as a direct support officer (pick your flavor) which technical skills and expertise do we feel some JOs are not getting or striving for that could make them better? are we talking about learning how to sit pos and break signals? taking apart and putting back together gear? and how about during a PCS afloat tour? which technical skills there should we be striving for (outside of ship driving and the shipboard tactical realm)? on a staff? how about at a big NIOC?
not trying to be contradictory at all; these are honest questions.
@1034,
Those sound like perfectly valid questions to me. I might also throw in Acquisition Professional after DAWIA and PMEI and II and on. If you also consider sending your very best and brightest to OPNAV N2/6 for a couple of tours, once as a jO and once as somebody devoted to resourcing the community with $, it quickly becomes a matter of how much time are you willing to spend on education/training vice operations.
The Air Force never had a problem with this but then they had a different management technique. I recall the memo they let slip into the light of Congress from one General to another that he had an excess of 6000 Colonels that he did not have any billets for. That left them free to send half their officers to schools to get PhDs.
The commencement speaker at my Department Head class told us the best thing we could do as new Department heads was to read the technical manuals for our equipment. I found it to be very sound advice.
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