You must always do the things that Chiefs must do. It’s not enough to do things without being told – now you have to think up those things to do. You alone must realize, analyze, prioritize, improvise, exercise and supervise everything your Sailors will accomplish. You cannot be concerned with popularity. If you are, you will not succeed as “The Chief.” Someone has to make the difficult decisions. By virtue of being difficult, those decisions are rarely popular with your Sailors.I challenge every officer, legalman and civilian employee to strive to make a positive difference every single day. Take the hard jobs, get out of your comfort zone, stay involved, and communicate up and down the chain of command.
Please accept my sincere thanks and gratitude for all you do!
Good luck, Chiefs - it’s time to Anchor Up!
CHRISTOPHER J. BROWNING
LNCM (SW/AW), U.S. Navy
2 comments:
Captain Lambert,
This takes me back to about 50 years or so when we Sailors were bombarded with “I am not here to run any popularity contest”, or some Chief standing over you watching every move you made and instructing each move, and the other indignities that were suffered by especially junior Sailors because of that type of leadership. It has been my experience that those who were put down or degraded by leaders, would do what they could to retaliate. I am aware of times that they did things to make their Divisions, Officers and Chiefs look bad. They were willing to suffer the consequences due to their dislike of the leadership they had been exposed to.
There is more to being a leader than having to “realize, analyze, prioritize, improvise, exercise and supervise everything your Sailors will accomplish.” These individuals after all are human beings and should be supervised with that in mind, as well as you making them comply strictly to their military obligations there are other considerations. If a Sailor trusts you because he knows you are fair, you can get more out of him than by watching his every move. And the blessings of that are it gives you more time to work with others. In my opinion building trust is imperative in the role of leadership. If you want your people to do the job you had better gain their trust.
It has now been passed on by Master Chief’s and other Chief’s that “it’s time to anchor up”. If the Chief’s of today need to be continually reminded to “anchor up” it is time for them to weigh anchor and go home. They are possibly unable to lead a working party, let alone a Man-of-War in defense of their country.
Very Respectfully,
Navyman834
E. A. Hughes, FTCM (SS)
U. S. Navy (Retired)
Maybe you should have words of wisdom for all those CO's who got relieved for boinking the help, getting busted for looking for prostitutes, being a CAPT. Graf, etc??? Maybe a catchy little saying like, "Keep it in your pants"
Leave the CPO Mess to...well...the CPO MESS! Stay in the Weirdroom...true CPOs do not need a catchy phase to do our job. If you were a CPO you might understand that. The CPO Mess is not about banging their chest and say "Look at me! Look at me!" We leave that to the Os.
If you want to do something for the enlisted...try convincing the CNO to stop cutting the enlisted force and look at all the officers and Flags for these cuts.
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